The Enemy's Shadow

Chapter 3

"𝐈 𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐢 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐬, 𝐈 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐟𝐥𝐲"
________

And again, she was nowhere to be found. Going out of the bathroom, I again take a look at the calendar, and this time the year is two thousand eight.

And there she was, entering the room, tears filling her eyes as she threw her bag on the chair in her room.

She shut the door behind her and felt herself on her knees, sobbing, "God, why me?" "Why does everyone always have to be so mean?"

Now, who hurt her? 

"I tried so hard to be good enough; I studied and got good marks, yet dad said I could do better," she complains, panting for air.

She then goes near the table, picks up a phone, and dials someone.

"Oh, what happened?" I heard the same lady ask her mother.

"Mom, I got an A in science," the little girl says, controlling her sobs and making it sound like she wasn't crying.

"Oh, you got an "A"?" could have done better; well, next time, bring an "A+." The lady says, and Averie just hums in response before disconnecting the call.

"I have to bring an A+; isn't an A enough?" She asks herself and starts crying again.

What was with her parents? She got an A, which was a good thing, yet they didn't appreciate her?

After a while of crying, she fell asleep. She looked cute sleeping. 

And again, the time changed, and I wasn't in the room anymore, nor was the little girl.

We were at the same school where I studied. Averie, as always, was sitting on the last bench, trying to be as far away from everyone as possible.

A bunch of kids walk up to her and say, "Look at her; she looks so sad." "What happened?"  "Daddy didn't care about you again." The blond kid says, "In which the rest of the class starts laughing."

Was that even funny? I mean, the kids don't know how to joke either. 

"He does; he just doesn't have time; he works, unlike your dad, who is a house husband." She kindly insults the blonde, which the whole class starts laughing at.

"This won't end well; you better watch it," the blonde threatens her, leaves with her friends.

House- husband? Damn, this was a good one.

After a little while, the teacher enters the class and starts distributing the answer papers.

Averie had a smile on her face. When her name was called, she stood up and walked up to the teacher.

Taking the answer paper, she reads her grades, and her smile fades.

She takes the seat, and I sit next to her. I take a peep at her answer paper to see her get another A. 

The period came to an end, and she had gotten all her papers, in which she got an A+ for English and second language, except for math and science, where she got an A.

She did well, though. I remember getting C's and D's in my exams while she was here and getting high marks.

As she went home, she kept her bag on the chair and waited till dinner when her parents came back home.

Her parents didn't even take a look at her when they came back, but instead they went busy doing their chores.

While her mom went to bathe, then cook, her dad went to watch a match on television, then bath. 

The dinner was ready, and they were sitting at the table. Averie shows her parents her test papers, which they again don't appreciate. 

They just say "Okay," which makes Averie's face start turning red. In pain?  Was she going to cry? 

But instead, she gets angry and yells at them. "I tried getting good grades, but no matter how many times I try, you both will never appreciate me,"

In the process, she mistakely drops the cup, and the water spills on the table.

"You fucking slut, will you ever shut up?" "You're nothing but a disgrace to us; you should have died along with your other two siblings," her dad yells at her.

While Averie sat there, numb and emotionless. trying to process what she just heard.

How could a father say something like that to his own child? She was just six years old child.

Averie still sat on the chair near the dinner table while her dad left somewhere.

"Is that true?" She asks her mom, who was sitting besides her, staring at the food.

"Yes, you had one sibling, a boy who died before he could come into this world," the lady said.

"And the other one?" Averie asked her mom. "Aborted her" was all she said before she took her plate and went back to the kitchen.

Averie, too, left her plate and went to her room, where she locked the door.

Soon, within a minute, her mom came knocking on the door, saying, "I'm going out to buy groceries. Want anything?" She asks; "no," Averie says. 

when she heard the front door. She took her phone and went to Google. Typing "what is the meaning of slut?" 

I again looked at what she was doing, and it hurt to see this little girl go through this.

She knew absolutely nothing about what her father had called her, and now she would know the meaning.
 
"a woman who has many casual sexual partners." The Google search results say, "What does that mean?" She asks herself innocently.

"I was always right." "Dad never liked me; mom just always said he was busy to not get me hurt," she murmurs. 

For the first time i felt to hug her, i felt to wipe her tears away. 
 
She takes the god's picture in her hands and starts to sob. "I always believed you; I told you everything about my life." "If you were really a god, why couldn't you save my siblings?" She yells as tears slip down her cheeks.

"Ur god right, you can do anything; then why didn't you save my siblings?" "Why should I go through this?" She asks.

She then runs up to the study table and pulls out the drawer where the crafting set was. She then removes a blade from the set.

Oh no, she isn't going to do this, God. I start panicking for her.

Before I could think of anything, she had put the blade through her wrist. As the blood pooled on the ground, she sobbed and moaned in pain, holding her wrist.

I run close to her, look at her wrist, and ease up, knowing she didn't cut it deep. Luckily.

She tried to kill herself. I ask myself, and guilt flashes over me. The guilt of bullying her while she was already going through a bad time in her life
 
"I trusted you; I thought you wouldn't betray me, and you did." "From now on, I won't ever talk to you again, God." With that saying, she passes out.

I wasn't really good in the medical field. I didn't know how to stop her bleeding hands, but I remember my grandmother putting coffee powder on my wound to stop the bleeding when medicine wasn't in the house.

So I run up to the kitchen to bring a handful of coffee powder and put it on her wrist, being careful not to touch her.

In the morning, before she woke up, I took a wet towel and wiped off the coffee powder from her wrist to make it look like I never put anything on.

She looked terrible; the cut was still visible, blood was dried up on her hands, and before I could examine her more with a groan, she woke up.