by Yessi Smith
No one hears a child’s cry. The sound of screaming and breaking glass in a sorrow filled house go unnoticed by the neighbors, too preoccupied with their own lives. The silent fear is all consuming until even leaving your room brings on a terror that makes the boogeyman look friendly.
They hear the laughter though. The lies that fall so easily from my lips. Feinted feelings are far more welcome than the emptiness that embodies me.
You don’t know my name but you’ve heard my story countless times before. That of an abused child. An unloved little boy. Ignored by society.
I am more than my story though. More than the doubt, the shame, the hurt.
Because of her. She saved me. Her family saved me.
She is my hope, the light in my darkened life. And every day I love her more.
I should’ve chosen her. It was always supposed to be her.
“Why’d you let me leave?”
Her eyes, swollen and red, spill over with tears and I lose my footing at her words.
“Why didn’t you fight for me?”
I open my mouth, gasping for air, but drown in her accusatory tears.
I don’t bother explaining. None of the words I have for her would undo the damage I’ve already done.
She closes her eyes to me and the future we never had and turns her head away as she hugs her arms around herself. The quiet between us is so loud I can hear her every thought damning me for betraying her.
“Yan.” I reach for her, but the words stop there.
I can’t think. I shake my head, defeated once again by the world and her sharp edges.
Worn shoes and tattered clothes are a direct contradiction to how I carry myself. Even when the smell rolling off my body turns my empty stomach, I keep my shoulders squared and my head held high. Not that it matters. No one looks directly at me anyway.
But I see myself – the vision of broken glass bleeding on society – but I won’t succumb to the hunched figure of a tired man. Society won’t see the fragility of my grief or my desperation for help.
No, what they see is the reality I paint for them. A cold figure with sun burnt skin and a pitiless smile I grant them with if they look in my direction. Wincing, they turn away to look at anything but me.
I’m worse than invisible. At least the invisible can’t be seen.
Me? I’m an outcast. Deplorable by definition. Unworthy. Unapproachable.
Alone. My only human contact comes from rushed figures pushing past me as I walk on the sidewalk to make my way home from work.
Home. The word itself is laughable. As if I have a home.
I have places I stay. A couch I sleep on. But no actual home to speak of.
There’s days though – days like today, that I don’t want the company of my old pastor. That I don’t want a couch or a bed or even a corner to sleep in. I just want myself. My eternal silence where all there is to hear is the crashing of every broken dream I’ve had since youth.
The rain compliments my damp mood so it’s only fitting for me to be outdoors for a while. Unemployed from a job I never really needed. A martyr made to survive off scraps because of a dignity I can’t be stripped of. It’s all I have, because they took away everything else. I don’t know what I’ve done to piss karma off, but she’s an unforgiving bitch. Relentless in delivering her punishments to me.
In my worn shoes and my tattered clothes, I lie down on the concrete floor outside of an abandoned building and let the sky’s tears fall on my face. The cold rain makes my teeth chatter as lightning flashes above me.
A lifetime ago, I felt the gentle caress of a palm on my cheek. And damnit to hell, I want it back. I want her back. The familiarity of her touch. The lull of her voice. Her eyes that could see past every mask I wore, the answers to questions I never asked, the promises I made to her, knowing I could never keep them.
Her warmth soothed me, made me whole.
Yanelys.
I met Yanelys when we were eight years old. She was my beginning, the reason I started living and I always thought she’d be there until the end. From the moment I met her, she became my constant. When my parents fought, I’d sneak out of my bedroom window and into her bedroom, knowing she’d keep her window unlocked in case I needed her. When the police arrested my parents and took me away, it was her parents that gave me a home after my social workers deemed them fit as my guardians. And when we were teenagers living under the same roof, I’d sneak into her room and crawl into her bed, needing her to hold me together.
The only time we had been away from each other was when I lived in a group home. My life at the home wasn’t optimal, but it was safe. Which somehow made everything worse.
I was twelve years old and away from my best friend. My safety blanket, who knew all my secrets and kept her promise to never expose them until she felt she no longer had a choice. I’ve never held that against her. Even on the longest nights on a hard lumpy bed, I’d count my blessings with every inhale and exhale. I was alive because of her. My parents would have beaten me to death if she hadn’t told someone.
The day she told her parents, her dad showed up at my house and held my parents at gunpoint until the police got there while Yanelys and her mom broke into my room through the window and stayed with me until the ambulance arrived. That night I thought God finally saw me. I was safe.
But then they took me away. Sure, no one hurt me while I was at the group home and Yanelys and her parents would come visit me, but it wasn’t the same. I could no longer make that split second decision to seek out Yanelys when I couldn’t cope.
And there was so much I couldn’t cope with back then. There’s still so much I can’t cope with.
Starting with Yanelys’s tears.
She’s the one who pieced me together when I was nothing more than a jig saw puzzle with missing pieces.
And I’m the one who tore us apart, ripping my heart straight out of my chest in the process. It’s okay though. I have no use for a heart without her anyway.
Forced or not, it was my decision, my doing.
My consequences.
There was never ever going back on that decision. I knew it the minute I walked away from her. I felt the ache in my bones with the emptiness she left behind.
I arch my back so that I can reach into my back jeans pocket and take out my wallet, knowing exactly where I’ll find Yanelys’s old high school picture.
It’s worn, far worse than my clothes, with the edges wrinkled and torn. I touch her face, tracing her full lips with my finger. Her light brown eyes look back at me, reminding me of the carefree young woman I fell in love with. Her smile isn’t just permanently fixed in the picture but inside of me as well.
Since I can no longer go to her to ease away my troubles, it’s the memory of her smile that does it for me. The passion we shared that made me feel like I could conquer everything, including myself. It was the same passion, the same unconquerable demons within me that made me leave. Every time she smiled at me, touched me, breathed the same air as me, my heart threatened to break through its cage. To not just love her, but let her know of that love.
But I wasn’t a fairy tale, and newsflash, the beast never turns into a prince.
My scars run deeper than mere flesh wounds. They’re a part of my soul, having seared themselves into the fiber of who and what I am.
When the rain stops, I put away Yanelys’s picture, touching the outline of her dirty blonde hair and stand up from the hard floor to make my way inside the vacant building. Shoulders hunched to keep me warm, I am now the vision of the tired, lonely man I’ve become. After I find a room and huddle in the corner, I close my eyes and allow the loud thunder to lull me to sleep.
I don’t think of Yanelys, or the job that I lost. I don’t think about where my tomorrow’s will lead me. I only think of the rain, hitting the rooftop like a million heartbeats.
Inferno. That’s what I wake up to.
A smoldering, all-encompassing fire flares and leaps in all
directions. Orange embers twirl in a fiery dance while clouds of dark smoke wind itself around the room I’m staying in, making it difficult to see, let alone breathe.
I hack out a cough, waving my hand in front of my face in a futile attempt to see what’s ahead of me.
Smoke. Fire. Hell. That’s all there is to see.
From a distance, sirens grow louder as the firefighters race toward me and the burning building, but the idea of them entering the building is ludicrous. An abandoned building where only squatters would stay. No one worth risking your life for. No one worth saving.
I clamp my shirt over my mouth and nose and run, not knowing if I’m running toward safety or more danger. But running’s better than sitting and admitting defeat. A wall of heat meets me, threatening to burn my lungs before the fire even touches my skin.
I cough again, this time falling to my knees as saliva drips from my mouth onto the floor. My body weeps as the fiery storm nears me, the weight of the smoke settling in the silent corners of defeat. My frantic heart roars, refusing defeat as darkness clings onto me, threatening me with the truth.
The fire is too big, too wild. And I know… The fire will devour me and all they’ll find of me will be ashes. And finally, I’ll be set free.
Nine years old
Yan + Cam = 4-ever
I scribble that all over the outside of my journal until every inch is covered in our names. When Camden walks into my room, I show him my work and he nods, a stray strand of his dark hair falling over his forehead and into one of his bright blue eyes, the one with a speck of hazel that grows with his emotions.
Camden isn’t just my best friend, but the boy I’m going to marry. He doesn’t like the idea of getting married though. To anyone, not just me. He thinks people come to hate each other when they get married, but I know that’s not how it works. I promise him that’s not how it works.
His parents hate each other because they’re hateful people. They probably hate the sun for shining too brightly or the night sky for being too dark.
Hateful, mean, horrible people.
Not at all like Camden, who lets happiness in, even when he’s in his darkest place.
I hate his parents. More, I hate that I can’t protect him, and that he won’t let me.
“Do you ever think about running away?” I ask him and turn my attention to the inside of my journal that details my everyday life, mostly with Camden.
“I used to.” I don’t look up but I feel him shrug his shoulders.
“Why’d you stop?”
“I met you.” His voice is calm, confident, but he shuffles his feet, his uncertainty bouncing between us.
“I’d run away with you.” I look up from my journal into his unsmiling face and wring my hands together on my lap, anticipating his reply.
“Your parents would find you.” Camden’s matter of fact tone makes my heart hurt.
“We could go somewhere they’d never find me.”
“Your parents love you.” He flinches on the word ‘love’ as if it were a bad word that left a bad taste in his mouth. “They’ll always find you.”
“That’s true.” It’s my turn to shrug my shoulders and then point my attention back to the journal but keep my eyes trained on Camden. “I love you, Cam, which means I’ll always find you too.”
Camden exhales a loud breath, his nose whistling in the process.
“One day I’ll leave, Yan,” he says, his eyes looking away from me and toward a future I can’t see. A future he doesn’t want me to see. “When I do, no one will find me.”
“I will.” I cup his chin with my hand, making him look at me, but after a short second his eyes dart to the corner of my room.
“I’ll make it so I can’t even find me.” He folds his arms over his chest and continues to look away from me defiantly.
“I’ll always find you.”
He opens his mouth to answer, probably another smart retort, but stops when his cell phone chirps. An angry ring that drains him of the will to speak. I know that look, and I know what it means.
“Will you come over tonight?” I ask him, knowing I’ll leave the window to my bedroom open regardless of his answer.
“Yeah,” he breathes, still not looking at me, but I see the dread building behind his eyes and just once I wish I could save him. “You really think we can do it?”
I immediately know what he’s talking about and my heart fills with fear. Not for myself or for Camden. But for my parents, and the idea of them waking up one morning and finding me missing. I’d do it for Camden though. To keep him safe. To keep him with me.
“Sure.” I smile.
“Then you’re stupider than me.” He walks out of my room without even looking at me or acknowledging the tears suddenly falling down my face.
I’m not stupid, I ball my hands into tight fists. I’m just a girl desperately in love with a boy who’s hurting more than I can bare.
After dinner, I read a chapter of some book my mom wants me to read from every night and then take a quick shower and brush my teeth. I do it all without argument, because I’m ready to go to bed. I’m ready to wait for Camden to sneak into my bedroom and lie in bed with me.
What I’m not ready for is the bruise beneath his left eye. No matter how angry his parents get, they never mark him somewhere others can see. Never. It’s like some unspoken law between them.
Brushing the covers to the side, I swing my legs over the bed and with two long steps I’m by my window lightly touching Camden’s face while he looks at anything but me. My thumb runs over the blue bruise that can no longer hide the hurt. The filthy stain of his parents’ hatred run across his face.
Camden stands there, motionless aside from the rise and fall of his chest so when I kiss his cheek I’m surprised when he puts his arms around me. I hug him to me, wanting to take away the hurt and the fear, but he winces when I hug him too tight.
“I’m okay,” he reassures me, but I know better. He’ll never be okay as long as he lives with his mom and dad.
“What did he do?” I ask referring to his dad. His mom is just as awful as his dad, but it’s usually his dad that delivers the beatings while his mom watches with a glass of wine in her hand.
“Can we just lie down?” Camden looks at my bed longingly, his eyes unblinking as he shrinks away from his reality, and I already know I could never say no to him. No matter what he wants, my answer will always be yes.
I take his hand in mine and lead us to my bed where I climb in first and then scoot to the other side so Camden has room to lie down. With slow movements, Camden climbs into bed with me and lowers himself, hissing in pain as he lies flat on his back. My hand reaches for his again and our fingers interlace with one another. My chest aches as I listen to Camden’s quiet pleas, calling me, pulling me to him.
“Tonight, can we play pretend?” he asks me and I nod even though I want to ask him about what’s hurting him when I hugged him and now when he lied down.
“What are we pretending?”
“Tonight, I want to be a white knight in shining armor.”
Sorrow hits me, my amazing Camden who’s already my white knight, braver than any other knight out there because he fights dragons every day, has no idea who he is. Playing along with him, I ask him, “What’s your horse’s name?” His body shifts slightly and pain temporarily crosses his face as he tries to readjust his body into a more comfortable position. “All knights have horses,” I explain. “So, what’s your horse’s name?”
He thinks about it for a long time and when he thinks up a name, a big, beautiful smile spreads across his face, the hazel in his left eye growing with his joy.
“Stark,” he replies and I roll my eyes.
“You can’t name your horse after Tony Stark.”
“I just did.”
“Whatever.” I roll my eyes again, but lean my body closer to his so that my breath lands on his bruised cheek. “Do you and Stark save princesses?”
“
No.” He shakes his head once, disgust crossing his face. “Saving people is stupid.”
“What kind of knight doesn’t save people?” My brows furrow in question.
Camden sighs and turns his attention to my ceiling. “Yan, in the real world, the knight doesn’t become a knight to save anyone but himself. No one cares about him or sees him until he becomes a knight.”
Emotion crosses over his face, pain darkening his eyes, as blood drains from my own.
“That’s not true, Cam.” I give our still interlaced fingers a quick squeeze to make sure I have his attention. “I see him. I care.”
Camden squeezes my fingers in return and then turns his whole body so that he’s lying on his side. His chest heaves from the pain and exertion, but the only way Camden can fall asleep is on his side, our faces so close to each other, our noses touching, our breath uniting us.
When Camden closes his eyes, I reach over to him and comb my fingers through his medium length hair.
“I care, Cam,” I repeat to him. “Don’t you ever forget it.”
He opens his eyes and stares at me for a long time before he shuts them again. On a whisper, he says, “I care too, Yan.”
Walls and smoke surround me. Only the smoke has hands that lash out and grip me, throw me, hit me. Rather than choke me, they beat me, blaming me for living. The smoke then turns into them and his hatred consumes me while her screams make me cower.
I am nothing. Nothing but a worthless burden.
A scream echoes in the distance and I hear a boy cry into the night, begging for help. I feel his pain, his loneliness and fear and follow it through the thickening cloud of smoke until I’m kneeling in front of a little boy. Dark curls cover his bruised cheek while red tear filled eyes look up at me.
“You’re not alone,” I tell him. “You still have her.”
You’re not alone yet. You still have her. But one day, you won’t. Only then will you truly know what loneliness feels like.
I keep those words to myself, but the boy hears them anyways. It’s too much for him to bear and he cups his hands over his ears and screams while the smoke strikes at both of us, whipping us, leaving marks on our back and chest.