Psyche logo

What’s Left of Me

Chapter One

By Chadlai ShadePublished 6 years ago 10 min read
Like

The nearly empty glass dropped from my hand. I felt my grip loosen and gasped, but time seemed to inch forward at a crawl. The edge tilted towards the floor, gravity’s inexorable grip drawing the last inch of wine one drop at a time into the gray shag carpet. The fabric absorbed the impact of the glass, rolling it under the table without shattering it, leaving a red stain, like blood, behind it.

How appropriate.

I observed the blush on the expensive rug in detached confusion, my hand pressed to my racing heart.

Just wine. Not my life being absorbed.

Why, then, did I feel like I was dying?

“Maddie... MADISON.”

My brother’s voice cut through the fog.

“What?” I croaked.

“I asked if you were alright. Did you hear what I said?”

I swallowed hard, feeling like I had sand in my throat, and nodded, “Yes. I heard you.”

“Are you ok?”

I shook my head, “How can you ask me that?”

Levi put his hands on his hips and cleared his throat, “I’m sorry, but I just don’t have a choice.”

Anger stirred me out of my paralysis, like frostbitten fingers in a warm bowl of water, “The hell you don’t. You could have said NO. You could have defended me.”

“Madison,” he said, his eyes bright with tears. “It’s only temporary.”

I looked out the window.

If you had told me a month ago that my brother would be committing me indefinitely to a home for the mentally ill, I would have laughed myself hoarse. Levi was my best friend, my confidante, my mentor, my partner in crime. We were inseparable. The ultimate Batman and Robin.

We weren’t always so close. Levi is over a decade older than I am, with several siblings in between, and our parents weren’t exactly the kind of couple that worried about nurturing the bonds between their children. By the time I was in kindergarten, Levi was already a freshman, and he was so involved in extra curricular activities and going out with his friends that I hardly ever saw him. He was a stranger to me.

So, when I was four years old and a creature that looked like it was just this side of roadkill crawled out of my closet and sat on the end of my bed all night, I didn’t tell Levi. I didn’t tell anyone. I wasn’t even really afraid. Fear is a learned behavior. I had no reason to fear my visitor because no one had ever told me I should. Instead I patted its matted fur and closed my eyes. When I woke up the next morning, it was gone, leaving no clues behind to tell me where it came from or where it went.

Then, when I was six years old, and spending the night with my grandmother, a large man walked right through the wall to stand in the bedroom doorway. He put a finger to his lips and shook his head and I just laid there quietly, waiting for him to say something. I didn’t remember falling asleep, just waking up and wondering who I had seen. Still, I wasn’t alarmed. Nothing bad had happened.

It was never my nighttime visitors that did me harm. I was never afraid of them.

I was afraid of my mother, who seemed determined to have my father beat me to death for sins I couldn’t remember committing.

I was afraid of my neighbor and her older brother, who forced me almost daily to touch their naked bodies.

I was afraid that the 17-year-old boy who raped me when I was nine years old would come back and do it again. I had nearly died the first time. I wouldn’t live through it again.

But I did.

Two more times, that same year.

I finally said something.

Little girls are supposed to be able to talk to their mothers. Despite all I had suffered because of her, my innocent heart still longed to be held in her arms and soothed. I mustered my courage and tried to explain an act I didn’t fully understand, just that I’d been hurt. It never occurred to me that I was describing something vile, or that it could be twisted to cast the blame on me, or that I would be questioned. Yet all it took was four words to change me from an ignorant, innocent child into a cynical, angry adolescent.

“I don’t believe you.”

That’s when I lost my mother.

Or rather, that’s when she lost me.

I don’t remember much of my childhood after that. I have snippets of memories that seem unreliable, because they have the hazy essence of dreams. I must have dragged myself through my days and nights, but their passing was so irrelevant that they left no impression on the cold, dark landscape of my mind. I have often wondered what secret pockets of information lay stored in those seemingly blank synapses, but I have no reason to pry. I choose to count the seemingly benign emptiness as a blessing. Better to believe there’s nothing worth remembering than to dig and unearth more torment.

My first real conversation with Levi happened when I was just shy of my fifteenth birthday. He was married, had a successful career, and was in town for a business trip. Rather than staying in a hotel, he’d joined us at our house for a few nights, staying in his old room in the attic, which was right next to mine.

I hadn’t always had the attic room on the left. It used to be my older sister Nicky’s room, but I had taken it over when she left for college, in the hopes that I’d have some privacy and silence away from my parents.

I’d grown so used to the isolation that I entirely forgot to lock my door.

It was the middle of November, and the bitter wind was beating against the house. The gray, achingly cold day has dimmed into a dismal, stormy night and I was crawling out of my skin. My thoughts and feelings had become so unbearable that I felt like I had died and just had yet to lie down. When I first realized it, I felt a little relief. I wasn’t jumping at shadows and voices no one else noticed. My silence attracted less attention than my world weary answers had, in school. Everything was just.. flat. Lifeless. Like me.

After a while the numbness started to make me panic. I wanted to either be dead or alive. The limbo between them was maddening. Without knowing why or where I got the idea, I found myself with a hunting knife in my hand one night and sliced neatly across my bare thigh. The sight and smell of the blood was a revelation that made my still heart pound for the first time in years.

I wasn’t just living. I was ALIVE.

The sight of my dark red blood streaming over my skin and dripping on the hardwood floors was a thrill akin to skydiving. The hint of death was there, but the adrenaline was a high that made the risk seem infinitesimal.

I knew from that first rush that I was going to do it again and again.

And so it was that on that November night, long after my addiction had reached the point of compulsion, that Levi happened to walk in as I was watching a trickle of blood meander down my arm from the deep slice I had made across my bicep. I wasn’t hiding; the knife was still in my hand. I was as lost in my drug of choice as a heroin addict. Blissfully unaware of the mask of horror that my brother had on his face when he walked into my room.

“What are you doing?!” He’d croaked, falling to his knees beside me and covering my wound with his hands.

I blinked up at him, confused momentarily by such a ridiculous question. I opened my mouth to answer, but I couldn’t think of any lie that would save me from the shame.

Levi dragged me to my feet and took me to the upstairs bathroom and closed the door behind us.

“Let’s clean this,” he said softly.

“Why are you whispering?” I asked. “No one can hear us.”

Levi looked at the door, “Are you sure?”

I nodded, “I wake up screaming all the time. No one ever hears me.”

A look of pure sorrow twisted the handsome lines of my brother’s face. Rather than comment, he turned his attention to my arm.

“This probably needs stitches... but I’ll just clean it and wrap it up.”

I shrugged, “Suit yourself.”

Levi was silent as he tended to the cut, but his brow was furrowed in such a way that it made MY head ache with the intensity. I could feel the waves of emotion rolling off of him like breakers on the beach at high tide. I watched with absent fascination as a bead of sweat made a trail over his temple and started rolling down his cheekbone.

“All done,” he said.

He washed his hands and wiped up the sink before opening the door and checking the hallway. When he was sure the coast was clear, he took me back to my room.

“Sit,” he said as he perched on the edge of my bed.

I made myself comfortable among my pillows and then looked at him, feeling an odd sinking feeling in my gut. I no longer recognized my emotions. Any feelings I had were observed at a distance, as though they were happening to someone else.

“How long have you been doing this?” He asked gently.

I thought about it, “You remember Mr. Small’s funeral? You came home for that, right?” When Levi nodded, I said, “Around then.”

Levi paled, “Maddie that was two years ago.”

I shrugged, “Yeah.”

“Why then? What happened?”

I snorted and shook my head.

“What?”

I shrugged again, “Nothing happened. Not then. Or at least, nothing new.”

“What do you mean nothing new?”

Feeling an unusual sense of freedom, and a peculiar sense of anger welling up in me, I vomited up the details of the childhood he hadn’t been home to observe. How the neighbors tortured and broke me, and stole my innocence from me. Levi started crying when I told him about the sexual abuse I had endured. His fists clenched when I told him about the people at my new school who were all too eager to add to my list of traumas. I told him every detail that no one had ever heard, words that not even a diary had been privy to, until at last my story dried up, having arrived at my numb and invisible present.

For long minutes, Levi buried his head in his hands. The trembling in his shoulders told me he was probably crying. Or angry. Or both. Part of me wanted to reassure him, but I was so out of touch with how to connect that I simply stared at him, wondering what he could possibly say in response to the things I had said.

I would never have thought that I would feel shaken from my walking death, but Levi turned to me and said something that I’ll never forget.

“I know exactly how you feel.”

trauma
Like

About the Creator

Chadlai Shade

Holding a lantern up in the dark.

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.