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“Your dad won’t help you, little one.”

“Dad!”

This time I can taste my own tears in my mouth, they’re salty and when the man sees that I’m crying he laughs, leaving his hand on my cheek, “Good, you did good, Mireya.”

“Is it over?”

He leaves the bed and when he opens the door he says, “You won, I’ll come back soon to play with you again.”

When he’s gone, I crawl into the hallway and I feel sticky and cold and my pajamas are ripped and I don’t know if I am bleeding or just wet from crying or something else.

I just know it hurts and it is all over my legs and I don’t know how to make it stop. Mom opens the door of her room and sees me and her face changes all at once.

Her eyes go wide and wet, and her hands fly to me. “No! No, my baby!” she cries.

Her voice is like broken glass. She kneels down and pulls me to her chest, wrapping her arms around me tight. I press my face into her shirt. She is so small in some ways, but so strong in others, and I don’t understand how someone so small can hold me this way.

“It hurts,” I whisper, “It’s hurting.”

“I know,” she says softly, her hands stroking my hair, her fingers sticky. “I know, baby. I know it hurts.”

I peek up at her. Her eyes are red and tired. Her hair is messy and falling over her face, and there’s a scar just above her collarbone that I remember from when I was little.

Mom has her own marks, I have some too, just like her. I think she knows how it feels to be scared like this. “I—” I start, but the words get stuck. I don’t know how to tell her what happened without it sounding like I did something wrong.

She whispers my name, and it’s soft, “Shh. It’s not your fault, baby. Not yours.”

I press closer to her and notice how she’s trembling, I can feel it through her arms. I want to tell her everything, but my throat is tight, my hands still sticky, and my pajamas torn.

“I just wanted to play like you…”

She cries harder as she screams my dad’s name. But he never came.

“Why… why didn’t he—” I don’t finish the question. I don’t know if I want the answer.

She tugs me closer again, rocking slightly. “Some people… some people can’t stop it,” she says. “Focus on my voice, Reya, focus on my voice.”

“I don’t want it to hurt anymore,” I whisper.

“I know,” she says. “It won’t always. It will stop hurting so much. I promise.”

I press my cheek to hers. Her heart is racing fast, but it sounds like a song, and it’s calming me from shaking more.

And I repeat my numbers again, “13 9 18 5 25 1, 13 9 18 5 25 1…”

44

Mireya

Play - Help I’m Alive by Metric

Not yours

My eyelids flutter as something bright breaks through my vision. A groan escapes my lips as I turn around in the small twin bed, but my body shivers and I start to tremble.

Bits of last night start to run through my mind and my memory seems hazy to say the least. How did I end up here? I don’t remember coming back to the dorms.

Why do I feel so confused?