The Darkness Of Healing // Ruel // English

Chapter 10

I'm out of here. I want to get out of here. I have to get out of here. Everything in my body hurts. There is shooting, stabbing, strangulation. But nothing has a healing effect. Everything just keeps getting broken. In little pieces that I know will never get back. They will never again be where they were. They will never fill the gap they left behind. It will never be the same. And I don't expect that either. I know every day will change me a little bit, but I'll do my best to protect myself from the things that turn me into someone I don't want to be. Someone who will suffer and eventually follow her father's footsteps.

The door handle cools my body, but makes my knuckles turn white. My skin turns pale when I hear Austin whisper. It's like a shiver down my spine. Like a tornado through my head. Carries every moment where I've heard these words before. I love you, that is what he said. What was on his tongue, ready to be spat out. He handles it just like any other time. He makes their words sound soft. Like words that do no harm. Really mean a lot. That would touch me. And they do, but in the wrong place.

Yasmine: "No you don't!" I yell back.

There is an error, the whole room goes silent. Mouse quiet. We all seem to cease to exist. We glitch as the words take up the space around us.

Yasmine: "I hate you." My harsh words pierce through the silence.

The contrast between us becomes clear. But I mean it and he doesn't. I can't believe he meant what he just said to me. That's kind of impossible to do, after all that's happened. His words may be the biggest lie I've ever heard.

I open the door slightly and see Brooke walking towards me, but I looked back at my father one last time.

Yasmine: "I hope with all my heart that you will see what you've done to all of us before you die of loneliness in this place. Because nobody, literally no one, cares about you anymore the way we should. And I don't feel sorry for that." There is a layer of calm over my words. It doesn't feel right to raise his voice at him if this is the last thing I'm going to say to him. It doesn't feel right if this is the last time I'll ever see him again. And somehow I hope so. He can disappear. He has done enough damage.

All the weights I had carried on my shoulder today fall off my shoulders as the door closes behind me. When I can leave Austin behind and I can let everything escape. It's as if the pressure in my chest is tightening my lungs again and pushing my tears from my eyes without giving me time to even breathe. I feel my legs get weak, pulling me down to the ground but I try to stay standing. Not surrendering myself to gravity that seems to be too strong for me. Because I will go back again. Going back to the moment when my knees hit the asphalt. I kept holding him in my arms and never wanted to let go. I don't want to go back. Not again. Not over and over again. I want to stay standing. I have to stay standing.

Sobbing, I try to stop the tears running down my face with my hands. I try to push them back, catch them, but they slide right through my fingers. I spread them out, so they only have more room to spread over my bright red cheeks. To find the contours of my nose. To taste the salt on my tongue as it flows over my lips.

This is not everything. This conversation is just an afterthought in what I'm holding back. Whatever I pile up in my body until the tower of emotions falls. Let me drown in everything it has to offer. It's hard to keep your head above water when all the weight is already attached to you. With nothing more than one purpose, to pull me down. Make me suffer when my lungs fill with fire. The instinct not to let water any in is so strong that it will eventually burst my chest. Hoping that the amount of light that will come out will lead me to a place that is meant for me. A place that liberates me from my suffering.

Brooke takes me in her arms. You can feel she doesn't do it very often, but that doesn't take the caring side of her away. That doesn't take away the safety of a few arms wrapped around your body. A hug always seems like a key to peace. Rest in your body and rest in your mind.

Brooke: "You've been able to hold on so strong. It's okay to break now." She assured me.

I try to remind myself that I have to keep breathing in order to stay alive. My head is everywhere but not with my breathing. And once I get that under control, things will get better. Everything feels like a relief. A relief that I would never have had when I wasn't here. If I didn't have that conversation. If I hadn't been standing here crying while some cops looked at me in astonishment as they walked past. Perhaps my father heard it. Somehow I hope so. Somehow not, because it feeds his pleasure he gets when he tortures me. And it will seem that way now. That he has done all this now. But he is one of the thousands of dominoes that have fallen over. They keep tapping each other until everything is flat. He may have been the first to falter, then fell and set everything in motion, but had no more strength than all the others.

I don't know when the next time I'll see Brooke again, when the next time I'll be here again, but until then I say goodbye. Goodbye when nothing more is needed. No other information I've given before, no discussion of anything. I have no idea how I'm going to process what has happened here.

When the room around me starts to get dark because the sun is setting, I flip the switch on the lamp on the desk. It's not like I can see the letters in my book better, because it still looks like they're dancing. Dancing on the paper. Dancing to get in my way. To tease me. My eyes are getting tired of staring at the same sentence over and over and not even being able to understand what it says. I give up and close the book. I'll look at it later, but if I set that timer for myself in an hour, it goes to snooze. Then it gets an hour later again because it's not exactly a full hour. And so it moves on. I am familiar with that pattern. Then everything will be last minute. Then it becomes a quick prayer to the stars at the top of the sky. Hoping that if I put the book under my pillow I'll take in all the information. But I still have to bite through it. I am almost finished. Almost done if I don't have to do everything all over again. Doing it all over pretending it is going better. I remain with the same motivation. The same concentration. Same mindset. All broken. Not working when I would really need them. Like now. But I can say that, I'm not being listened to anyway. All my plans are falling apart. How Ruel did this in between everything, I have no idea. But I certainly admire that.

I stand by the stove and heat up the soup I got from the freezer. Just enough for one person. They saved a little bit of salad for me and that will be my dinner. Waiting for my soup, I already start to eat when I have taken a seat at the kitchen island. I take out my phone and watch an informative video about the material I still have to learn for my exams. Maybe it will still stick in my head a bit and I won't waste the time that I can already throw in the trash. As if time has been waiting for me for far too long and it is now moldy. Not usable and too toxic to look at. I should not look at what I could have done better, but focus on what I still have to do. Preferably without panic. Without being overwhelmed by everything.

The tapping of my pen on the table echoes through the guest room, where I should have been sleeping all along. I sat here to cut myself off a bit from anything that reminds me of Ruel. Anything that could distract me. It helps a little, but not enough. I really do my best to keep working. To fill in all those late evening hours properly. And once I'm in it, time goes fast. The clock jumps from eight o'clock to a quarter past nine and then over to eleven o'clock. I continue. Don't rest my head to even think of anything but what's spread out in front of me. It looks like a bomb has exploded here. It represents my mental state well. There are all kinds of books and papers on the desk, I can hardly tell what color wood was used in the production. The paper on the floor around me is crumpled up, papers I no longer needed, just to distinguish one from the other. Whether it is successful, I have no idea. I do my best to make the most of it. That only happens when I exhaust myself. Sending all my energy to my hand to work, sending all my blood to my brain to keep it functioning. While I would actually live on caffeine to give myself a kick.

I'm so tired. I can not anymore. I'm trying my best but it's not working anymore. My body sleeps, my heart sleeps and my head just keeps on going. But I really have to stop here, it's enough. My eyes close a little more and my head flies. Flying across the room as I nearly sink into my dreams. My desired dreams where I can load my battery. At any moment my body will be able to turn itself off. All I can do is surrender myself to the feeling.