Star and its darkness (Book 1 in the Darkness&Brightness series)

42. Secrets

"Perché in fondo, cosa rimane di noi senza i nostri segreti? " - Chiara Altieri, show Baby, season 3
(Because deep down what are we without our secrets? )

People are curious. They want to know everything. They want to know about your fucked up life, what is your guilty pleasure, what are your dirty and dark thoughts. Why? I'm not really sure. They enjoy some good gossips, some piece of information they can forward to the next person and that circle never ends. The number of people who know your secret is getting bigger and bigger each day. My advice is that it's better if you don't share your secret with anyone. And I'm scared that I've already made this mistake.

Yeah, Michael may not say anything, but I can't be sure. I can't rely on that. He wants to dig deeper, to tear my invisible shield that is saving me from the outside world, from people who want to bruise my skin, to burn it, to make more wounds on my already sensitive and skin full of scars. Scars from my darkest moments. The moments when I couldn't win my demons so I surrendered to them, tired of fighting, putting my weapons down. My broken weapons and my heart shattered into many tiny pieces.

I don't want to give him my real self cuz part of me wants to believe that Stella isn't real, that vulnerable Stella doesn't exist anymore and that bad Stella replaced it. But badass Stella is just my temporary mask which isn't too strong and might slip anytime. I hope that I can save it a little longer. That Michael's hands aren't going to take it off and see my bruises that are still bleeding with that red liquor which I'm so scared of. That every time I see it I want to scream from the top of my lungs, praying my mom to wake up, while her cold body is already dead, already in heaven, with angels.

But is she with angels? They say that suicide is a sin. But, she deserves to be in heaven. And I want to believe that she is there and that she can see me, see me struggling and losing this battle with my demons who appeared after her escape. Cuz she escaped from her demons. No. She surrendered to them, losing her own fight. So what is going to happen with her daughter? Is she going to lose it just like her mother did? Now am I going to?

The question stays to wander through the air to the stars and then to her. I always believed in these silly things. Believed that she can see me and regrets that she left me. I'd love if I could see her one more time, but not covered in blood in that bath, but in her clothes in bright colors, her blonde hair down, in beautiful waves shining and her blue eyes piercing through my innocent soul. Just one last time. And I want her to say those three words that I'm dying to hear from someone else. Cuz I'm not sure if someone feels that way about me. If there's a person who really thinks good of me and appreciates my existence in this cruel world.

I close my eyes and imagine her, with a shiny smile and beckoning me to come closer. I see my little self, running to her, wobbling cuz I'm a toddler. She claps her hands and laughs at me while catching me and preventing me from hurting myself and bumping my butt on the uncomfortable ground. But she should have let me fall. Cuz eventually she did exactly that. She let me bump onto the hard floor and hurt myself so hard that I can't stand up yet. I'm still laying on the ground, crying and calling my mom to come and lift me. To comfort me. But she's not here anymore. She can't lift my body from the ground and show me how to stand strong on my feet. I have to stop laying like this, alone in the puddle of my own tears, sobbing and shaking in the cold without my protector. Without the woman who gave birth to me. Who enabled me to live this life. This life I don't want. No, I don't want it without her. Without my mom.