J.A.N.E(book 1)

ᑕHᗩᑭƬƐᖇ ƬHƖᖇƬƳ-FOᑌᖇ.

𝘒𝘢𝘳𝘺𝘯.
     "I remember the pretty house with it's front porch and backyard swing. I remember eleven-year old me thinking that everything was finally going to be perfect. And for a year or two it was."
       Arem sits at the edge of the bed with me, my head pressed to his chest, our hands linked as I narrate the worst years of my life to him.  
       "As the days passed, their behaviours changed. Turns out Susan, my adoptive mother was schizophrenic. She would be sitting at the dining table, completely normal, asking about my day at school and suddenly she would reach across the table and try to carve my eyes out with her fork."
    
        "What's 'schizophrenic'?" Arem asks, his voice low.
        "It's a condition in which a person sufers from personality disorder. She frightened me during her 'episodes' as Tom, my adoptive father would call it. He would pull her away, when she attacked me and lock her in her room." I reply, resuming the narration. Arem traces soothing circles over my hand with a thumb, and I inhale and continue.
       "One day, after locking Susan up after she had one of her episodes, he came to me as I cried my eyes out and put his arm around me. I leaned into him, grateful for the comfort he offered. That is, until I felt it. His hand, probing the pleats of my skirt. I pulled away, startled and ran up the stairs to my bedroom. I was thirteen."

       Arem tenses against me, his entire body coiled with unleashed rage.
       "That bastard." He snarls, detaching his fingers from mine to clench them at his side. Unable to stop the words, they tumble out.

      "You have to understand that despite all her 'episodes', I loved Susan. She was kind to me and I understood that she had no control over her actions when her sickness took over. She always apologized to me afterwards, and did her best to make it up to me. After that day though, things changed and not for the better."
        I seek his hands thoughtlessly, and he lets me take them.
    "When Susan launched into one of her episodes, Tom stood up calmly from the sofa where he sat watching a game and hit her. He smacked her so hard, her head went way back and she fell to the ground."

       "He pulled her up by the hair, screaming, 'look what the bitch made me do' over and over again while smirking at me. I screamed at him, begging him to let go of her. I screamed and yelled but I was waved aside, pushed away. The next days that followed that incident, Susan was subdued, muted. The only aspect of herself that seemed alive was the scathing hatred she suddenly had for me."
         "So thus became the cycle; Susan would have an episode and Tom would hit her. When she recovered, she would hurl insults at me and hit me. I was fourteen when my adoptive father sneaked into my room and tried to rape me." I grab his hands, willing him to listen as I bare out my soul.

       "I ran away that night after pushing him off of me. Two days later, I met Jack Adlair, the owner of a fight club in New Orleans. He promised to make me strong so that no one h  would hurt me ever again. I followed him to New Orleans, where he personally trained me. He was strict and hard, cruel in some ways. He pushed me, starved me and one time he re-enacted the scene with my adotive father to force me to react. When I didn't, he spat and called me weak."
      I remember that day vividly. Jack didn't stop at simply reenacting the scene with Tom, after my reaction-or lack of, he bound my feet, suspending me upside down throughout the night.

      Something in me snapped that night. The next morning  after he released me, we trained again and I beat him, knocking him down hard with all the suppressed rage even I was unaware of. He installed me in his fight club the day after, calling me Vixen. I fought his matches, emerging victorious time and time again. I fought for his acknowledgement, the occasional praise he would give when I came home champion.
  
      "He was my first time. I owed him a lot but it took me a while to realise that I didn't owe him myself. With my new self discovery, I left Jack and purchased a house with the prize monies I had stashed away. While at the club, I had a met a guy, Nathan. He was my escape from my harsh reality, the violence and angst I lived with. As if cursed, even he couldn't offer me reprieve. My new 'dream come true' became a nightmare once more."
         By now, silent tears roll down my eyes and I fight to hold in a sob. Nevertheless, it feels good to let it all out and I feel a loosening in my chest as though a knot has come undone.