Sorry

Chapter Eight

I locked myself in my room for the rest of the night. Well, not really locked. I jammed a sock in between the frame and hinges so it didn't open. Sarah Spencer must have told the nurses about what happened, because they left me alone.

Or they don't care.

So what if they didn't care? I didn't care. They shouldn't either.

Talking about Aiden to Sarah Spencer had opened a floodgate of memories in my head. They were rushing through, rotting away at the dam that was my mental sanity. It hurt, it was physically killing me.

Silence smothers me, noise suffocates me. Where is the peace?

I gripped the table next to my bed, the chunky white bracelets clinking against polished wood.

"Be quiet," I hissed at the plastic. It didn't respond.

In the mirror, my brown hair was dull in color and frizzy. My cheeks were a terrible flushed color, and sticky with dry tears. My eyes had gone from their dark, almost black, blue to light shade, the color of high beams. My lips were cracked painfully, and red. I looked ugly.

Just like he said.

"Stop it," I willed my head. "Please."

But it was too late. A memory had already surfaced and despite myself, I wanted it. It was the day I could remember like my own name. The day everything went down in a fiery ball of hell.

I unwrapped a turkey and Swiss sandwich from the seran wrap, opened a bag of chips and was about to stuff my mouth when Aiden grabbed my hand. Startled, I dropped my sandwich and watched sadly as an army of ants overtook it.

"Heather, look at me."

I forced my eyes away from the ants and lost sandwich to Aiden. We had been together almost a year now, just about eight months. He was gorgeous, but no longer the guy I had met in the store. But I played. I pretended. Because he told me too.

Aiden stood up, pulling me with him.

"C'mere."

He began leading me away from where our blanket was spread across the grass.

"What about the food?" I protested. Aiden didn't answer. We walked a few minutes away from our picnic, to the baseball diamond. We stood under the bleachers. I started getting nervous. Last time we had been here, all hell broke loose.

"C'mon baby. I think it's time you give me a present. I gave you presents. Give me a present."

Aiden wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, and leaned closer.

"Um-" I tried speaking but was cut off.

"Shush. You can't say anything. I told you, forever. You know what forever means. And you love me, don't you baby? Prove you love me." The next things that happened where a blur of pain and trauma. I remember begging him to stop, and him yelling for me to shut up.

I winced, dragging myself out off the memory, blocking out what was next.

I can't believe I trusted him.

My aunt came to see me the next morning. I roused by a nurse at six AM, a very ungodly hour. I didn't stop to brush my teeth, or hair, or even change out of the pale pink pants and white shirt with the Paisley Lake logo on the breast. I felt like a walking zombie, doomed to roam the halls of a mental institution. I felt stupid.