My eyes immediately dart to Holder, then back to my father. The radio drops from his hands and onto the floor in front of me. I pull myself up, still unable to scream. My father’s defeated eyes fall on mine as he slowly turns the gun. “I’m so sorry, Princess.”
The sound explodes, filling the entire room. It’s so loud. I squeeze my eyes shut and cover my ears, not sure where the sound is even coming from. It’s a high-pitched noise, like a scream. It sounds like a girl screaming.
It’s me.
I’m screaming.
I open my eyes and see my father’s lifeless body just feet in front of me. Holder’s hand clamps over my mouth and he lifts me up, pulling me out the front door. He’s not even trying to carry me. My heels are dragging in the grass and he’s holding on to my mouth with one hand and my waist with his other arm. When we reach the car, he keeps his hand clamped tight, muffling my scream. My eyes are wide and I’m shaking my head out of denial, expecting the last minute to just go away if I refuse to believe it.
“Stop. I need you to stop screaming. Right now.”
I nod vigorously, somehow silencing the involuntary sound coming from my mouth. I’m trying to breathe and I can hear the air being sucked in and out of my nose in quick spurts. My chest is heaving and when I notice the blood splattered across the side of Holder’s face, I try not to scream again.
“Do you hear that?” Holder says. “Those are sirens, Sky. They’ll be here in less than a minute. I’m removing my hand and I need you to get in the car and be as calm as you can because we need to get out of here.”
I nod again and he removes his hand from my mouth, then shoves me inside the car. He runs around to his side and quickly climbs in, then cranks the car and pulls onto the road. We round the corner just as two police cars turn the corner at the opposite end of the road behind us. We drive away and I drop my head between my knees, attempting to catch a breath. I don’t even think about what just happened. I can’t. It didn’t happen. It couldn’t have. I focus on the fact that this is all a horrible nightmare, and I just breathe. I breathe just to make sure I’m still alive, because this sure as hell doesn’t feel like life.
We both move through the hotel room door like zombies. I don’t even remember getting from the car into the hotel. When he reaches the bed, Holder sits and removes his shoes. I’ve only made it a few feet, paused where the entryway meets the room. My hands are at my sides and my head is tilted. I’m staring at the window across the room. The curtain panels are open, revealing nothing but a gloomy view of the brick building just feet away from the hotel. Just a solid wall of brick with no visible windows or doors. Just brick.
Looking out the window at the brick wall is how I feel when I view my own life. I try to look to the future, but I can’t see past this moment. I have no idea what’s going to happen, who I’ll live with, what will happen to Karen, if I’ll report what just happened. I can’t even venture a guess. It’s nothing but a solid wall between this moment and the next, without so much as a clue sprawled across it in spray paint.
For the past seventeen years, my life has been nothing but a brick wall separating the first few years from the rest. A solid block, separating my life as Sky from my life as Hope. I’ve heard about people somehow blocking out traumatic memories, but I always thought that maybe it was more of a choice. I literally, for the past thirteen years, have not had a single clue as to who I used to be. I know I was barely five when I was taken from that life, but even then I would assume I would have a few memories. I guess the moment I pulled away with Karen, I somehow made a conscious decision, at that young of an age, to never recall those memories. Once Karen began telling me stories of my “adoption,” it must have been easier for my mind to grasp the harmless lies than to remember my ugly truth.
I know I couldn’t explain at the time what my father was doing to me, because I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that I hated it. When you aren’t sure what it is you hate or why you even hate it, it’s hard to hold on to the details…you just hold on to the feelings. I know I’ve never really been all that curious to delve up information about my past. I’ve never really been that curious to find out who my father was or why he “put me up for adoption.” Now I know it’s because somewhere in my mind, I still harbored hatred and fear for that man, so it was just easier to erect the brick wall and never look back.
I still do harbor hatred and fear for him, and he can’t even touch me anymore. I still hate him, and I’m still scared to death of him and I’m still devastated that he’s dead. I hate him for instilling awful things in my memory and somehow making me grieve for him in the midst of all the awful. I don’t want to grieve his loss. I want to rejoice in it, but it’s just not in me.