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She now looked forward to seeing him everyday. It was not obvious to everyone, for the staff at the Home have learned to just ignore and stay away from her. But she knows that something has indeed changed in herself. And as much as she wants to brush it off, she can't help but feel different.
He made her feel different.
He arrives at the Home at exactly 1:30 in the afternoon, and goes straight to the common room. She's been observing him since he first arrived, and she knows that he is studying her. She knows that his main purpose of being assigned to the Home was to study her case. She got annoyed at that, because she may be the most difficult, but hers wasn't the worst case there. She can talk to him, but she doesn't want to.
She wanted to applaud him that day when he sat across her. She thought he would give up, but he was too chatty. He kept talking to her, about how his day went, how he finds the food at the Home delicious, what he thinks about the Administrator.
She tried to turn him away by writing him notes to leave her alone. But it just made him more determined.
Then she found herself, much to her own annoyance, waiting for him to arrive everyday. For someone who has lost every reason to even wake up each day, like nothing is left for her to rise up and breathe in the morning, she actually felt like the sun shone nicely and a little brighter.
Damn, his effect on her. He even got to make her lips hitch up a bit, but of course she tried her best not to show it to him. Heaven forbid he catches her smiling, she will throw her journal at him hard.
Her journal is her only sanctuary. It was her only means of escape, away from cruelties that her young mind, heart and body have gone through. Her escape from the one person whom she thought would be her savior, turning into someone who would just crucify her.
She is practically dead. Only her words written and hidden away in her sanctuary are proof that she is barely breathing.
Then he, RJ, annoying as fuck but with the charm of an angel, if ever those beings were true, came to the Home. And yes, she began to feel different.
She's still guarded, she has to. But with RJ around, why does she feel like the walls are slowly crumbling?
//
MY NAME IS MAINE.
She spoke, for the first time in a long while, startling the nurse who almost dropped the tray of medicine she was holding. RJ looked at her, the side of his eyes crinkling as he smiled at her. He came back to her side and tried to brush away a strand of hair that fell on her face. She flinched at his touch, pulling over the blanket over her so that he will not get into contact with any part of her.
"I'm sorry, Maine. I... I'm glad you're better. I'll go now. I'll see you tomorrow."
She heard footsteps leaving the clinic. When she was sure that no one else was left, she pulled down the blanket and looked around. Her eyes still darted around the space she is in, wary of any presence that may bother her. She hates the nurse that always gives her shots, but she has never been violent about it. She never was, even when she was still with the Brood and the Head will always lay his hand on her. Hard. He always finds reason to slap her, to hit her, to make her do repulsive things. She learned to hit cocaine just so she will ignore the pain and the shame. She became numb to everything, and only when she sees the scars on her body does she realize what he has done to her.
Her scars and the words she writes in her journal are her anchors of sanity.
//
RJ now arrives early in the Home. And much to her dismay, she finds a sliver of light making its way to her heart when he sits with her in her corner. She still finds him annoying.
Annoyingly cute.
LEAVE ME ALONE.
RJ laughs at the note she hands him every time. It's become a daily routine for them. He gets to her corner, sits down and looks at her, greets her 'Good afternoon or good morning', and then she hands him that note.
"You know I won't leave you alone, not now when I've heard you speak. You have a beautiful voice, Maine."
She glares at him, then goes back to writing.
"You know, people who don't talk much oftentimes have bad breath."
She threw her journal at him, much to RJ's surprise. But he quickly recovered and smiled back at her, while picking up the journal. It was then that she realized what she just did. RJ has her journal in her hands. She stood up to grab it from him, but he raised it above his head.
Damn, he's tall.
"I'll give this back to you, only if you promise to say at most five words to me every day. Please? I wish you'd talk to me more, Maine."
She kept reaching up to grab her journal, when she looked into his eyes, and her breathing hitched. His eyes were looking straight at her, and she felt like it bored deep into her soul. She felt warmth just by looking at him, and it was a strange feeling for her.
RJ brought down her journal and handed it to her, never losing contact with her eyes. She took her journal and sat down again. She opened her journal, found a blank page, and wrote yet another note.
She was about to give it to him, but she found herself smiling and lifting her eyes up at RJ.
I'LL TRY. THANK YOU.
With that she returned to writing, with RJ grinning at her.
"Thank you, Maine. It's a start."
//
In the next days, RJ tried to pry more from Maine. He kept asking her questions about her past, not directly but in clever and creative ways, like asking her about her favorite color, why that color, where does she associate it with, did her parents dress her up in that color before, and a lot of other questions that would make her reveal more.
But she still only says five words at most. The rest of the time, she wrote down her answers and just handed it to him.
Until she found herself talking about the Brood, and Him, the Head. And it was most difficult to go on. She knew RJ can sense her hesitation to discuss about it, and he never probed more than what she was willing to tell .
Somehow, she knew that she needs to talk about it, even if it were through the notes that she hands RJ. Even when talking about it opens up the scars that have left its mark on her.
The scars indeed have opened up, but to her amazement, the pain of recalling, remembering what she has gone through, was slowly dissipating.
The Head, whom she looked up to and who gave her those scars, was slowly getting buried into memory, as she continued to write the words that never escaped her before because she was afraid and numb.
Unknowingly, as she kept on writing, tears were already falling from her eyes and causing her journal to get wet. She felt like all the words that she had kept hidden inside her, the words that the Head would shut down on her with his fist, were now freely making its way to paper and her tears. Her words are now free to put daggers onto Him.
"Maine... let it all go... your words breathe new life in you... I"m still here, I'll never leave you."
She looked up at RJ, at those annoyingly beautiful eyes.
