I wait for Cassie to get home after work around six, I have only packed my clothes and the documents I need to travel I have left everything in our little flat as it is she can keep the flat after all it was her home too. Cass sees my bag as soon as she comes in the door. Her eyes immediately give away her feelings she is annoyed and she asks me with a hint of sadness in her voice. “Mick got you going out of town to work again, how long this time Rowan?” I turn around and look out the window I don’t want to face her eyes when I tell her this. I don’t want to tell her, I should have let a note but I am not a cowardly man I could never do that. “I am going to join Mick, Cass. In Africa. I’m not coming home this time.” Cassie is silent behind me but I know tears streak her face her hushed sniffles give away her heartbreak. “When can I come Rowan?” I knew she would ask in her little world I am going to marry her soon. She has been waiting ten years, since we were just kids. I am never going to marry Cassie or any woman for that matter. Murderers don’t get married to good women. “You can’t Cassie, this is goodbye. We have tonight then I am gone. You need to let me go Cassie. You don’t love me you just think you do; no one could truly love me.”
I turn around as she slams her fist into the table and looks me in the eyes I can see her heart cracking in her chest through those pretty little green eyes her bottom lip trembles with her tears. “I do love you, that’s where you are so wrong Rowan, I do. Even though in my heart I have always known that you don’t love me back. I hoped and prayed you would that you would learn to love me but you won’t.”
Her words hit home, she knew all along I never loved her but she loved me anyways. “I can’t Cassie, Not I won’t. I can’t. I can’t love anyone ever.”
She walks right up to me and stands on her toes to kiss me, I feel like an asshole for kissing her and wanting her right now after I just broke her beautiful heart. When our kiss breaks she whispers to me softly talking into my chest “Good bye Rowan, I will always love you.” I feel her tears wet my shirt as she cries into it before letting go and looking into my eyes with her green ones. I have broken her I see it in her eyes I broke my toy. She leaves, slamming the door behind her.
I go to bed feeling like shit, after Cassie left I drank a bottle of scotch and wallowed in the reality of leaving everything I have ever known behind. I sink into sleep almost as fast as I can fall onto my bed. I am woken what feels like way too fucking early by my phone ringing and someone beating on the door yelling at me. The brain fog clears enough for me to see and hear its Callum both calling and knocking. What the fuck it’s six in the morning he is never up before noon unless he hasn’t gone to bed yet?
“Hold on asshole!” I yell fumbling around for my stupid house keys. As I unlock the door Callum bursts in barrelling at me fuming he grabs my throat yelling at me like a mad man “What did you do Rowan?” I am instantly confused. I went to bed drunk and very much alone. What is he on about? He sees my confusion and lets me go. Good move I was about to backhand him. His eyes are bloodshot and puffy I wonder how much he drank last night, is he still drunk he is acting batshit fucking crazy. “You don’t know do you?” He asks breathless and cautiously looks into my eyes trying to see truth. “What the fuck are you on about at fucking six in the morning Callum I had a shit night I need to fucking sleep it off.”
He eyes me even more suspiciously now, a frown forming on his face “You really don’t know, do you? Ro, did you tell Cassie you were leaving?” I nod at him “She left and never came back I asked her to let me go. She knows I don’t love her. Yet she says she loves me anyways.” Hence my hangover asshole.
“You fucking idiot! You stupid fucking idiot! Did you know Cassie was pregnant Rowan? Did you know?” He screams at me prodding my chest with his finger. The horror on my face surely gives me away as I shake my head not believing his words at him and launch towards my car keys and the door “Oh God Cal, where is she, who told you?”
Callum’s face turns snow white and he collapses on the end on my bed next to me. Something is horribly wrong and he doesn’t want to tell me he swallowing hard like a scared little kid. “Spit it out Cal.” I sit back down next to him angry at him now and scared shitless for what may come out of his mouth.
“Rowan the police coroner told me when I was called to identify her body at three this morning. No one could reach you. Cassie left here last night and she killed herself. She jumped off the top of her parents building. I am so sorry man. So sorry”.
I can’t breathe and feel my scotch dinner rising up my throat burning its way up as I start to wretch. I am going to be sick. I lurch for the small dustbin next to my dresser and relieve my stomach of its fiery contents until there is nothing left to bring up. My throat burns like I swallowed razor blades for breakfast. Callum just sits there white as a sheet like a ghost not moving at all. She never told me, why? I never gave her a chance that’s why! I am all of a sudden filled with rage for the child she has stolen from me. Then the truth hits me like a punch to the guts, I told her I couldn’t love anyone that’s why, she knew I couldn’t love her or our child so she chose to jump. I feel the bile climbing my throat again this is all my fault. Another two numbers that are all on me. My cold heart killed Cassie, she is dead because I could not love her.
Callum waits, he just sits there while I go through the motions, first I am sick then I am angry and throw and smash anything I can touch and I yell and I scream nothing makes it any better it’s burning me from the inside out. I curse God and all the fucking saints. Then I cry. I cry one lonely tear for my child that I might just have been able to love. I cry that tear for never getting the chance. Then I get up leaving Callum sitting on my bed watching me unravel in front of him and I go say goodbye to my parents. The gloomy day matches the cemetery and my mood. After that I stop at the morgue where Cassie’s body was taken and I go say goodbye to the girl who loved me even when I couldn’t love her back and to the child I will never know. Her body is ice cold and blue, her life is gone I know all too well what her eyes look like behind those closed lids. I know that my hands may not have done this to her but my heart did, I broke her, I killed her, I am a monster, the worst fucking kind of monster. I switch my feelings off again right there, no more, ever, I need to be numb and cold and hard.
It’s raining hard when I leave them there I feel the icy rain soaking into my clothes as I get my car and I leave. I go straight to the airport and I leave. I know I am never coming back to Ireland. It’s no longer home. It’s just the graves of my family. Who wants to live in a cemetery?
My memories of Cassie somehow make these new feelings even worse. I broke Cassie, which was on me, that was all my fault and I never forgave myself for it. She wanted to die, Ellia wants to die too. Those were the two hardest numbers to have carved into my skin I took her life and the life of our child by not loving her. The only time I remember feeling anything like I feel right now was the day Cassie jumped. Guilt. Sorrow. Anger. Remorse. Sadness. But Cassie was dead I couldn’t save her I couldn’t fix what I did to her. I couldn’t love her. Maybe just maybe this time I can. I was not the one who broke Ellia, but I might be able to fix her. All I can offer her revenge though. I can take his life in return for breaking her. And I will take his sorry life. I want to feel something for her, I almost want to say I want to love her, but I don’t think I can.
The one number I will not put on my body is hers. Ellia will not die; I went to too much trouble to kill her already. What if I break her more by keeping her? What if I destroy her too, what if me keeping her kills her?
ELLIA
“What deep wounds ever closed without a scar?”
~ Lord Byron
I cry myself to sleep again. I can hear Rowan’s sad music through the walls he is trying to drown me out I just know it. The emotional songs are making my crying even worse so his plan is not the most well thought out one. I wonder if he does it on purpose to make me feel this way like my life is being ri
pped open and all the ugliness exposed and brought to the surface where I have to face it. When you are living in it you can ignore it to survive, but now it’s over and I have to face what I am. Ugly, inside and out.
The nightmares don’t let me rest tonight. They very rarely do. I am awake before I know it. I usually take sleeping pills to get some sleep that isn’t my very own horror movie on repeat all night but I don’t have that luxury here in my little jail.
Tonight it’s my babies again, yes babies. Renzo has ripped six innocent little babies from my body. Each time he waited a little longer let me love them a little more before he came and took what was his with his devil doctor. Each time I was locked up for days after in the safe living in my own filth and sadness. I prayed to die, over and over again. I wanted to die. I begged I couldn’t live anymore. I tried to take my own life once; Renzo found me, saved me and then punished me for trying to take what was his. The beating that time had been one of the worst he kicked and punched and scratched and cut and burned me for what seemed an eternity I was like a rag doll for weeks after that, but he loved that, you see it’s easy to rape a rag doll she can’t even try to fight. My body was broken but my mind wanted so badly to stay unharmed but eventually he broke that too and I shut down completely. I used to lie still while he beat and raped my body I stopped fighting; fighting made the pain worse, never enough to kill me only enough to remind me I was still alive. I hate him I hate him with every beat of my useless heart I hate him more. Would I kill him? No, who would pay for my sins then? This vicious circle of death should end. I believe that my father’s sins have been paid for with my pain, and with my heart. My coming home is my new beginning where I finally get to try and live. Even if that means just being here and never leaving I am home and I am more alive than I have been in eight years.
Rowan held me tonight as I cried like a baby on the floor for what seemed like hours. His athletic arms were strong around my body but gentle they didn’t harm me just held me, I hate being touched but his touch didn’t send me over the edge into a full blown panic attack. I feel like my tears have purged this petulant child in me. His body felt so strong, so safe, and so warm. He smelled so clean and manly there was nothing sweet about his smell. I felt safe for a few minutes in his arms for a few minutes I didn’t want to die. I felt my will to live coming back just a little bit, the black hole of my life won’t go away I know that but for a few minutes I was able to think maybe I can actually live, here, with Rowan. His anger earlier had scared me; I felt the fear cripple me even though I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. Well he wouldn’t hurt my body but I know who he is and what he does so I know he could hurt me so many other ways. Just being near a murderer was enough to hurt, I should know.
Rowan says he wants to fix me. I don’t think I can be fixed but I think I need to try. I want to stay here I want to be home and start again, I have no one except Rowan so I have no choice but to trust him with my life. My ugly, rotten, broken life. I have no desire in me to leave this place and if I am going to hang onto this tiny scrap of will I have to live now, it needs to be here, at home.
I wonder if he’s still awake. My watch says it’s three in the morning. I am never going to get any sleep the nightmares are too close to the surface tonight biting at me every time I close my eyes. I want to tell Rowan the truth; I want this new beginning to be a clean one. If I want to live here I need him to let me and he is not going to let this go.
I open my door as quietly as I can and walk towards Rowan’s door; at least he never came and locked me in. I knock quietly I can still hear the music so if he is sleeping he won’t hear me. I knock once more losing my bravado fast I turn to retreat back to my room. Half way there I hear his door crack open and as I look back he looks around the corner at me. “Can we talk now Rowan?” He looks at his watch. I look at his naked chest covered in ink its almost completely black with intricate artwork and script, wow, I hold my breath waiting not looking at his eyes I can’t peel mine away from the human canvas in front of me. His hair is a mess and his eyes give me an idea of how tired this man is right now.
“Sure, come in.” He grumbles half asleep. I was really thinking like in the kitchen or the lounge but my brain can’t function past the work of art I just saw. I follow him into his room; the smell of him surrounds me as I step in the door almost taking my breath away as I breathe it in. He grabs his T-shirt and covers his beautiful painted chest; I am almost disappointed because I wanted to look closer. I wonder to myself what Rowan’s story reads like? Is that his story written on his skin, mine is written on my skin in horrendous scars. He breaks my brain fog grabbing my hand dragging me down onto a small couch at the bottom of his bed where he already sits I flinch at his touch and he lets go immediately. My heart is pounding so hard it’s all I hear and I can feel its drum beat in my eyeballs. “Talk, I will listen Ellia.” He is almost harsh in the way he says it but his eyes give a different message a softer one. Those blue eyes that betray his emotions every time he opens his mouth to speak.
“He hurt me Rowan.” I manage to crack out in a rough croaking voice that reveals just how close to the surface my tears still are. I don’t want to cry but I know I will. I can’t switch it off anymore because I don’t need too.
“I know.” His answer is swift and clipped. He tries to get himself comfortable in the seat next to me. He seems awkward and fidgety tonight. He wanted to know and if I don’t do this now I never will.
I suck in a long breath before I can begin to retell the horrors of my marriage.
“No, you don’t Rowan. You don’t know at all.” I slump my shoulders forwards defeated and ready to let him hear what has been my reality for the last eight years.
I retell the story of my wedding night the beating and rape and as the words flow out of me I feel lighter like its wiping it out of me, but as I let it all go I see the pure rage building behind Rowan’s eyes, they are no longer soft they burn with all the fire that is in him. I know he is not a good man and his eyes betray him now showing me the fires that burn in his soul are hotter than those in hell. His big hands are fisted in front of him as he leans forward on his knees trying not to look at me, trying not to snap and break with burden of my father’s sins. I explain to Rowan who Renzo is and why he chose me to be his wife, that my suffering was penance for him losing his mother and her unborn child. Rowan doesn’t say a word as I relay the countless ways in which I was broken and beaten and stripped of my humanity, he doesn’t need to say anything I can see the anger winding every muscle in his body tighter with each word I speak. I don’t tell him about my babies. I cannot share that with anyone. Their little hearts are my sadness to carry alone.
“He burned me, scared my skin, stabbed me, beat me and kicked me every chance he got. Never my face, hands or below my knees so no one could ever see how broken my body was. But the scars will never be gone they may fade a little but they will remind me of that devil forever.”
I stop talking and we just sit there in silence I feel like the weight of ten trucks has been lifted off my soul now that my torment is not only my own but I can see that all I have done is make it Rowan’s. He sits with his head cradled in his big hands looking down at the floor between his knees he has moved as far away from me as the couch will allow but I can feel the heat of his anger burning off him from where I sit. I close my eyes and let a few last tears escape as I sit and try to just breathe. Rowan’s jaw is ticking like a time bomb he is clenching it so tightly I am scared of his anger and what may follow.
“Show me. Show me every mark he made on you so I can make him pay for it Ellia, get up and show me.” His words are loaded with rage and vengeance and bring me right out of the peace I had found seconds before. I cannot show him my body my broken body. My body cannot be fixed, my mind maybe, just maybe. My eyes tell him that I can’t pleading with him to leave this alone. “Now Ellia!” He yells loudly scaring me and I my brain reverts back to victim back to
prey back to do as you are told so you won’t hurt as much. Just do it, switch off and do as you are told little one.
The steady flow of tears pour down my face as I stand up and begin to remove my clothes I can do nothing to hide my humiliation at what he will see now. I am used to being forced to strip for Renzo to inspect his torture many times. I take down my pants without looking at Rowan’s face I don’t want to see his face I don’t want to see what he sees and I know those eyes won’t lie. I lift my shirt over my head and close my eyes as hard as I can and I stand there as still as I can. I can’t stop the tears they just flow and my breaths are shallow. I know Rowan is looking at me, at every burn mark at every unstitched cut at the horrendous scar on my shoulder. I know what he sees, I know, I see it in the mirror every day and it’s ugly, as ugly as my life has been for eight long years. I am ugly. I can’t do this anymore I am going to be sick I turn my back to him so he cannot see my face as I try not to wretch. I hear his low gasp as he sees my back and I crumble to floor heaving and sobbing and broken. Even more broken than I was when I walked in here because now someone knows. He has seen my ugly and he knows he can’t fix it now. Now he understands.
I hear him move his bare feet across the floor, please don’t touch me, please don’t. The door clicks closed he just leaves me in my little pile on the floor. Every scar on my body burns with the same pain as the day the wound was made as I just lay there in a broken mess of tears and my ugly naked body. I am paralyzed to move. My heart is still thundering, maybe it will have a heart attack and I can finally just die. That sliver of light that I saw when I wanted to live, is gone again.
Colour My Ugly Page 7
