Take My Hand

Half and hour later Maria was sitting in the bedroom of a small, wooden house, staring at her closet swigging randomly at the drink clasped in her hands, relaxed at her knees. In the back of the right hand corner of the closet she kept a box full of her journals. Since she was six, she had written everyone down that had happened each day. It was the only way she could have some knowledge about what she’d done. It wasn’t that she had a bad memory, but it was that she had repressed a lot of things. Good things, bad things, it was almost like she wasn’t meant to remember anything. That’s why she kept the journals. There were 14 of them altogether. Every one held a chapter in her life that would otherwise have been lost forever.

Ten minutes passed before Maria took one last swallow of the liquid in the glass. She wasn’t a heavy drinker, but some Dutch courage helped.

Picking herself up off of the bed, she wandered into her closet and picked up a journal from her teenage years. This was when her mind and strength was really tested. As if those years aren’t confusing enough, not knowing why you’ve woken up different doesn’t help.

She flicked through until she found one from the 7th of February, 2002.
“It’s becoming more frequent. The voices, the lights, flashing images that stay long enough for you to see, but not long enough to get details. Voices that scream your name but don’t seem to have anything else to say, lights that should probably have blinded me by now. Some of it seems familiar, but most of it doesn’t make a lick of sense.
Then again, why should it?

The only thing now that I can rely on is myself, though I’m not even sure of that anymore. Isn’t that ironic? The one thing that we all know is ourselves, yet I can’t recall a thing.”

She was 16 when she wrote that, exactly one year before her mother died. The repressed memories had begun to float up from the dark place they’d been. Her mother had helped her through them though, she always had.

Maria felt the warm liquor reaching her stomach, sending a familiar feeling through her. She didn’t drink it make herself numb, but to take the sting away from all the things she felt she’d missed out on.

A note fell into her lap.

“M.
I’ve found it.
Meet me behind Joe’s at 6am alone.
Don’t tell anyone.
J.E.”

Maria closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. Jake and her had always had a great relationship. They were always there for each other. But one day ruined that.