Dans Vie en Vie

The sky was a dark color; no moon was shining on the town below. The wind was picking slowly and in front an apartment building it was a strange mix of mystery and a bad feeling. In one of the apartments, a child was looking through the small opening of the door. A woman and a man were both drinking alcohol and smoking.

“Those were my parents.” The woman looked warily to the man, both having blurry eyes. Their fingers on the bottles were miserable. The whole room was miserable, with hospital white walls, food thrown around as well as empty bottles of beer, wine, vodka, etc. “I was just a small girl. I loved my parents even if they were drunk most of the time.” The woman looked back into her daughter’s eyes. She smiled softly, almost looking as an ordinary mother. The child backed off while the woman simply walked slowly to her. The kid closed his eyes. “I was afraid even if I didn’t know why. The bruises on my body were remembering me about last night, and the nights before. They were my parents and I loved them.” The mother grabbed a belt from the dresser and launched to the frightened child. “But that was enough.”

“How did they die?” The girl’s voice scoffed.

“It was a usual day.” The man and the woman were drunk, laughing at something the other had to say. The kid was again, looking from the small opening of the door. She had new bruises on her arms and legs and her eyes were red and sore. She has been crying. “I knew I was in danger. I wanted to run away so many times but they caught me every time and they punished me.” The scene changes to one of the few times the girl tried to run away. She ended up crying into her pillow. “But this time…this was the real deal. Unfortunately for them, and luckily for me…they got interrupted” The man opens the door and sees a stranger, an old lady that seemed to realize what was happening in the small apartment. “They got into a fight. I thought it would be my only chance. I took the closest empty bottle I found and…” The man and the woman were full of blood, dead, their eyes opened. The kid was standing there, watching expressionless, the bottle thrown away somewhere into the room. People started swaying around her, the images changing, people moving the furniture, yet she was standing there, not moving at all.

“What happened next?”

“What always happen. I got into an orphanage.” The scene changes, the girl finds herself into a much nicer and cleaner room. She has a bed, a table and a roommate. “Every time I would watch the walls, those happy smiling faces, the smiling children around me. It was sickening.” The scene changes again and the now older girl, a teenager, is at school. “My life changed after my parents died.” She wasn’t really laughing but the girl was truthfully having a fun time with her new made friends.

“You never had friends before, right?” She chuckled.

“No. It was a new feeling to me. Having someone to talk to and share my feelings with. Someone who cared. But I was wrong.” One of her friends shoved her into the wall.

“Why didn’t you tell me (that guy) asked you out? I told you I like him! I thought-“ The girl’s voice started saying the same line at the same time.

“I thought we were friends. That’s what she said. One of my supposed best friends.”

“You got mad.” She nodded.

“I did. At the same time, I lost my trust into other people and I became what I’ve been scared I will…”

“The new subject for rumors.” The scene changes, on the halls, teenagers look strangely at the girl. She tries to hide her face but someone throws a piece of folded paper at her. She doesn’t stop. “What were the rumors about?” She scoffed. She didn’t want to respond. It hurt her to even remember those times. “Ella, what were they saying?” His stare was so intense and his voice simply obliged her to respond.

“There were different rumors. The one that hurt the most was the one that I killed my parents.”The scene changes again and she finds herself in another room, on a chair in front of another chair.

“You ended up at the school’s therapist.”

“Yes. That room became a routine after a few days. She asked me so many questions about my past. She was sure I will lose control at one point.”

“She told you that?” There was a small silence.

“Yes. And she was right. I did lose it.” When she arrived at school, on one of the days, she found…”Pictures of a girl, drawn with red paint…bad drawings of how they thought I killed my parents.”

“How did they know what you hated, what were you afraid of?” The scene changes again, it’s before the rumors started, before the nightmare started. She was in the art class. The teacher told them to paint people in a whatever place they wanted. She stopped and looked at the white paper. She started to draw a girl in a room, her face sad and when she was ready to make another figure she stopped.

“I can’t do it” She whispered. The girl next to her looked questioningly at her.

“She helped me. She understood. That’s how they found out. I hated her.” The tone in her voice became venomous. “I hated her so much.”

“And what did you do?”

“Nothing. I wasn’t able to do anything.” The scene changes back to the present. The memories were fading away. The therapist looked from behind his desk to the female in front. She looked sad but at the same time, she looked furious. “I did nothing all this time. I didn’t have the courage to forget and live in the present. Now I will always be afraid that at some point in my life, the past will come back and haunt me.” She sighed, bent her head down and looked to one side, her face expressionless.