Deadland

Chapter 8- The Truth

(Tw!! Mentions of abuse, self-harm, drug usage, mentions of s/a, and suicide!)

"Why do you hate physical touch so much?" Glenn asks, turning on the lamp next to him. 

His couch was directly across the room from my couch with a table lamp next to it, the cot was directly next to my couch. Glenn turns his body to face me and I do the same, my head is still slightly spinning from the wine.

I sigh and put my arm under my head, lifting my head up slightly. I'm hesitant to tell Glenn because the last time I even slightly opened up to someone, they died the day after. Though the wine is basically a truth serum and Glenn is the only person who knows about my self-harm so, I very very slightly trust him. Or maybe that's just the wine.

"My ex-boyfriend, Nick. I was with him from when I was fifteen up until I was twenty-five. The first like...two years we were together were great. You know, the 'honeymoon phase'. Nick got me to join his gang when I was 17 and that's when everything went downhill. Carter, Nicks best friend, was abusing his girlfriend and bragging to Nick about it. So, because Carter was the only friend Nick had, he wanted to try it out to...I don't even know. Seem cool or maybe just to see what the hype was. I remember the first time he hit me. I was over at his mom's house, and we were home alone. I decided to do something nice for him while he was in the shower and clean up his room. Do his laundry, make his bed, pick up his trash, whatever I needed to do to get his room looking nice and neat.

"When Nick got out of the shower, he came in his room and saw me putting his clean clothes in his dresser. He thought I was going through his room so he-" I shudder and take a deep breath. "He grabbed my shoulder, whirled me around, and slapped me across the face. I didn't know what to do. We had been together for two years and nothing like that ever crossed my mind. The look in his eyes...it wasn't Nick. He looked...exhilarated. Maybe it was all of his pent-up anger throughout his whole life, and he just took it out on that one slap. Whatever it was, it made Nick begin to do it more and more. But the problem was that I had already been with him for two years and had already fallen in love. So, I allowed it to happen. For years. It progressively got worse and worse. I still have scars on the backs of my thighs and a few on my hips from it. He started to throw me against walls, water board me, beat me, stomp on me, smash glasses on my arms, legs, head, whatever was easiest. If I didn't want to have sex, he would do it anyway. When I was twenty-two, I started self-harming and doing hella drugs. I mean so much to where the gang was worried for me." 

"What type of drugs did you do?" Glenn asks, hesitantly. 

"Oh, I did it all. Coke, Fentanyl, Meth, Heroine, absolutely everything. I totally lost sense of reality. I cut off my family completely and didn't see them for years. At one point, when I was twenty-five, I ended up attempting to commit suicide. I took basically every drug I had in the cabinet and then some. I woke up in the hospital three days later with Alyss and my dad next to me, Nick was nowhere to be seen. Thats when I knew I had to get out of there. My dad, the gang, and Alyssa helped me pack up and get out of there as quickly as possible. The gang would hold Nick at the hide out so I could pack without worrying about him coming home. Though the day that I was supposed to escape, Carter found out. Carter and Nick came to his house when I was alone. Alyssa and my dad had just left. They beat the shit out of me. They ended up calling an ambulance because they didn't want to be charged with murder. They fled the state before charges could be made. I finally got out of there and cleaned myself up. I still carry Fentanyl just in case I need it and that night when I... you know, was the first night in 204 days since I had self-harmed." I sigh, the feeling of finally opening up fully to someone feels amazing.