Labyrinths of Self-destruction

Is there a way out?

Author’s note: In this story, there are descriptions of child abuse. You may pass by if it is too tough for you to read.

This story is real. It is not mine, but I have the permission to retell it. The names are changed.

I did not know what to do. Where to go.

The night was falling. December wind howled, tossing single brown leaves in the streets and crawling under my jacket. I was freezing to the bone. I’ve never been so cold. And I knew what it was like to shiver in the middle of winter, without heating, without thick clothes, with short sleeves that did not reach your wrists… I knew…

I ran away.

I ran away from the pain in my mother’s eyes, from the burning slaps on my two sides, from my little brother’s screams. I ran away like the biggest coward! I deserved to feel so cold!

Long ago, a ball of ice had appeared in the place of my heart, growing with each fear-filled day, with each hardly avoided punch, with each dry bread bite stuck in my throat.

I hated him. And I was terrified of him.

His eyes, those watery blue eyes with swollen, red lids, riveted me like a herbarium butterfly, and I couldn’t move. I was trembling. I wanted to run and hide. At the same time, I wanted to grab that knife from the kitchen table and plunge it into his heart.

I wanted to, but I couldn’t. I barely reached his massive hunched shoulders, and whenever he yelled at me to look into his hateful eyes, I had to arch my neck back to comply.

‘Look at me and do not move, you little scamp!’

He shouted, and saliva sputtered from his mouth, but I wasn’t brave enough to erase it from my face.

I clenched my fists to stop the tears. I could not cry before him! Never! He had caused enough tears. Mom and Nick had enough crying… I wasn’t going to do it. I stood looking at him without blinking, my eyes burning with dryness. If I blinked, and the tears would flow…

‘How do you dare, ah? What have you done with that money?’

I answered quietly, ‘This is my mom’s salary.’

I wasn’t going to let him challenge me. I always spoke quietly to him. Quiet. I could even see him straining to make out my words.

‘Who told you to spend it?’

‘I bought a jacket. Nick needed a new one.’

‘A jacket? He had to wear his old one! I need this money. I need something to drink!’

I kept silent. I said whatever I wanted. I was waiting. To slap me. Madness rose in his eyes. A raging madness. I knew it well. It was going to kill someone. Me. Mom. Nick.

I prayed to God to kill him! To make him jump off a cliff or in front of a car…

God, kill him! I knew it was a sin to wish for the death of another human being. But he…he wasn’t human. He was a monster.

‘Answer me, Stella!’

My name sounded like a curse from his lips.

‘I did what I had to!’ I whispered.

I saw him bending over me and thought that this might be my final life instant. I had nothing — just my miserable seventeen-year-old life. I had nothing to be sorry for except my brother Nick.

I remember when he was born. My so-called father turned back after many years of non-existence. He did not want me. He had never acknowledged I was his child. But my mom accepted him again. She wanted him. He was her lifelong redemption and punishment. Her madness.

Because it wasn’t love. Although I did not know what love was. I haven’t seen them love each other. I only saw him beat her.

He was not my father. Fathers cared for their children and did not destroy them. They did not hate them. They did not harass their mothers in front of their young eyes.

Then Nick was born. My little brother. He was like an angel. He survived, no matter how he beat my mom. He did not stop. Several times, she would lose the baby, but Nick made it. My little Nick, with the lovely blue eyes, was so much like him, our father. And at the same time, he was so different. Nick was like a fallen angel in this ugly, miserable land.

The doctors said Nick had a mental illness. Sometimes, there were epileptic seizures. Something in his brain wasn’t right. His condition was probably due to intrauterine trauma. You know who caused it. That monster. Inseminator!

I could not breathe the same air with him!

Then he slapped me. The pain didn’t surprise me. I knew it. I knew the burning. He turned as if looking for something. I slipped under his arm and ran away. I grabbed my jacket and purse from the hallway. I slammed the front door and ran as hard as I could. I didn’t know where I was running to. I didn’t even realize what I had done. I couldn’t think.

My heart was pounding against my ribs. It hurt as I breathed in… I ran… I ran… Then, I just stopped under a street lamp and leaned against it. I felt dizzy. I could barely breathe. A cold sweat ran down my back. I was boiling inside in the long run. I felt free. At the same time, I was horrified by being alone in the world. No home, no money… I was a speck of dust blown by the wind.

I kept walking to keep from freezing. Cold shivers shook me from inside. The skin of my hands looked blue. I shoved them in my pockets, but that didn’t help much. The wind caught the hood of my jacket and violently pulled it down. I stopped in a daze. What was I going to do? What would Mom and Nick do without me? How could I abandon them? At least there was some food in the fridge. I spent my mom’s salary. I had left only a small amount, enough for bread. I could not let him spend all the money on drinking.

But I was a coward. My running away didn’t solve anything.

I stopped under the light of another street lamp and looked around. There were hardly any people. And how could there be in this cold? It was almost midnight.

A voice startled me, ‘Stella, is this you?’

At first, I didn’t recognize him. Then I cringed. I lowered my eyes. Now this too! How could I meet him right now?

He said softly, ‘Don’t worry, Stella. What is going on with you?’

His warm fingers cupped my chin and turned my right cheek to the light from the lamp above us.

‘What is this? Come on! Tell me!’

‘It’s nothing. A hit…’ I murmured.

My cheek felt strangely swollen. I was going to have a bruise in the morning.

‘A hit?’ he leaned close to me, and I felt his breath with a scent of cigarette smoke.

‘No matter! Forget it! I am going home…’

He was my new Literature teacher — Velin Velkov.

He was young and eager to make us love his subject. And I fell in love with him at first sight. I liked Literature before, but after he started teaching us, it became my island of escape from the world. I looked forward to Mr. Velkov’s classes with enthusiasm and impatience that everything else that surrounded me seemed to melt away and lose shape… I flew on the wings of imagination.

He stood a step away from me, slightly narrowing his myopic eyes.

‘Where are your glasses?’ I did not know why I asked him that.

He smiled.

‘I decided not to put them, but I felt sorry all night!’

His voice was so calm. For a while, I forgot where I was.

‘Why did not you put them on? You look great with your glasses!’ I said and then blushed.

What was I doing? Did I flirt with him?

I flirted with my Literature teacher on that deserted street.

He shook his head, ‘Stella, do not change the topic, please! I am shortsighted but see well enough that someone has hit you. And what are you doing here alone? It is late in the evening!’

I tapped my feet, hoping to get the blood moving in my limbs. I raised my face. His soft-colored eyes studied me. I took a deep breath and felt the lump that squeezed my throat release. I bit my lip but couldn’t control the weakness that came over me. The tears flowed like the beginning of the biblical flood. Velkov’s eyes widened for a moment, then he reached for me, and suddenly, I found myself in his arms. He held me and talked to me soothingly, but I couldn’t hear him. No. I could only feel how warm it was in his arms and how much I needed this warmth. I was shaking with nerves and tension, cold and excitement. He waited for me to calm down. He continued to hold me so lightly, almost without applying any pressure, with his hands on my back.

And how I wanted him to hug me tightly!

What was I doing? He was my teacher! I could involve him in trouble.

I moved back and said, ‘I am so sorry!’

‘Don’t worry, Stella! Come with me in my apartment — you need to warm up, and then we will talk.’

I shook my head. I could not go there with him.

‘I live with my mother, Stella! She always waits for me when I go out, so she’ll make us some tea, and you’ll tell me what is going on with you!’

And I followed him.

My mom cried every night.

I knew she was crying for him. That monster who was supposed to be our father! I couldn’t understand what she was grieving for. He had shattered her essence into a thousand pieces, like the panes in a kaleidoscope. But each of those pieces of glass cut to the blood, to the bone. He had ruined her soul.

I did not let him ruin me and Nick.

My teacher, Mr Velkov, helped us to survive. He convinced my mom to file a complaint with the police, and we moved to a new apartment, just three of us. My so-called father had a court order not to come near us, but I was still afraid he would find us, and all would start again.

Mom kept crying and looked at me accusingly. I didn’t see those looks. If I saw them, I knew I had done the right thing.

I had saved myself. I had saved Nick. After a year, my little brother changed beyond recognition. He no longer had seizures and progressed surprisingly quickly in everything.

He would be in first grade in the fall.

And I lived to be eighteen.

I couldn’t save only my mom.

But we cannot have everything. Even a mere shred of happiness is enough.

Thank you for reading this story.

Unfortunately, not every person put to violence has the possibility to escape and survive. Many vulnerable victims suffer for years without any help.

We all must talk about that as loudly as we can.