It’s okay, Love. Mommy’s in heaven now.
I made the mistake of touching her face. Her hands. I wanted to feel her again there, somewhere. Somewhere here, still with me. Somewhere, I thought, in an alternate reality, this is a disgusting joke. But it was real, and she was gone. Her cancer came quickly. It spread quickly. It took her quickly. And then, before I could even fully understand what cancer does to people, I watched her deteriorate into a shadow of who she was.
I watched it eat her alive. I watched her face change. Her body, slim and sink. I watched her be taken from me, slowly, but looking back, it all happened so fast. I cannot and will not ever be able to explain the process. The rapid speed at which they took her. The slow, painful waves of coming and going. The realization in her eyes as she accepted her fate. That she would die. That she would die, too soon. Too young. Too early. Too this. Too that.
My father seemed like he watched from a distance. Almost like if he touched her he would be infected from the sickness inside her. He always said she’d be out of pain soon enough. And now, as I look back on it all, as I watched him with his beer in hand most days, I think he was just waiting for her to die. I didn’t know it then, that we were waiting for that. I didn’t know we were waiting on the season finale of her existence. I wasn’t prepared for the curtains to drop the way they did.
No one warns you how it feels, to face a loss like this. No one sits you down in school and gives you lessons on how to grieve. No one tells you it will change you from the inside out. They don’t tell you that this will happen, and sometimes it will happen too soon, and sometimes it will happen too quickly. But always, it is too quickly. Always, a loss will be felt. It will be a wound you will have to tend to. It will be a wound you have to recover from. It will be something you need to do on your own and maybe that’s why no one tells you how to do so.
I watched everyone move on with their lives like she was never there at all. Like the world didn’t just lose one of the most magnificent people it had ever known. I watched the world move on without me, from a revolving glass case. I was inside, spinning, wondering when I’d make it out and feel the sun again. There were always more butterflies to chase.
Another butterfly is always right around the corner if you can just round it, come out the other side. Find something to take your mind off it. Distract yourself. Trick yourself. Focus on something that might make you happy. I survived on the hope that I’d find it, whatever it was. Something beautiful enough to chase after. Something worth having. Something worth keeping and holding onto. Something that might love me the way she did.
She told me once that I was the only thing I will ever need in this life. But she was wrong. I needed her. Even if she wasn’t all there. Just her presence, her body, whether she was sick or not, knowing she was there was a comfort. And that was ripped from me in the most violent way possible. Even though they saw it coming. Even though I should have seen it coming.
Even though they say she went peacefully.
Even though my father remarried within six months when my pillows were still being stained with my tears.
Four
My father’s new wife didn’t like me, that much was apparent.
“Sam, could you hand me the bacon?” she asked. She was at the stove making breakfast. Standing there like a trophy wife with her apron on over her snug dress.
I think my dad mumbled a “Sure” and retrieved what she needed, like a puppy playing fetch without the fun.
I was seated in the kitchen with my hands folded on the table, the way she made me sit while awaiting whatever meal she was about to graciously serve me. She always reminded me how lucky I was to have a stepmother to cook for me. How lucky I was to eat.
My father sat at the end of the table, reading the paper. Waiting for breakfast.
She placed the eggs in the center with the bacon next to it. Toast to the left.
I reached for a piece of toast.
“Tsk, tsk,” she said, making that annoying clicking noise with her mouth. “You know the rules. Your father serves himself first.”
I folded my hands again on the table and waited my turn. It was her way of teaching me that not everything is about me. The world isn’t here to serve you.
Once my father had his food, I was able to make my plate. One piece of toast and a serving of scrambled eggs.
“Get your bacon,” she said.
“I don’t want bacon.” I ate bacon. I just didn’t want hers. It didn’t go over well when I didn’t want to eat something she cooked. Wasn’t allowed.
She slapped a piece of bacon on my plate. “How many times do we have to go over this? Eat the bacon.”
“I don’t want to,” I said.
“You know, Love, some kids don’t get to have one mom in their life, let alone two. Eat the bacon.”
I sat there and stared at the plate, defying her by not reacting. She hated when I was silent and unflinching.
“Sam, will you help me out here? She’s acting like her again.”
This wasn’t the first time I heard this, but it was the last. Whenever I acted up she would say that I was acting like her, referring to my mother as some sort of insubordinate woman who didn’t know how to behave properly. And she said it in front of me often enough until the fuse blew. She stood up to get something and I was on my feet before I knew what I was doing.
I grabbed her by her dress and shoved her into the wall. “I hope I’m just like her,” I said, voice raised by emotion.
That was the day I learned anger could fill your body with a strength you never knew you had. That was the moment I knew superhuman strength wasn’t merely a myth.
She hid behind my father after that, screaming at him to get me away from her. That if I was older she would press charges. That I was dangerous. That I didn’t listen. That I was reckless and violent and evil and all the things a twelve-year-old girl shouldn’t be. That she couldn’t do this anymore, live with me.
My father gave in. He chose the side of a woman he’d known for six months over his own daughter. That’s something else no one tells you how to cope with. The kind of abandonment that’s deliberate. The kind of abandonment that was a choice. The sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. The voice in your head that will laugh at you and convince you that you are unlovable, unworthy. But no one tells you that this voice is a liar. That someone else’s choice does not determine whether or not you are worthy of something, of love, of anything. No one tells you that no one else gets to determine your worth. No one tells you that you are the same amount of greatness as someone who has two parents who love them unconditionally. No one tells you that, so you don’t know it. And there is a sadness in that. In the fact that people all over the world will go on every day thinking they are anything less than spectacular. In the fact that people everywhere walk around having no idea how special they are, how much they mean to someone else.
That’s something else no one tells how you to grieve. The loss of a person who is still alive. The loss of a parent who chooses to get lost and exile themselves from your life. I follow a writer on Instagram, Kat Savage, who once wrote “A person doesn’t have to pack a suitcase and kiss you goodbye to leave. Sometimes they will slip away quietly right next to you and you cannot reach them.” I felt this long before my father performed the actual leaving, the grand escape. The Houdini of parenting. He performed the exorcism in the kitchen quietly, rid himself of the demon that was his daughter. Pulled the poison out. Pretended it was never there at all.
He called his sister that day, who agreed to take me in for a bit, while the dust settled. Adults, they speak in terms as though small adults can’t understand them. Small adults, that’s what I like to call children. Because usually, children are just little adults in little bodies who have seen and experienced far too much. Who have bled and cried too much. Little adults in little bodies with big, worn out hearts that are on the verge of breaking for good. And usually, parents don’t watch out for
that. I don’t think there’s an owner’s manual when it comes to raising kids, how to protect them from growing up to be a messed up big adult. After all, aren’t all adults just little adults who finally turned eighteen and were forced to accept that label as a grown-up? In my eyes, everyone still had a lot of growing up to do.
I was sent to live with my aunt after that, and that was when I guess you could say I became bad.
Five
My Aunt Vanessa took me in with little questions asked, at least in front of me. She had a spare “room” for me. It was the living room. I had the couch for almost two years. Eventually, she realized my dad wasn’t planning on taking me back and got a new place. It was a one-bedroom with a small basement. But the basement had an opening to the outside world, and, well, I was fourteen then. Fourteen and a fucking disaster. My new group of friends were a little older thanks to my neighbor two houses down. Nikki was two years older than me. Sixteen and also a disaster. I’d started smoking weed with her when I was fourteen. If you’re wondering if my dad cared, I hadn’t heard from him since he kicked me out. He only asked about me through my Aunt V, and even then, I don’t think he asked very much at all.
My father moved on with his life, had a new child with his new wife, giving me a half-sister I’d never meet. But if my father is lucky, she’s nothing like me.
My nights were mostly spent on drugs and drinking, partying with Nikki like the future would never come. And in a way, if you’re partying like that consistently, the future doesn’t ever come, it just passes you by. But you don’t really care either way, because you don’t care about anything.
I hadn’t tried hard drugs—coke, H, meth, etc.—I learned pretty fast that I had an addictive personality and should probably steer clear of the hard stuff. That didn’t stop me from smoking weed, trying a couple of psychedelics here and there, rolling on E, sampling a variety of pills from time to time. I think the turning point was when I realized that the brief happiness and false hope was just something our small-time dealers taught us at this make-shift church. And the lines in our faces weren’t from smiling too much. We’d toss a buck or two in a hat in exchange for the promise of being saved. Saved, as if I could be saved. As if the drugs could save me, help me. Temporarily, they made me feel better—except when they didn’t. Took my mind off certain things. But when I came down, those certain things were still there. And I felt worse. Physically. Mentally. All of it was worse.
That’s what kids don’t tell you about drugs. That they’re not worth trying. Because they’re fun until they’re not. And eventually, you will hit a point where it is not fun. At some point, you will wish you didn’t swallow that pill or take that hit or take too many of whatever it is you’re experimenting with this time. Eventually, you will wish you could take something back, whether it is something you put in your body, or something you did while high. And you won’t be able to. But kids won’t tell you that when they’re telling you how much “fun” it will be.
I lost my virginity while I was fourteen and drunk. If you can call it that. Virginity. Do you still have your virginity if your friend’s buddy touched you again while you were pretending to sleep? When you were tired of saying no so you just stopped trying? Was that flower de-bloomed before it ever had the chance to bloom? Was I ruined before I had the chance to blossom and grow and become something beautiful? The dirt I grew in was soiled with mud and all things ungodly.
Hedonism was not something I agreed to practice until that day. And even then, with the pain of becoming just another girl who lied there and took it when it didn’t feel good, it didn’t feel good.
Hedonism was something I wore on a T-shirt that belonged to my mother before I knew what it meant. Hedonism was something they invented before the earth knew my name. Hedonism was something they practiced and wished upon me before I knew I could say no. Hedonism was a name for a false art for a forced dance that we didn’t ask to take part in yet.
But still, I would wear that day with a badge of honor and a certain shade of blue for all the parts of me I agreed to give away.
At least this time, I agreed.
Reset.
“You’re fucking gorgeous, Love,” he said, the smell of beer dancing off his breath.
I smiled and pulled him closer. It was easy, I was drunk and I wanted him.
He closed his eyes and put his mouth on mine and for approximately three minutes I was beautiful. I was his. I was something worth holding onto and remembering.
Two hours later I woke up naked under a blanket and he was gone. Whatever he said to me before that was all a blur. It was a lot of promises and things that sounded pretty and things that were never meant for my ears. Afterwards, I think he mumbled something about us just being friends. And I should have listened to the words rather than the lips that were lending me kisses all over my body. Kisses he’d take with him when he left. I should have believed him when he said in so many words that he would never be mine but I swore his eyes were saying something different.
He looked at me like he felt more for me than he’d admit to me or even himself. But even the most honest eyes lie and even the softest lips can say the most jagged things to cut you. I should have believed him when he said he was just a temporary shelter for girls who wanted to make a home out of him.
Love. It’s what they call me. My nickname. It’s all the things they say we don’t have somewhere between the first kiss and the last awkward hug goodbye or the last goodbye they never give me. It’s all the things they say when they tell me we are just friends. Just friends, Love. Just friends.
They are good at convincing me they didn’t mean what they said when they said cruel things. That they are sorry, they didn’t mean to hurt me. They never do. They do tell me I am more to them than just a pretty smile but they never tell me I am the girl they’ve only ever dreamed of. Because they don’t dream of me. I am Love reincarnated. I am Love on their doorstep. Love on their floor mat. Love on their smart phone screen at midnight when the girl of their dreams is ignoring them.
And then I am Love at 2am. when they have no one else to talk to. Sometimes I am Love in a nude photo. I am Love under their sheets but not in their hearts. I am Love in their mouths but not in the words that come from it. I am Love in all the places they didn’t know could hurt. Because one day, they too will hurt, it just won’t be because of me.
Six
Did you ever run out of coffee just before you actually start to wake up? That’s how I felt most of my life. More so after my mother died. I was running on empty and a few hours of sleep, getting by on stale hope and promises people swore they’d keep. My life was a low hum, radio static, never quite getting the station in tune right.
I was laid out on the couch one night, a cheap blanket flung over me, when an infomercial came on for a psychic hotline. It was 4:13am when I saw that bullshit infomercial and wondered how people bought into that stuff. It was 4:17am when I sculpted my future based off of that bullshit.
Only my version wouldn’t be bullshit. It would be real. Bitter dark chocolate wrapped in sugar. People wanted help. People like me. People not like me. Good people, bad people, and all the people in between. Life is a spectrum of highs and lows and everyone hits the lows at some point. But some people live in the lows, trapped in the shadows and darkness of what life has to offer. They see certain things life is made of that not everyone gets to experience. The shit. The torture. The pain. They have a key to get inside the room but they don’t know the way out. And they were my target market, for no other reason than the fact that they were my people.
It wasn’t a get-rich-quick scheme, by any means. I knew there was little chance of making any money off this venture. That wasn’t what it was about. It was about helping people, even if it was only temporary. Even if it was based on a lie.
And I was sick of working crappy part-time jobs that got me nowhere in life but irritated. Jobs that didn’t fulfill me in the slightest. I was tired. Eating Ramon noodles
on an almost-daily basis was enough to make you consider doing illegal stuff. And when you’re already teetering on the brink of giving up or changing paths completely, sometimes you can push yourself right off the edge with nothing more than a soft blow from the wind in your own heart.
Some girls turned themselves into strippers in moments like that. I became a psychiatrist.
I grabbed my cheap laptop that was on the verge of death and started typing up ideas. A hotline would be cool, but no one talked on the phone anymore. I may only be seventeen but I know that much. Hell, people hardly even talk in person at this point. The name and hours came instantaneously.
Psychiatrists on the Couch
Hours of healing: 9pm-3am
That changed when I realized the direction I’d go.
Psychiatrists on the Gram
Somewhere along the lines that colored my life, I realized that people are more honest at night. More vulnerable. More open to discussing the things that plague them. The shit that keeps them awake. The hours I’d be active were the easy part, the obvious part. I had a plan and a vision, and all I needed was to get there.
I researched. What psychiatrists can do over text. I created the Instagram account under an alias. Marissa Black. The name that appears on my fake ID. Nothing could be in my name for two reasons: I wanted to stay anonymous, and I was already in the system. How could a girl like me, arrested for numerous things, help other people? My name would raise red flags in a heartbeat if anything was ever investigated and this thing would be stopped before it even got off the ground. So everything was fake. Everything except me, and the idea.
Dr. Black was at the public’s service, specializing in addiction, suicide, and trauma of any kind. I posted inspirational short poems. Self-help quotes. Shared other people’s stories. I openly talked about trauma, rape, molestation, suicide, addiction, death, grief. Everything people usually tried to avoid bringing up or addressing, I wanted to shine the spotlight on it. And I did. Eventually, the page picked up traction. Not even just kids, but adults all over the world, were taking notice. Sharing their stories. Reaching out to me. Sometimes for guidance, sometimes just because they needed someone to listen.
The Gorgeous Slaughter Page 2
