Sins and Reborns

Chapter twenty-six

GRACE

The reek inside the basement crashed through my nostrils and vomit shook every nerve. For six days and four hours and eleven minutes, I had sat in my own vomit; smelt, and vaguely tasted it. The taste still lingered on my lips, on my gums. I hadn't even brushed my teeth. I could already feel the yellow stain coming through. My skin was worn and dirty, the bacteria spreading along. My hair matted against my forehead, sweaty and filthy.

Although nothing compared to the battered heart, the worry about Wes.

We'd gotten separated. He'd been left there, too sick to fend for himself. And I was at fault. If I had acted quicker, snuck him out quietly, then we'd both be okay. The only kid I loved, and I failed him. What kind of a sister did that make me?

I'd pick him over anyone and anything. The love I had for him breathed without boundaries. Throughout the chaos that was my life, it had also brought me him. To my parents, I had to be grateful for that. If I didn't have Wes, I didn't have me.

"Be okay, be okay, please... be okay," I whispered, rocking back and forth. "Take me instead. Just take me, not him... he's too young. He should get to live."

Whimpering, I snuck into the corner of the mattress. Dirt seeped out of the thickness, and I gagged at the sight. I doubted Mother and Father had washed it. It smelled of urine. I had probably wet myself at night. The secluded, murky nights spent finding a way out of here.

The fatigue wore me down – ugly and persistent. My breathing collided into one and I lay back down, sinking into the mattress, groaning in distress. The life I lived had knocked me out of a tree, so I broke every bone and had a bad brain injury.

Can it even be called life if you're living for others and not for yourself?

I slept for two hours before I awoke to screams again. Every night, I'd woken to screams and wails. Wes' pain had increased. And every night, I banged on the door, waiting to be let out to be there for him. I couldn't handle his pain. The terror of it brought me to my knees, sobbing and begging. Mother and Father kept shouting at him to quiet it down.

The screaming rammed through my eardrums, and I wailed harder. The best of me was dying right behind that door (I felt it) and that hurt more than anything in the world. The gloomy parts of me dried as the lights switched off beneath the cracks of the door, and I was left to my own seclusion.

In the morning, at dawn, the doorknob jiggled, and I thought this to be my way out. But no. Instead, a needle pierced my skin, and I was out cold, under a spell of wooziness. When I woke up again, it was like it was Sunday. They'd proceeded ahead with the procedure, checking for any tears in the hymen, and bruising, in my mouth, too. Father scowled at the stench of vomit while Mother shook her head.

"Where's Wes? I need to see him." I attempted to get up, but the restraints held on tight; my muscles were already sore from them. The tension caused me to collapse. "Please, please, I need to..."

My breaths didn't sound like mine anymore. They came from a different planet altogether. They came from a dying patient waiting to get their final wish.

"Wesley is not your concern," Mother snapped. Father stole a glimpse at her at the sharp tone. "He is not your child."

The thought made me sick. The memory of what she'd done came flooding right back, and I began to sob uncontrollably. For the life of me, every monster I'd ever slain came fighting back, and I was defeated. It hadn't been that long since the surgery, the memory of it fresh and scarred.

Wes isn't my kid. Wes will never be my kid. No kid will ever be my kid.

Childless – she's made me childless, I thought. Connor and I won't be parents. We will be the sappy couple who gets asked when I'll give birth. How will I explain? How will I explain this to him? Will someone ever understand? Will he ask why I didn't try to prevent it? Because I knew all this time it was coming, didn't I? Mother had made hints about it, about me being a whore and parading diseases around – who would want that kind of a mother? All those comments and I missed them. What kind of a person does that make me? What kind of a mother would have that made me?