* * *
Getting discharged should have made her happy, but those little, white pills the doctor had prescribed her wouldn’t let her feel much of anything. They weren’t making her a vegetable, unable to move, but they were making her feel hollow, like a shell.
“Go get yourself cleaned up. I can still smell hospital all over you,” her mother spewed as she scrunched up her nose in distaste.
Chloe headed toward the bathroom, turning the light on and closing the door behind her. She hadn’t realized it until now, but she had been avoiding mirrors for this exact moment in time.
The high dose of medication might make her unable to feel, but the bile running up her throat was telling her she should be feeling something.
The right side of her face was still swollen with a slash marking her face from about two inches above her eyebrow all the way down to a now very hollow cheek. The other one was about an inch above and below the right side of her mouth. The marks were fresh and grotesque, flaming a bright red with dried up blood that faded out to red, pink, and rosy on her skin.
Chloe moved her gaze down as she slowly removed the rest of her clothes. She had been so concerned with the pain in her face at the hospital she didn’t even noticed her arms shared their own markings.
I was in a car wreck; that’s all I know. I was in a car wreck. No one hurt me.
“I don’t hear the water running.” Her mother swung open the door to reveal Chloe looking at herself with tears in her eyes. Immediately, she stepped into the bathroom, closing the door and going straight to the bathtub to run the water. “Get in.”
When Chloe didn’t move and just continued to stare at herself in shock, her mother raised her voice. “Chloe. Get. In.”
Chloe’s glazed eyes moved to look at her mother’s in the mirror. “I can clean myself.” It had been years since her mother had bathed her. Even though her brain was hazy, she could remember how rough she had been bathed, making washcloths feel like Brillo pads. As soon as she had been able take showers, she had. However, that was before her “accident,” back when she could be touched.
“Then do it without getting your stiches wet.”
Quickly, she got into the freezing tub. Picking up the washcloth, she held it under the water to give herself a sponge bath.
“You’re getting them wet …” Elaine advised harshly.
She tried to be more careful, but by this point, her vision was too blurry from tears.
“Give it to me.” Snatching away the washcloth, her mother got on the floor to reach into the tub.
Chloe started crying, afraid of the moment when her mother’s skin would touch hers.
“I can do it!”
“Clearly, you are incapable.” Elaine started scrubbing her back, pushing Chloe forward.
“Please! I can do it!” She tried avoiding her touch to no avail. The harder she tried, the harder her mother scrubbed her skin raw. No amount of tears, fighting, or pleading saved her. Much like when she had been kidnapped, it only made her captor relish in her discomfort.
It was far worse than she remembered, but that might just be because any touch was now unwelcome for Chloe.
Looking at her mother as she scrubbed furiously, in her place now stood the man who would forever haunt not only her nightmares but reality.
Four
How Does the Sight of Her Look to You Now?
Sleep no longer came for Chloe because sleep was a dangerous thing. Here, awake in her bedroom, alone, staring at the white wall, her kidnapping played before her eyes. It was as if she were watching a movie.
Sure, it scared the shit out of her, but it was better than the alternative.
Here, asleep in her bedroom, alone, with her eyes closed, her kidnapping didn’t play on the movie screen. It happened to her all over again.
She could feel hands wrapping around her neck …
The blade piercing my skin …
That was what really scared the shit out of her.
Chloe shook her tired head. No one hurt me.
It had been a while since her last dose of medication, and her mind didn’t seem as fuzzy or numb. Maybe it wasn’t a terrible nightmare that kept haunting her, but maybe it was real.
Hours passed as she sat in her misery, contemplating what was real or a dream. Finally, when she heard the footsteps come to the door, she knew she would be rescued from her thoughts, or any thoughts for that matter.
The smell that greeted her nose as her father entered the room had her wrinkling it up. She watched him stumble to her bed, almost falling over several times in the short distance.
“Dad, a-are you all right?”
His words came out harsh and slurred. “Yes-s-s. Why the f-f-fuck wouldn’t I be?”
Chloe’s heart rate started to rise from the sight of her father drunk, never having seen it before.
She sat quietly and patiently, waiting for him to quit fumbling to get the prescription bottle open.
“You-u-u open it-t.” He threw the bottle on the bed.
Grabbing up the bottle, she tried her best not to shake as she opened it and spilled out one of the little, white pills. Closing the bottle, she then quickly placed it on her nightstand, too afraid to hand the bottle to him and risk him touching her.
Maxwell snatched the bottle up forcefully, causing a huge rattling sound to fill the room before he stumbled out the way he had come in.
She sat in shock, gazing at the now closed door, hoping to never see her father come through her door like that again.
Something about him seemed … Violent, just like him …