Lies My Parents Told Me

Chapter Six

This chapter comes with a trigger warning - Self harm and intrusive thoughts. 

 Sang

I hid in my room while the paramedics worked on her. She would be fine they were taking her to the hospital to pump her stomach. I sat with my back pressed against the wall, my nails in my thighs thinking about the monster I had so easily become. I was exactly like them. I could see in my head how easily I could have been free of her, I could have walked back out of the room and begun cooking dinner. It could have been hours before they found her. I could see the halfmoons I was digging into my thighs, there was pain, but I deserved it. I'm in charge of her medication how will he not see this as my fault. There will be serious consequences for this, and Marie knows I was out of the house. When She comes home from the hospital, I will have a punishment for that as well. When I was certain I was alone in the house I crawled out of my room and began cleaning up.

I stripped her bed and filled a bucket with bleach. I scrubbed the floorboards in her room until the fumes made me dizzy. Once I had remade her bed and all the washing was on the line. I began scrubbing the floors in the kitchen and bathrooms. My hands were chapped and cracked from being dipped into the bleach, but I needed the pain. I deserved it. I scrubbed until my knees ached, my hands were beginning to bleed and every breath I took burned from the cleaner. This was how I would atone. I packed away all the cleaning supplies and returned to the kitchen. Once I was in the kitchen I knelt on the floor in the space I usually did. I stayed there un-moving. My knees felt like they were bleeding, my thighs ached, I was covered in goosebumps from the cold night air. I had knelt so long that the last light had given way to inky black. The lights were off, so I stayed in the dark alone, waiting. I don't know what time He finally came home but by then I was ready to face it. He flicked the light on in the kitchen and grunted when he saw me.

"Get up and get out of my sight." I was not prepared for that.

"I left the house; I spoke without being spoken to." My voice was a shaky as I felt. "I broke the rules."

"You broke the rules." He restated and I nodded. He stalked towards me. His voice was low, dark, menacing.

"When you break the rules there are consequences. Are you waiting here to be punished?" I nodded again. Usually, I would cower, I would want to hide, avoid his fists and hands at all costs, but shame burnt through me I needed to be absolved.

He leant over me, his hand tangling in my hair. He pulled me up from my knees. After being in forced in that position for so long my muscles did not want to co-operate and pins and needles filled my legs, I stumbled but his hand in my hair kept me upright.

"My wife was right you are a slow learner." His fist connected with my cheek. It should have knocked me to the ground but his grip on my hair kept me in place. My face was on fire, my cheek felt split, and my head swam. This was the consequence there was no more waiting, the shame could disappear. The hand that had hit me in the face, connected hard with my stomach, knocking the air out of me. This time he loosened his grip on my hair and I fell to the ground, curled in around myself. I coughed and wheezed as I struggled to breathe in. I felt disconnected from everything. I was observing my body, the guilt at my thoughts had eaten away at everything I knew to be true about myself. I wasn't a good person, and these things were all things I deserved. I needed to remember that. I was responsible for these punishments. I always ruined everything. I couldn't take care of her. I left the medication where she could reach it. I broke things, I broke rules. I couldn't follow a schedule and I was untidy and rude. Each painful breath cemented these thoughts. I was nothing, I was no one. A slow learner. Why did they keep me? Who else would want me? He walked out of the room turning the light off as he went. I stayed curled up on the floor. I was numb. I wasn't there; it wasn't really me. It was shards of a person. A shell. Splintered pieces on a floor. All those pieces were jagged and sharp and belonged to someone who did bad things, who had bad thoughts, who wanted others to suffer. I could never be Sang again. I wasn't her. I was broken.