Care For Me Not, I'll Hurt You Too Much

You jolt awake in bed, immediately earning a sharp pain shooting through your stomach in protest. The blankets have been thrown carelessly over you, making the room seem hotter than it really is. You look down and you can see the sweat drenching your shirt. The long black sleeves that were supposed to be hanging quite loosely, now stick to your chest and arms in scattered places. Your lungs protest as you attempt to take a deep breath in order to clear the stuffy feeling you have suffocating you. Pain all over is what you are feeling. You feebly throw the comforter off of your body, immediately welcoming the cool breeze that floats down and kisses your limbs softly.

You look around at the bed that you’re in, the used-to-be-clean white sheets are stained slightly with small droplets of blood. The pillow has a small pool staining the middle of it with small droplets of blood scattered ever so slightly. You reach up and touch the spot right above your ear that, last time you remember, has been split open once again.

You quickly pull your hand away when you feel the sharp sting that darts through you skull. You look down at your fingertips and see blood. You panic slightly as you move to stand, your torso openly protesting as you let out a sharp gasp from the stitch that suddenly appeared in your side. You walk out of the room, tripping slightly several things scattered on the floor as you drag your feet.

You walk into the bathroom down the hall. You don’t remember any of this but a strong sense of deyja-vu hits you every where you go in this house. This must be your house. Feeling stuffy and suffocated, you pull off the over shirt you are wearing, leaving you only in your thin white undershirt. You wince as you raise your arms above your head. Hell, you wince every time you move. Pulling out a rag from above the toilet, you run it under cold water. You avoid looking into the mirror as you press the rag lightly to her head, cringing slightly at the pressure.

With the rag still pressed firmly against the side of your head, you grasp the railing as you make your way down the carpeted stairs. You look around the dark room. You can’t see anything but that doesn’t matter, all you’re really doing is listening for any signs of the man that was here earlier. You don’t know why he would still be here though, you heard him leave the house before you fell asleep. Then how did you end up in your room?

Stepping lightly onto the tiled floor of the kitchen, you make your way to the fridge where you pull out an icepack from the freezer. You walk quickly back to your room and close the door. Whoever it was that was in the house earlier, you don’t want them coming in again. You make your way over to the bed, hoping that somehow you’re able to get some more sleep. You can tell by the lack of light outside your window that it is still late at nighttime.

You lay on your side—with difficulty considering your side aches every way you turn. You set the icepack over your ear and feel the soothing cold creep over your head, numbing the pain ever so slightly. You lids feel heavy and the air feels thick. You try to relax, but the heat radiating off your skin is just too much. You notice that you are still wearing your socks and shoes, the bulky soles providing no help in your search for comfort. You kick them off, with difficulty once again. Reaching down, you cringe as another sharp pain shoots through your body. You slide off your socks and throw them under your bed. You lay on top of the covers, feeling warm yet so cold and empty.

Who was he and why does he do this to you?

Your eyes feel heavy and you know that you must get more sleep, but your body is aching too much for you to find any which way you lay comfortable. You tuck your shoulder lightly under the pillow as if you can feel someone’s arm lying underneath your neck, holding you. You pull the duvet up and around your shoulders, protecting you. With this—quite literally—blanket of security enveloping you with warmth, you feel yourself relaxing slightly into the firm mattress. You’re feet still stick out from the bottom, feeling extremely warm. Your body aches all over but the physical stress simply moving put you through were enough to make you feel drowsy.

You slip into a false sense of comfort. The duvet wrapped around your shoulders give you the feeling of someone with their arms wrapped around you lovingly. The way the pillow was tucked over your shoulder, yet into your neck made it feel as if this mystery person had you in their arms, providing a shield from the cool night. You can hear thunder rumble lightly, easing your thoughts into wisps. The pattering of the rain against the window pain sings you a lullaby as you can feel yourself slowly succumbing to sleep.

-

You eyelids shoot open and you feel tears stain your cheeks. Were you crying?

The dreams you were having were enough to bring on more tears as you recalled the images flashing through your mind. You could see yourself on the ground, except this wasn’t last night’s situation, this was an entirely different one. The same faceless man stood over you, grunting as he pounded his fists into the side of your face. He was familiar in every single way, except this one. The pain you felt in your dream seemed so real you were convinced that the man came back in the night and beat you in your sleep. This scared you because you knew exactly who he was now…he was father.

That wasn’t the only dream that plagued your mind. Images flash before you, the family car bent and mangled before your very eyes. The window cracked in a spider web pattern right in front of the passenger’s seat, and blood. Small traces of blood made their way through the glass as you see a person’s lifeless figure leaning their head against the glass. The rest of the car was just as crumpled, squished together like an empty soda can. You know how this happened now, you know what happened here, because this is the reason why your father hits you every night. This is the reason why your father still drinks even after three years have passed. This is why you wake up every morning with fresh tears running down your face.

Those dreams were new in a way, until the memories of past experience come back once again. You were hoping, as you lay squinting your eyes against the sunlight now shining through your window, that these were only dreams. That the two women and the small child being pulled out of your family car were just figments of your sick imagination, and that everything that you now remember seeing in your dream was all fake and that you didn’t know these people. But you know that it is all too real.

Everything came back quickly as you recalled your dreams, having remembered every single detail that flashed into your subconscious. Memories of car accidents, drunken fathers, isolating peers, fists against flesh, and hospital rooms came flooding back after recalling your dreams. You know the reason already why you didn’t want to remember what happened before yesterday, that reason was your father and all the pain he caused you. But now you’re remembering the reason why you couldn’t remember what happened before yesterday, no matter how hard you tried to force them to come back.

You remember a hospital wing, with bright lights shining over your face and a noisy heart monitor beeping loudly next to you. You remember seeing your father crying over you, completely sober and completely shocked. You remember him saying that he’ll never do this to you again and you remember almost believing him. You remember hearing several things, although fuzzy, coming from a doctor that stood speaking to your dad.

“Because of the fall, there is a rather large gash in the side of the head right above the ear that you must look out for. We’ve stitched it up, but the head trauma received will be enough to cause temporary memory loss.” He spoke with mild concern and interest as he recited your injuries to your weeping father. What fall? You were beaten and you wanted so bad to tell them that, but it took all you could just to concentrate on the words.

“Now we understand this isn’t the first fall your child has suffered and the injuries were similar?”

“Yes, but nothing this severe.” His voice is even as if it’s the truth. It sounds so soft and so caring that you almost believe it yourself. You believe for a second as he glances down at you, that your father has actually come back. But no. No one can come back from the dead, especially when they’re buried under so much lying and alcohol that the former soul was practically crushed.

You loathed this man in front of you. He acted so caring in front of everyone else, and he even acted remorseful for what he’s done to you while he’s sober, that many times before you actually believed his apologies and promises to be true. Now you know better. This time was the last. You know now that everything he will say after this will all be a lie. None of it will be true, none of it will matter, all of it will be hollow, cold, and empty just like his heart.

“I see, well slight amnesia is a major possibility in cases such as these. The memory will return. Just give it a day or so and everything will come back.”

“Will it all be alright after that?” he asks.

“Yes it should be fine, just make sure nothing extreme happens to the stitches. Any extreme pressure applied might cause them to open again. Bleeding will occur every now and then but apply some ice and water and it will all be fine.”

You lay now in your bed, marveling your own memory at how easily the doctor swallowed up the whole story you father had fed him about falling down the stairs. You clearly remember coming back to an empty house and using the bathroom. Upon coming out, you were met with a drunken father who began shouting and gripping your shoulders tightly in the usual way. You knew exactly what to do. Don’t make a sound, don’t move, and just take it. It’ll all be over quickly after that. But this time it wasn’t over so quickly. The temporarily healed bruises you were hoping would go away forever now after he had promised to never hurt you again showed their ugly colors as he gripped tightly to your shoulders.

You remember the stench of his breath, the anger in his eyes that you knew ran deep. You remember the accusations that brought shameful and regretful tears to your eyes. You remember the malice his voice was laced with as he spit his venom directly in your face. You remember the way he shoved at you and pushed you until you found yourself tumbling down the stair case after a sharp blow to the side of your head from an object he held in his hand. After that you only remember the doctor talking to your father, and then you remember the lunch line.

Had you really gone through that much on autopilot that you don’t remember leaving the hospital, or even coming home? It wasn’t until you decided to take another look at the world and actually try to see the people around you that you started to see how much people ignored you. You had spent mostly your entire high school career being shunted and ignored from most people, that while you were there you were wandering aimlessly in your own head. You body now responded to physical things and moved all on its own without any type of guidance or judgment from your brain.

Only in art class did you ever truly remember things. Only there did you allow yourself to crack and come out of your carefully built shell to express your feelings out on paper. The poems, the sketches were your escape. Showing emotions over them was something you needed to do in order for them to come out right. Everything else, text work, class assignments and tests, your other half took over. You shut down and go into autopilot, allowing your body to act on its own while the emotions and creativity where you lived in your mind went back into their protective casing. Your brain works, taking in every detail of every statement it’s fed and processing it in a very different way. It seemed to be that your memory lived within your emotions. Only when you started to feel, did you start to remember.