Being Anna Marie

Being Anna Marie part 15

Whisper soft lashes like silky flower petals brushing alongside skin swept against my cheeks as my hazel gaze awoken to the display of beauty personified as the brilliance of the sun rose into a vast array of cerulean, azure with minuscule specks of cobalt before transforming what was once the start of dawn into a stunning combination of vibrant multicolored luminosity, a minor miracle so many took for granted. The sight of such exquisiteness blurred within my vision, futile tears clinging to my lids before sliding easily down my cheeks, internally knowing how undeserving I was to view such magnificence, such splendor.

“Finally awake, I see?”

My eyes swung towards the voice, wiping away my display of despair as I sat up in my bed watching as Maria walked further into the room. “What are you doing here?”

“Filling in when help is needed. Something you want to talk about?” she asked, her grey eyes concerned as she sat at the end of my bed, my chart in her hands.

My fingers gripped the cross around my neck, my thoughts guarded, “like what?”

“I don’t know. How about your sudden departure from here? Or what might have happened while you were away?”

My gaze fell at the thought of the pass couple of days, of all the blame that lied at my feet no matter what rationality removed the guilt from my shoulders I knew that my hands were soiled. Soiled with the blood and agony of those I’d unintentionally hurt. “Talking changes nothing,” I whispered over the painful ache in my throat, feeling stray trickles of immeasurable remorse dribble down my cheeks.

“Candor dat viribus alas.”

Sincerity gives wings to strength.

My grin was humorless, my sight distorted with unshed emotion, “I think I’m so far beyond that by now.” Tucking a stray curl behind my ear, “do you believe in redemption?”

“Of course Anna, no one is too far gone that they can’t be saved.”

My palm trembled as I covered a runaway sob, “and if you’re so tainted your undeserving of it?”

“I don’t think its our place to judge, and if forgiveness is what your seeking only you can stop punishing yourself enough to receive it,” she said softly, her expression as sad as my own. “Anna, what did you do?”

I shook my head in denial, my curls swinging out around my heart shaped face, liquefied anguish dripping from my trembling chin, “Absolution no longer applies to me.”

“Anna-,” Maria said softly her fingers without thought reaching out to grasp my arm.

Gray eyes clashed with hazel as white walls were demolished, trembling chaotically before plaster crumbled like ash around us, stained wallpaper taking its place. Blemished carpet lay scattered with broken toys, while what was once silence was now filled with screams of detestation, of hate. With little arms wrapped around a small battered doll trying to escape the sounds of glass smashing and cries filling the night, small legs encased in pink pajamas rose to rest a wavering chin across my knees continually rocking, as long honey brown pigtails swung out around my chubby legs.

Sobs from a child no one wanted racked my diminutive form as I listened to the violence outside my tiny bedroom before silence ensued; the start of my true nightmare commencing as my despairing heart stopped all together and my bedroom door opened. My gaze took in the almost empty bottle; the initiator of so much unhappiness that lingered in my childhood before it took in the key to my father’s release, my father’s idea of relief, and the crucial piece of cruelty that bruised my skin that my father labeled as love. There in his hand laid his thick leather belt already stained with my mother’s blood ready to sustain order and bestow punishment for a sin never committed.