Page 6 of Encircled in Darkness
Chapter 2
Amaya
We started the driveback to Pierce Bluff in silence and I gripped my hands together in my lap, hoping to hide the fear that was pulsing through my body. James sat behind the wheel of his expensive car, his chiseled jaw clenched and his eyes staring straight ahead. I felt like he was angry at me and was terrified to draw attention to myself.
Having spent six years in a group home with my sister, I was used to people’s anger and disdain. Even through the year of Victor’sattention, I was never as scared as I was right then. Inside that car withhim, a man I had just signed myself over to - at least a part of myself - and I was thinking I should have taken my chances with one of the usual leeches at Victor’s parties. James grumbled something under his breath and I instinctively crossed my arms over my chest and my gaze shifted to the passing night.
Closing my eyes, I let my mind drift to the past and fought hard to keep the tears at bay. My mother was a self-centered bitch who swore she was destined for greatness until she had us. She was quick to slap and punch us when we didn’tdoher bidding, and by the age of eight, my older sister was stealing food for us. The run-down trailer was a shithole, and when night fell, we huddled under the blanket together, tucking the covers completely around our bodies to keep the roaches from crawling over us.
Our mother had abandoned my sister Natalia and me and no one had known, or even cared - for almost a month - as we finished the last of the food and waited for the lights to be turned off. Having grown up in the Flats on Portstill, we were used to struggling.
When our mother split, we didn’t know if she would come back and we both feared foster care. Some of our classmates were in the system and Natalia reminded me to act like everything was normal or they would split us up. So, every day, we went to school like nothing was wrong and every night we sheltered together, praying the perverts and street thugs wouldn’t find us alone.
When the landlord came to collect rent the next month, he found a twelve-year-old taking care of a ten-year-old and he immediately called the police. We were lucky to be kept together and when she turned eighteen, she legally adopted me, and we tried to never look back at the depressingly hard years.
I attended high school while she waited tables at an upscale restaurant on the lake at Pierce Bluff, serving meals that cost the same as our rent. The small town was nice, and she and I spent many afternoons sitting by the enormous lake, dreaming of the futures we both wanted. The apartment we had moved into was tiny and we shared a bed like we had when we were growing up. After graduating, she insisted that I go to community college and even though I didn’t want the debt; I took out student loans to cover tuition.
Natalia had always been shy but there was a guy she had met at work that she was crushing on. She wouldn’t tell me anything about him besides how nice he was to her. She wouldn’t mention his name and when I asked her what he did for a living, she blushed and turned her head. I had assumed he was a guest of the expensive lake side restaurant and hadn’t pushed anymore. Whoever he was, if he kept that smile on her face, he could remain a mystery.
I was just starting my second year of computer coding when my life fell apart. Walking into our tiny apartment, I found her on the floor, barely clinging to life. I had arrived home a little after ten from study group and had called her name into the dark apartment. Stumbling over something, I reached for the lamp to find that she was bleeding everywhere and barely had a pulse. I ran to the neighbors and called 911, rushing back to her side, crying, and whispering into her ear to hang on.
Natalia was at home when someone broke into our apartment. She was supposed to work that evening but had called out sick, even though I suspected she may have had plans with her mystery man. We had nothing of value to steal and she must have fought back because they beat her until she was unconscious. When we arrived at the hospital, I couldn’t go into the back with her, so I sat in the lobby, my arms crossed over my blood-soaked shirt, waiting for someone to tell me how she was.
The doctor came and took me to a private room. He sat down across from me and a nurse silently let herself in and stood solemnly near the door. With tears rolling down my face, I listened as she explained that Natalia was in a persistent vegetative state and would probably never recover. She had eleven broken bones, there was evidence of sexual activity, and they suspected she was raped.
Natalia could breathe on her own, but she only had deep brain stem function, resulting in what the doctor predicted would be a long slow decline. Her heart beat, she could breathe and swallow, but the parts that made her Natalia were most likely gone.
“Will she ever wake up?” I asked, gasping for air as the full realization pressed down on me.
My sister, my protector, my best friend was dead, even if she was technically still alive.
“I don’t think so, but we’re waiting on a specialist to come in to see her now. With her diagnosis, she has a fifty percent chance of waking up with long-term physical and mental difficulties.” Her eyes cast down to the floor as I covered my face and cried into my hands. “Why don’t you go home, and we’ll get her settled into a room upstairs?” the doctor reasoned, and I shook my head violently.
“I... she was attacked in our apartment. I... I don’t have any place to go.”
There was no way I could ever stay in that apartment again. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I would sleep in our rundown car before I slept in there again. I glanced down, seeing her blood caked under my fingernails and staining my hands. The tremble started and I tucked my arms under my armpits, hoping to stop the impending breakdown.
“How old are you, sweetheart?” the nurse asked, and I looked up at her through watery eyes.
“Almost twenty.” I answered, smiling sadly.
“How about this? I’ll get you some clean clothes and find you a shower. Then we might know more about your sister and you can decide what to do next.”
I washed my body, watching my sister’s blood swirl down the drain in a crimson tornado, and I let the sobs fall free. How was I going to survive without her? How was I going to take care of her? I didn’t have a job and we didn’t have health insurance. I was alone in the world and my protector was closer to death than she was alive.
Turning the water off, I wrapped a towel around my thick brown hair and another around my body as I entered the nurse’s locker room. There was a pair of blue scrubs, a cami tank-top, and a newish-looking pair of tennis shoes waiting on the bench and I quickly dressed, wanting an update on Natalia.
The nurse was waiting outside the door for me and she escorted me to the room where Natalia was being treated. Seeing her hooked up to tubes and machines, her beautiful face bruised and broken from her attack, had me falling to my knees. I couldn’t see her through my tears as I was picked up off the floor and held up by the nurse.
Whispering into my ear, her soft words rang through the grief I was swimming in. “She can hear you and you have to be strong for her. Use the grief to push you forward. Be brave, Amaya. Natalia needs you now.”
I nodded and wiped the tears from my face. Walking to the bed, I carefully took her battered hand into mine and spoke to her. “Natalia, Its Amaya.” Squeezing my eyes shut, I willed the tremor from my voice. “You’re going to be okay, but you have to fight.” Glancing over my shoulder, the nurse smiled softly and nodded. “I promise I’ll do whatever it takes to get you better. Just... come back to me. I need you, Natty.”
Leaning over, I kissed her hand and turned to leave the room. The nurse followed me into the hallway as I broke down again. She wrapped her arms around me, and I soaked it in, imaging it was what a mother’s embrace felt like. She gave me money for a hotel across from the hospital and her cell number to call if I wanted to check on Natalia throughout the night. She also slipped me a single pill and made me promise to take it after I ate something. I fell asleep and woke up over four hours late, calling to find there had been no changes.
That was sixteen months ago, and while the visible damage has healed, Natalia still hadn’t woken up. I made the tough decision to put her into a state-run home and started looking into private care for her. The costs were crazy, even with her newly gained Medicare. I was looking at almost five thousand dollars a month to get her the care she deserved and with no degree and no real future, I had no choice but to keep her there, praying she was taken care of and not neglected.
