𝐃𝐄𝐏𝐑𝐀𝐕𝐄𝐃

32

HER PREY

I slipped back into my apartment around three pm. I could already tell by the smell of incense in the air and the dead silence of the place that my mother was pissed. She was just trying to keep her sanity until I came home.

I barely had the keys set down before I felt my hair being pulled. I was laying on their bed, my pants pulled down, and my ass exposed. My dad held me down in the middle of my back, standing to my left side as my legs hung off the edge of the bed, beer in his other hand. I spotted my mother in the corner of the room, looking through her container of belts for the heaviest one with the most buckle.

A buckled belt ain't hard to find in Texas, or...Montana.

"You take the car and you say nothing! And don't scream!" she screeched.

She brought the belt all the way up and I buried myself in their musty covers as she slanged the buckle across my ass. My cheeks were so raw that I'd probably give a bitch salmonella. My mother yanked me up by the arm off the bed once she was finished. She had made it all the way to number, what, 20 I think? I pulled my pants up, anxious to cover my body up. She was yelling at me, but I was tuning her out, backing up towards their window as she yelled.

"I do everything! And you want to raise my blood pressure while I am pregnant, Casei!" After that, she started going off in her mother tongue, and I fell to my ass, backed into a corner underneath the window, tears in my eyes as she stood over me shouting.

Once my mother was done, she walked out of the room. My father was still standing at the edge of the bed, playing some game loudly on his phone, sounded like a slots game, until she left. "Look up at me, Casei," he ordered.

I looked up, whimpering as hot tears fell.

"You need to listen more."

And with that, he followed after my mother.

I shakily got up, running out of their room and into mine. I threw the door shut and searched my room for my notebook. I needed the comfort and the assurance that it brought. I hadn't been writing in it as much but here I am...

I found it, drenched in orange soda, or juice, the pages all soggy. I threw it down on the floor, biting down on my thumb as I stared at it. First the bleach, and the random flipping out, now this.

She wanted to start over, I'd give her a fresh start.

I grabbed one of my white tee shirts out of the drawer and marched to the bathroom. I locked the brass knob, not bothering to put a chair underneath it this time. I started running the tub water, watching as black grime fell off the edges of the faucet into the mouth of the tub before being swept away by the clear water.

Once it was filled enough, I stripped out of my clothes. I left them in a pile by the toilet, staring at my body in the mirror. The parts of my waist that I pulled at, the little chub right before my pelvic area. My scarred thighs- forget it, my scarred body. I could hardly stare at myself, much less see. My eyes watered and my pupils looked like they were shaking because the tears distorted them.

I wanted every inch of me to burn the way that my heart and mind did. The way some part of me begged to be set free into freedom. To have a life and get to do things. To have some sort of kindness from others besides just...really, Lowen.

Because who even is Lowen? Who is this amazing person that I feel like is too perfect but too much chaos to be real. She feels like somebody that I made up in my mind. Her kisses that heal my scars; the emotional ones, of course. I feel like if she ever saw my body she'd still love it.

But I don't love myself. I don't love anything. I'm just empty, and I feel like I'm falling even when I'm awake, not just when I'm going to sleep. I can't sleep with the emptiness. I can't eat with the emptiness. I can't look at myself in the mirror with the emptiness.

I stare at the white shirt on the closed toilet lid.

I could fix all of my pain forever.

End up wherever I'll end up after this.

I clench my fists, sighing. The pulled hair, the dragging, the hitting, the yelling, the comments, the outright...rage I feel for the way that I'm being treated. I'm nothing but a human. Somebody who wants what everyone else wanted at some point. I just want love and affection. I just want someone to hold me at night and rock me and sing me lullabies.

So, maybe now I do understand Lowen's frustration with her mother.

I closed my eyes, my lashes so wet that they probably want to stick together. "I could end this," I whispered to myself. I could finally have the courage to do it. I could do it right now.

More tears fell, but I tried to hold them in with my closed eyes.

My mother didn't even notice, my own mother.

I squeezed my fists harder, trying to hum softly. The more I thought about the pain I was going through being so...ignored, the worse that it felt for me.

What type of invisibility do my emotions have?

I tried to bring the pain that couldn't be seen into the light. To physicality. Through my scars and through my tears and through my quietness and...I stopped eating. I stopped caring. I stopped feeling like those were things that I deserved.

Somebody like me could hold no hope for a better future. What good would hoping for a future do for me? Every year that I hope, I hurt. Everything that I wish for burns in front of my eyes and I have to breathe in the thick, thick smoke of regret. Why did I dream so big when I know who I am and what my place is in this world?

I'm selfish for wanting to hurt myself. I'm selfish for wanting to...end this all. But how selfless can I keep being? How much can my mind contain? I've cried almost every night of this year and it's barely over with yet. My ribs are more visible than they were last year, but no one's cared yet. My eye's have lost their life but-

"And get out the bathroom! I have to piss again, Casei! You know I'm pregnant," my mother yelled through the door, "Nobody cares about your pretty little tears."

That's right, nobody cares.

I slid to the floor numbly, my mouth hanging open as my ass hit the cold floor. "Nobody cares about me," I whispered.