Divergence

Mirror Mirror

"...condition...corneal...response...can you hear...light..."

"...poor girl...young...deserve this...full...no one does..."

"...lost so much...passed away this morning...no chance..."

"...life...promise...awake...new life..."

"...life...awaken..."

-------

Slowly, you awaken from your dreams...which make no sense to you. Just a jumble of distorted voices that you don't recognize, and it makes you feel unsettled.  Before you are of lucid mind to make sense of it all, the voices evaporate into nothingness.  You grit your teeth in frustration.  Forty-hours after you escaped from Gabriel, and you're still in this state of confusion.  You may have gained awareness of some things, but everything else is still a mystery to you.

You wish you could get your brain to work.  You don't understand why it's acting as though it has a major malfunction.

You sigh in defeat.  While you'd like to think that you are in control of your brain, right now, your brain clearly has other things in mind.  You figure if you try to force the issue, your brain with retaliate harshly.

You don't want to be the Scarecrow.  You need your brain, even if it is being a douchebag.

He isn't here beside you.  Instead of his sleeping form lightly snoring, the sight of messy, tossed around sheets greet you.  You reach for the note in the center of the awakened maelstorm and recognize Eli's furious, hard-to-read handwriting.

Gone out.  Got stuff to do.  Be back soon.  Will bring back food.

-Eli

You hug the note against your chest without even really thinking about it.  A soft smile spreads across your face.  He may act all tough, and may venture into "curmudgeon" territory at times, but at least he's considerate. 

You inhale, then exhale deeply.  You'd look for the time...but Eli doesn't seem to have a clock here.  It's all right, you tell yourself - time doesn't have much of a place here.  You promised Eli you wouldn't go out on your own, and you don't even have a place to go to anyway.  There's no need for the rush one has when they need to be somewhere fast. 

Besides, you realize, running has made you tired.  Walking on eggshells, keeping suspicion at bay, being submissive, and finally breaking free and running away has made you tired.  Oh, and that ridiculous amount of shopping you did with Mrs. Seamons yesterday. 

You can rest now.  You won't kid yourself and say that you can relax.  You can never do that - not until you really feel Gabriel has left you alone, once and for all.  But for now, you can take solace in knowing that you will remain out of his reach, so long as you allow Eli to help you and stay away from that veritable hellhole.

But you can't do that...you can't take solace...because you realize that there's more to the story than just fleeing the abuser.

You've already told yourself that you won't go back, that you'll never go back.  Now, you realize, that you must face the tumultuous task actually starting your new life.

Now is the time to, as Eli would affectionately say, "get your shit together".

You don't know the first thing about getting yourself together.  Yes, you want to stay away from Gabriel, and you want the daily physical assaults to end, but truth be told, the thought of being on your own frightens you.  Yeah, you have Eli, and after yesterday, his mother, but you know you can't cling to them forever.