Losing Leah

by Tiffany King

  White-hot gratification coursed through my skin. My flesh seared as my arm began to shake, but I held firm until the pain eclipsed what I felt in my heart. I clicked off the lighter, admiring the burn that was severe, and yet soothing at the same time. My hand shook as I pulled out the tube of burn cream I had snagged from the medicine cabinet. The ointment burned nearly as much as the flame had, but I dabbed it on my sore gingerly, feeling content as I rewrapped my arm. I couldn’t imagine this would go over well with Mom or Dr. Marshall, which is why I kept the burns small and hidden.

  I fell asleep with my head resting against the mound of pillows that felt too comfortable beneath my head. Too extravagant. I would never admit it to anyone but I sorely missed my small thin pillow that always smelled of bleach. It had always served its purpose. Not once in all the time I’d been away did I ever give any thought to the thinness of that pillow. Life was so much simpler. I didn’t want to return to my prison. I just missed certain aspects. Judy. I missed her, as morbid as that sounded. After everything she had done to me. The lies. The beatings. Beneath years of mental and physical torment she had been the only thing I’d ever known. I felt like Judas for even thinking about her. What would people think of me? Mom would be crushed if she knew.

  My conflicting thoughts carried into my dreams, pulling and tugging at me.

  Judy was standing over me in my small, narrow bed, screeching at me to get up. I jumped from my bed, afraid of being punished by the leather strap she held in her hand. A tugging on my arm brought my attention to a second person in my prison. A person who shouldn’t have been there. A person who had never showed up despite the million tears I’d shed. Mom was suddenly in my prison. She held my arm in a death grip, making it ache painfully as she attempted to drag me away. Judy’s face contorted in anger, changing from pale to a deep purple shade almost instantly. She raised the leather strap high in the air, bringing it down sharply.

  I jerked awake before the strap could rip away a layer of skin. The pillows beneath my head were damp with sweat. Gasping, I tried to dislodge the scream that was still stuck in my throat. The arm Mom had gripped in my dream ached painfully beneath the bandage I’d applied earlier.

  It was just a dream.

  A nightmare.

  My gasps eventually subsided, leaving behind a throat as dry as the Sahara. Climbing from my bed, I left the mound of pillows and the last remnants of the nightmare behind as I headed out of my room. On quiet feet, I felt my way down the dark hallway. I was the master of moving around without detection. A muffled sound caused me to pause before I could descend the stairs. I turned to look behind me. Jacob’s door was firmly closed without a trace of light. Mom’s door though was open a crack and partially lit. The sound came again. This time I could make out a half sob. Indecision rooted me in place. It was obvious Mom was crying. I felt a stirring in my gut. It took me a moment to rationalize what the stirring was. Sadness. I felt sad that something had upset her enough to make her weep in her room well into the night.

  Without conscious thought my feet moved down the hallway. I paused outside her door, wondering how’d I gotten there. The sobs were louder standing outside her room. They were gut-wrenching, tearing at my very soul. How could I comfort her? We barely even knew each other. Knowing this did not stop me from peeking carefully into the room.

  Mom sat in the center of her bed with her head bowed. Pictures were strewn across her comforter as if they had rained down around her. In the dim light I could make out some of the images of a much younger me. A younger me that I didn’t even remember. She was surrounded by memories that were no longer me.

  Swallowing hard to dislodge the cantaloupe-sized lump that had formed in my throat, I started to back away when I saw what she held in her arms. Air escaped my lungs in a whooshing sound that would have been heard if not for her sobbing.

  Her body was curled around the object I dreamed about, thought about, missed for an eternity. Nestled in her arms was the thing that had started it all.

  Daisy, my old doll.

  30

  MY NEW friends were the only thing that made school tolerable. They had accepted me into their circle in spite of the fact that we seemed to be on display every single day. I had hoped that everyone’s morbid fascination with me would have worn off by now, but the stares and finger-pointing and whispering still followed me everywhere I went. I hated that it was disrupting my friends’ lives also.

  “Fuck that,” Heather said, reacting to another of my apologies. “It should be them apologizing. No offense, Mia, but all it’ll take is some new drama to start around here and you’ll be old news. Besides, next year when we’re seniors we’ll be running the show. I’m thinking about running for student council. Maybe you should run for office too.”

  I blanched at her words. I’d rather swan dive off Niagara Falls in the middle of winter. “No, thank you,” I said, shifting on the concrete bench to get more comfortable.

  The mild weather outside enticed us to escape the fishbowl atmosphere of the cafeteria for the small area behind the building. The students called the space “The Quad,” though it really wasn’t anything more than a concrete slab roughly the size of a basketball court. By most standards it was bleak—no trees or grass. Just a handful of picnic tables that were quickly claimed.

  Normally The Quad was untouchable, but Heather had staked out a table earlier when I expressed a desire for a break from the constant stares. The Quad was far from empty but it was better than the cafeteria.

  “Speaking of drama. Did you see Cara John freaking out on Felix again? Talk about a couple that is a walking reality show. And what about her new highlights? Train wreck,” Molly said, speaking out of the corner of her mouth.

  “Nice, Molls. I’m trying to cheer Mia up and you’re acting like everyone else.”

  “Just keeping it real. How about when you become president, you ban bad hair. That’ll cheer everybody up.”

  “Mia, just be yourself. Eventually everyone will realize you’re no different from anyone else,” Katie said quietly, setting her book down to look at me.

  “Well, you know that and I know that, and our future president here knows that, but until the novelty of Mia’s kidnapping dies down, she’s different to everyone here at school who has seen her face plastered all over the TV screens,” Molly proclaimed.

  I fidgeted uncomfortably. My new friends had been careful to avoid talking about my kidnapping during the short time we had known each other. It wasn’t that I was keeping my past from them. Considering how much the news had reported my story, everyone knew more about my life than I was comfortable with anyway. It just felt nice not to talk about the heavy stuff. I got enough of that from Dr. Marshall. I pondered Molly’s words, weighing them in my head. It made sense. How long would it take for people to forget though? That was the question.

  “I agree. It’s their loss,” Heather said, stealing one of my chips. “Besides, I’m selfish. I like having you all to ourselves. Case in point.” She pointed to a guy staring at me as he passed us on his way back into the building. “Why don’t you take a picture, it lasts longer,” she called out after him.

  “Heather,” I choked out, not sure if I should laugh or cry. “Now they’re really going to talk about me.” I groaned, dropping my head into my hands.

  My friends burst into snorts of laughter. I couldn’t help joining in after a minute. How could I stay mad at them? Our conversation moved to lighter topics after that, much to my relief.

  My classes were mostly repetitive of everything I’d already learned on my own. How ironic that as much as everyone preached about all the wrong Judy had done, my education had been stellar by comparison. Even Mr. Knight’s class had become tedious. All the teachers seemed preoccupied with spring break that was approaching fast. I began to wonder why I was even there.

  Things at home were equally strained. Most times it was still tense and awkward. We were all trying to pretend to be a normal family, but something f
elt slightly off. Nobody wanted to say what that something was, but I knew it was me. I was the squeaky wheel on a once-functional bicycle. To make matters worse, I hadn’t heard from Gunner again. I tried texting him, but he never answered back. I had the nagging feeling he was giving me the brush-off.

  My sessions with Dr. Marshall weren’t much better. We had hit a stalemate on what I was willing to share with her. She pushed me to open up more about my childhood and the punishments I’d received. She tried to convince me that the road to recovery would only be forged when I began to let go of all the secrets I was holding deep inside. She poked and prodded, but the more she tried to get the truth out of me, the more I stubbornly resisted. By the end of my second month home, I could tell she was becoming frustrated.

  “Tell me about your friends at school,” she asked after I deflected her line of questioning about my early years with Judy yet again.

  “Molly and Heather?” I asked, looking up from the patterns I was tracing on my leg with my fingernail.

  “And the quiet one. What was her name again?”

  “Katie,” I said, wondering why she had brought them up again. I tried talking about my friends a lot the first few weeks, but at the time Dr. Marshall seemed more interested in digging into my childhood with gusto. It was a clever strategy on her part to bring them up again, but I wasn’t stupid. She just wanted to distract me and get me talking about Judy’s punishments. If she wanted to continue the tug-of-war, so be it.

  “Tell me more about them. You eat lunch together every day?”

  I scraped my nail across my skin, liking the way it puckered. “Yes, and share a couple classes too. It’s not like anyone else wants to sit with me. Everyone else is too busy watching me like a circus show. I thought you said they’d get over it.”

  She drummed her fingers on her desk. “Why do you think that is?”

  “I don’t know. You’re the specialist, right? You tell me,” I said sarcastically. It felt good to unload. If she knew so much, why hadn’t she given me the secret formula to get all the bitches at school to stop giving me a hard time?

  She scribbled something on her notepad, but didn’t rise to the bait. “Do you and your friends ever attempt to invite anyone else to eat with you? Is it possible some of the other kids feel excluded?”

  I snorted. “You’re kidding, right? The way other kids treat me is our fault? Besides, why would my friends exclude anyone? They welcomed me with open arms.”

  “Yes, but the four of you might be unintentionally discouraging interaction.”

  I shook my head at her mid-sentence. The other kids had no problem interacting with me throughout the day with their snide comments and finger-pointing. My friends just didn’t take any crap. That was the difference at lunch. “It’s just easier with us four,” I finally answered in frustration.

  “Why do you think that is?”

  I groaned. I hated this line of questioning. It was as if Dr. Marshall was searching for a certain answer and instead of asking me directly, she took the long way to get there. It was like we were tiptoeing around the issue. “I don’t know. Maybe they hate everyone else too,” I answered.

  “Why?”

  Of course, why—why—why, that was all she ever asked. I should save us the step and say it for her. “Because everyone else is a bunch of assholes and my friends probably already know that,” I said, raising my voice.

  At least there was no point in Dr. Marshall asking “why” again. I had already given her a hundred examples of what my classmates had done. Clearly, they were assholes.

  My session ended before we could delve into the subject any further. I couldn’t help noticing that she looked troubled as I stood up and gathered my stuff. It was unsettling to see her eyebrows drawn together and the small frown on her face. I debated asking her if she was okay, but our relationship didn’t stretch that far. As a matter of fact, I knew next to nothing about Dr. Marshall except for the small bits I’d gleaned from walking around her office. Obviously, she was extremely intelligent. The countless certificates and accolades that lined her walls testified to that. She wasn’t one to collect knickknacks though, which made it hard to figure out what she liked. She only had one framed picture in her office and it was of her and an elderly woman who looked like an older version of her. I had tried to ask on another occasion if she was married or had children, but she always deftly sidestepped my questions. I figured it had something to do with the whole patient/doctor confidentiality thing.

  I tossed a wave over my shoulder, telling her I’d see her again on Friday. Jacob was waiting outside to pick me up since Mom worked late on Wednesdays. “How was your session?” he asked when I climbed into his car.

  “Same. I sit there while she tries to shrink my brain.” I grinned at him while I buckled my seat belt.

  He laughed. “Nice. You’re getting good at that.”

  Jacob and Kevin had made it their mission to teach me the finer points of humor. Admittedly, I was a bit of a stiff for a while. Now I practiced all my jokes on them. Most were lame, but I was catching on. Humor was an odd concept for me. I wasn’t exactly exposed to many funny things for ten years. I’d found humor in books on occasion, but firsthand experience was something different.

  “Thanks,” I grinned, turning the radio up when I heard a song I liked. Music was definitely one of my favorite parts of my new life. I couldn’t get enough of it. “Where’s Kevin?” I asked when my song ended and I turned the radio back down to a conversation level.

  “Working. The water park’s getting busy now because of different counties starting spring break. Just one more week and we’ll get to chill at the beach on our break too.”

  I smiled broadly. Shortly after I was released from the hospital, Mom had taken me to the beach, but a cold front had kept me from getting the real beach experience. To make up for it, Mom had reserved a condo on the beach for the entire week we’d be on spring break. A week away from school, and the beach as an added bonus. I was beyond excited.

  “I can’t wait.”

  “Me either, kid. It’s been ages since we’ve been on a vacation.”

  “I don’t even remember going on one. Did we go on vacation before?”

  Jacob looked sideways at me before answering. “We went on our best ones before, you know? You don’t remember the Disney Cruise to the Bahamas?”

  I shook my head, searching for the memory. Cruise ships were huge. How could I forget I’d been on one? I closed my eyes, trying to recall anything to help me remember. “Nope,” I answered. “How old was I?”

  “Four or five, I think. You seriously don’t remember? You got sick the first night on the ship and puked everywhere. I think Mom was tempted to throw you overboard. The staff felt so bad for you they gave you a big stuffed Goofy. I was totally jealous.”

  “Ha, you’re so funny.” His words though triggered something in my subconscious and a memory I had long forgotten slowly unraveled. The more I thought about it, the more I did remember throwing up all over the stairwell. And the Goofy stuffed animal. I remember it was almost as tall as I was. I dragged it everywhere I went, insisting that he get his own seat during dinner. More memories flooded my mind. I could recall the waterslide that flowed into a pool in the shape of Mickey Mouse’s head. The memories were faint, but at least they were there. “I do remember it. Didn’t you lose your swimsuit on the slide?” I asked, laughing.

  He groaned. “Of course you’d remember that part.”

  I grinned. “What other trips did we take?”

  “We went to Yellowstone once, but we were both too little to remember much there. Mom has a whole photo album of pictures if you want to look at them.”

  I scratched a fingernail across my leg. I had avoided all our family albums since coming home. Mom tried to get me to look at them, thinking a glimpse into my childhood before Judy intervened would help jog my memories, but I couldn’t bring myself to see the images of a past that was taken from me. “What trips did
you take after?” I asked, ignoring Jacob’s suggestion.

  He gripped the steering wheel hard for a moment before answering. “We really only went on one and it was pretty much a disaster. Mom refused to leave the state, so we went to some local resort. I don’t even remember the name. Mom and Dad spent the whole time fighting while I tried to ignore them by pretending I was digging a hole to China in the sand. I wanted to escape their endless fighting once and for all. Dad moved out as soon as we got home so I guess I got my wish,” he said, smiling dryly.

  “What were they fighting over?” Like I had to ask. Me. It was always me.

  Jacob didn’t answer right away. He pulled into our driveway, but neither of us climbed from the car. “Dad wanted us to take a real vacation. He was pissed though that Mom refused to leave the state. She was convinced that the moment we left we would get the call that you had been found. She never wanted to be more than one tank of gas away. Dad told her she needed to let you go, but she refused. He moved out as soon as we got home and checked out of our lives almost completely. He tries to make lame-ass, halfhearted attempts during the holidays, but it never feels genuine. He will always be a total asshole in my book. Your time in the hospital was the most I’d seen him in the last five years, so don’t go blaming yourself.”

  I nodded. Since being home I had come to understand Mom’s complete devotion to Jacob and me. At times it felt overbearing, but I could also appreciate that she was terrified of losing me again. “I’m sorry you were left to handle the fallout.”