Unmerciful Learning

It had been too long since the accident.

I should've gotten over myself by now. I should've carried on with my life as usual. Every fibre of my being was screaming for me to quit this nonsense, to continue living as I had before. But there was this incessant little voice in my head which told me that I couldn't. I couldn't be who I once was. I couldn't go on being who I had been. I had changed. There was no going back.

Numerous thoughts spun around in my mind as I gazed at myself in the mirror. What a forlorn figure looked back at me! I leaned forward against the bathroom sink and probed at my cheeks, watching as my skin formed wrinkles beneath my eyes. I sighed and stepped back, running a hand through my thick, brown hair.

A few months ago, a girl, vibrant with energy and life stood in this exact same place and smiled at herself in the mirror. She had the entire world at her fingertips. She had just gotten her first job and had started her last year of school. From there, it would be on to college, obtaining a degree and much more.

Then, suddenly, just like that, everything changed.

No one warned me about the drunk driver who would hit our family car that night. No one warned me that while I was lying, unconscious, on a hospital bed, that I would lose everyone I loved. No one warned me, when I walked back into school after all those months, that not a single person would dare to approach me. No one warned me that I'd lose my job, move into foster care, and suffer a traumatic mental illness. It just happened.

And now? I can't eat. I can't sleep. I'm not doing well in terms of being a functional human being.

Without a sound, I turned away from the mirror and slipped out of the bathroom. I walked softly down the hallway towards my room but was interrupted by the sounds of shouting coming from below stairs.

I tip-toed over to the stair railing and peered down, my line of sight going through the kitchen's partially opened door. My foster mum and dad were screaming and shouting at each other. From what I could hear, my foster dad had been out late, drinking, probably, and my foster mum had caught him red-headed. Again. Nothing new there.

I frowned as I glanced down at my wrist-watch. It was 2am in the morning. Biting my lip, I retreated silently back into the comforting blackness of my room.

As I rocked back and forth on my bed, my arms clasped tightly around my knees, I heard the voice, the voice that wouldn't leave me alone:

"Tessa, I'm back. You know I could never leave you, right? I'm always going to be right here next to you, haunting you in your dreams, tormenting you in your every waking hour. You can't get rid of me ... ever.

"Look at yourself, Tessa, you're pathetic. Everything you do, everything about you – pathetic. You'll never be a journalist. You'll never conquer your fears or fulfil your dreams. You'll never get to meet Mr. Right. You're fat, ugly, insecure, emotional, disconcerted ... there's nothing good about you."

"Stop it!" I whispered desperately into the darkness that surrounded me. "Please ... just stop it."

"You know I'll never just 'stop it', Tessa. C'mon, I thought you were smarter than that! I'll never stop hurting you. You deserve it, every bit of it. You killed your family."

"It wasn't my fault, it wasn't my fault!" I sobbed, burying my face in my knees. "Just ignore it and it'll go away. Just ignore it!"

"Pffftttt," the voice mocked. "Are you serious? Just ignore it and it'll go away? I'll NEVER go away!"

The sound of loud footsteps stomping up the stairs jerked me from my pitiful state. Hurriedly, I dove underneath my bed covers and closed my eyes, waiting with baited breath as the shadow of my foster dad fell across my bedroom floor.