I swear to God that one day I'm going to become deaf. It's my inheritance. And that day seems to be today. You wondered how my grandpa became deaf? Okay, so here's the story I didn't have the strength to tell you this morning, for the ones who wanted to know.
After my parents died in that awful accident which was, of course, my fault, I moved with my grandparents to live in a new house, here in Seattle, away from my small village which continued to remind me of my parents at each step, especially at that street where we crashed, and that hill where they lost their lives. I won't talk about the moment when we left our home, our village, because one, I don't want to relive those painful moments, and two, I'm trying to make this as short as I can.
I don't want to complain, as much as I was suffering, I had a good life. Grandpa found a new job in a new school, here, as a literature teacher, grandma was taking care of me until he would come home and read me at night. But as you may remember, the nights are the most difficult part of the day for me. Day has 24 hours, yet I can only sleep two if I'm lucky.
Each day grandpa would come home with a new book for me, while grandma would realize that all the toys she bought me were in vain, collecting dust, since my little hands weren't playing with them, but were busy flipping the pages. I would be literally eating the book in less than an hour, while grandma would cook lunch, clean, and sew as every grandma does. Now when I remember her face with wrinkles and her smile which could enlighten the whole room and her bright eyes which my mom, and then I inherited, I regret that I didn't spend more time with her. No, instead of being with her, I kept my nose nuzzled in books, in their warm pages, not realizing that they would always be here since they can't die, but my grandpa could. And she did.
I was bad toward her. Yeah, I was. Whenever she tried to talk to me, I would tell her to leave the room and let me read. She was the one who forced me to sleep and took my books, so I didn't waste time and be awake more than I should be. She just couldn't understand that they helped me feel sleepy, and I dreamt that I would fall asleep with the book in my hands, almost slipping through them, and my head would be pressed on my pillow, while my eyes closed. Hell, I could only dream of it.
I would have to sneak and open my books, while I thought that she was asleep, but the lamp in my bedroom would always wake her up and she would appear to scold me, taking the precious object from my hands, demanding from me to lay and close my eyes. So, I would have to toss and turn the whole night because she just couldn't understand that I couldn't fucking sleep. I hate when she demands that from me, that is the thing I hate, like despise. Grandpa never does that, he just hopes, I don't know why he does, but that doesn't irritate me, since he doesn't make me lay and try to sleep, nor pretend as I used to while his wife was still alive.
In front of my eyes, the picture of my grandma and grandpa who are bickering because of me appears. Dad is trying to explain to her that she should give me a break, and let me keep myself busy at night since I can't do anything else because being in bed would just make me more nervous and exhaust me even more.
Trying to sleep can exhaust you so much, the feeling of being so close to the dreamland, but in fact, so far away, the dream never coming, always stepping back, and back, and no matter how much you stretch your arm, you can't catch it. It's coming, I think it's coming, that's what I would think when actually it's not. That I learned the hard way. So, that is the reason why I stopped trying to fall asleep, I can't. It's impossible. At least not at night.
Grandma was suggesting him to take me to a therapist, she was the reason why I tried all those pills, why I was being poisoned with them when they did nothing at all, but poison my body and vanish when I pee. It was all in vain. But grandma didn't take no as an answer. She kept taking me to a different psychologist, she was the one because of whom I would even stay at the hospital, do EKG more times than I could count, the night, the day ones. I'd been held in the hospital, they kept changing the medications, and do experiments on me as if I was some animal. The doctors would swear that this type of cocktail I would be given or medicine they put me on, was a revolution for the type of insomnia I had.
And what type actually is that I have? A psychological one. It's all in my head. I remember there was that one psychologist who said that I should just stop thinking that I can't sleep and only close my eyes. As if that was so easy.
Here's a thing. Each time I would go to a new therapist, I would become even more introverted. In the beginning, I would, I really would explain to them in detail how the accident happened, what I felt during it, and they would only nod sheepishly, and say some bullshit, and soon ask me to draw something. I was often asked to draw and even if I would say that I'm awful at it, they'd say it didn't matter because apparently, they needed to see something in my drawings.
Since I was a kid, they thought it was better for me to draw, and that my drawings would say more than I was able to, with the lack of vocabulary due to my young age. That, I remember I read in a book when we had psychology in sophomore year. Yeah, imagine, I read some of the textbooks, wow! Yeah, um, I couldn't sleep, I was bored, read all books that I wanted, so I thought why not take a look at this, and it was really interesting to read about psychology, though I knew better than to believe half of that shit. I could write a better textbook, but whatever, I'm too tired to do so.
When I passed through the hands of thousands of therapists for kids in Seattle, I stopped telling them a story of mine. That tragic story. The story that changed my life and made me a zombie.
So, I would just sit there, trying to absorb their offices, filled with just too many things, in all colors, with some shitty motivating quotes on which I would just roll my eyes. And no, not because I wanted to stay awake, but because I really wanted to vomit on them.
Grandma would scold me each time when the therapist would expose me as the biggest criminal for not wanting to waste time on talking in vain. Because there's no help for me, and that I realized even in the age of nine, two years after desperately trying to sleep, taking any pill color in each color of the rainbow.
I stopped drawing the craps I was asked to and started to act wild, for example, squeeze those papers I'd been given to draw on, tearing them apart and throwing them on the floor, yelling at the doctors who were sitting behind the desk, nodding and mumbling some incoherent words, while writing something in their notes. Of course, they kept fucking noting even though I would only yell at them, nodding as if they wanted to tempt me more and prove to others how crazy was I. But, they didn't have to prove anything.
I knew that I was going crazy. I could feel it in my veins, the madness boiling in my body, corrupting me and putting some kind of demon in me, in my brain to whisper me that I can't sleep, and to keep my eyes wide opened the whole night, not giving me a chance to rest as other kids. And even though I could feel that I was going crazy, I wasn't angry with myself. I had an excuse.
Imagine being awake for two years as a young kid who should be playing, not caring for the real world just say, still living in their imaginative one, smiling and thinking about the new games it should be playing. But, no, I was a kid who couldn't play, and even if I tried I would be interrupted and disturbed by buzzing in my ears, making my head a noisy place, where I couldn't stay anymore. It made me leave my mind, my home and I had to learn how to survive the days in which I was so tired, that I kept yawning all the time, not even bothering to put my hand on my mouth while doing so, since it would be happening every two minutes. I had to learn how to spend the nights awake, in which my fatigue would want to disappear just like I would make it if I had a magic wand. No, I wouldn't want a golden fish to fulfill three wishes for me, no, just one. The one where I could sleep. Okay, maybe the one where my parents would be alive, as well as grandma... Okay, I would take all three, fine.
The last time I visited the therapist was the one who told me that my insomnia was imaginary. Imaginary, hey! Who even says that? How did she even come up with that? Why would I imagine that my ability to be able to sleep is gone? Why, that's not even... rational. Doesn't she think that I want to sleep, too? She isn't aware of how bad I want to lay down at night, in my bed, to cover with sheets, to press my head on the pillow, close my eyes, fall asleep, and then wake up the next morning not tired, but rested. Why the fuck did she even say that? What was she thinking? She wasn't thinking, that's it. But, that wasn't the only thing she said. No, listen there's more.
The bitch said that I needed someone to lay next to me, to comfort me, and if my parents were alive they could do that, then I would be able to sleep. That their absence is the reason why I couldn't sleep, that the moment they left me, I began to think that I couldn't sleep, imagining that I couldn't do it without them. Everything would be changed if they didn't die.
And then I snapped because I didn't want to give her the satisfaction of seeing my tears which were so close to fall. I yelled at her, broke half of her office, and now I feel sad and kinda angry, well angrier that I didn't break the whole one, but I was so small, being nine, I mean I'm small albeit now, imagine then. And, I was taken from there before I could make any damage. So, yeah, no I didn't break that many things, just some of them, couple photo frames, or what was those shit, I don't quite remember. Anyway, I regret that I couldn't break more things, to express my anger, or should I say pain, that she managed to dig out with those harsh, but true words. Yeah, if they stayed alive, none of this would be happening, that is obvious. I mean, bravo, that was something none of us knew, you were a very good therapist, I mean why are you even working with kids, you should do more, you are so smart that you deserve to be a more important doctor. Ugh, bitch.
But, yeah, the bad dreams, the sleepless nights, the pain, my grandparents bickering, none of that would be happening.
But, wait I was talking about how my grandma used to take me to every single hospital, from which they would discharge me, with sad faces and shaking heads. After the incident I mentioned, she took me by my hand, angrily, pulling me home, probably realizing that there was just no help for me. Finally.
She didn't speak with me for two days, and when the anger disappeared, and the guilt replaced it, and I came to apologize to her, she was the one who said sorry. She told me how she just didn't want to take no as an answer, that she just wanted to help me to finally fall asleep. She cried, sobbing how she knew that I couldn't sleep, but didn't want to give up, because she knew that my mom would never give up either and that she would be angry at her for not caring enough about her granddaughter.
I couldn't keep my tears any longer, so I just fell in her arms, sobbed into her chest, telling her how much I missed mom. How much I needed her to read me those stories again, that grandpa was reading to me then and now, but no matter how much I love him, he could never replace mom, even though he is trying so hard. Grandma said that she missed her as well, and we cried together while hugging each other tightly. Before her husband came I told her what tempted me so much the last time I was at the therapist, and she was so mad, and she even wanted to go and scold that woman and demand her quitting. She was so mad, but she also told me that if she lost me, too, with her daughter, she probably wouldn't be able to survive, and neither would grandpa. She was caressing my hair, whispering comforting words in my ear that kept buzzing, making it harder for me to hear her soft voice.
She tried not to make me feel bad for surviving. But I was feeling bad. I still am. Grandma wanted to go and ruin this woman's life who dared to upset her granddaughter, as she said, but I managed to prevent her, asking her only one thing I needed. To stop trying. The tears were streaming down her wrinkled face because she wasn't a person who gave up, as she learned my mom not to be either. But no matter how much she tried to learn me the dame thing, she didn't succeed. I was a person who gives up then and I'm the person who gives up now. I'm a weak person. A coward. But what can I do when I don't have the strength, but only fatigue, no concentration, no energy, only exhaustion, and yawning.
But grandma did stop trying. She did stop what I asked, no begged her to. And if on cue her heart stopped, too, because she broke the one promise she made herself- never to give up. She was aware that she disappointed not only herself, but her daughter, as well, by not sticking to her promise, to always take care of me. And just like that, she passed away that same night, her kind heart wasn't able to feel the pressure of disappointment and guilt which I put on her weak back. I was in my room, happy, even though I couldn't sleep, but still happy because grandma finally let me read books at night, and I didn't have to hide and pretend that I was asleep, each time she would check on me. My lamp was turned on the whole night, now I didn't have to turn it off every time I would hear her steps, approaching. But the reason why I couldn't hear her steps was because she passed away. And I was happy in my room, resting and living in a world of books, not knowing shit.
But, I wasn't the only one who was blaming myself. Grandpa was the one who was sleeping next to her. He was holding her body, breathing in her neck, while her breath was gone. He was the one who woke up with a cold, dead body next to him, with a pale and blue face. He was the one who screamed and started jerking her body, touching the cold skin and veins with no pulse.
And I was the one who tried to stay calm and call 911, when he couldn't stop screaming and crying, not wanting to admit that she was gone. And neither did I, honestly. But I had to stay focused, not puzzled like grandpa was. I was the one whose time to be next to him came, while he was sobbing, the one who had to stay strong and not cry because he would lose himself if I did that. When I lost my parents he was the one who couldn't shed a tear, who had to be calmed down and smile at me, while I was being hysterical and wanted to go back to that place to find my parents and take a last look at them. Now, I was the one who had to pull him off grandma's grave, when he pushed me, and again tried to pull him off the grass, and stopped him from, digging the ground of her grave, that hid his wife, just to see her again.
But even I had to shed a tear, and that I would fo during sleepless nights, while he was sleeping, passing out from the stress. I wish I could pass out just like that, too, but stress seemed to work differently for me. Instead of making me tired, it would keep me awake. During those nights I would hate myself for treating her like that, always screaming at her to stop, taking me to all those doctors who weren't smart at all, even though they finished many schools, and had been studying for years, they just pretended they knew everything, when in fact they never did. I hate them, and I always will, I will never believe in their medications, treatments, not even if I was dying of cancer.
She would just pull my hand and without a word, she would order me not to disobey her, while I kept yelling and people would gaze at us as if I was a hospital case. And I was. I am. I'm a nut case that can't sleep since her seven, that no pills can work on, that is incurable. But my kind grandma didn't want to admit that. And once she did, her heart immediately stopped.
The paramedics described it as a stroke, but I know that it was more than that. As I said, I don't believe doctors. Her heart couldn't bear the fact that she surrendered, not succeeding in helping her little granddaughter. That she failed. Her heart couldn't take that she failed not only to help her granddaughter, but her daughter, too, even though she was in heaven, but grandma probably believed that she could see us, see her failure.
And it was all my fault, I'd think during those dark nights in which I couldn't even turn on the lamp, because it would remind me of her. I hated lamp, I hated all of the books. If it hadn't been for them, I would have spent more time with her. If I had continued to go to all those appointments, no matter how helpless they were, she would have still been alive. If I had kept pretending that I was asleep, that I was getting better her precious and feeble heart wouldn't have stopped. If I hadn't asked her to give up, her heart wouldn't have been the one to give up on her. So many what-ifs.
But I had done all of that shit, and she decided to do me a favor, and stop hurting me, stop asking me to sit in those offices, telling my painful story all over again, repeating it, and reliving the moment in which I faced death, but its hands decided not to take me in its embrace but chose my parents. She tried to stop me from having to draw sheep, animals, my previous family, my dead family, my alive family, my imaginative family. And death finally decided to embrace my grandma, too, leaving me with only one person in this world who cares for me. And that is a reason why he tried to collect himself, but destiny said, no, I'm going to ruin your life, and now I'm just waiting for death to take him, too. But, as I said, so many times that you probably learned it by your heart, I will go with death this time, no matter if she again decides not to take me. Not happening.
The day of grandma's funeral he told me couldn't see that well, so I had to help him come back home. I was sure that it had been from all the tears he shed, his blue eyes shred. The next morning he got up, with a decision to be strong for me. He prepared to go to his job, but he couldn't read the syllabus, nor the plans he made for the class before grandma's death. I thought it was still stress, not even being able to think about what could really be since he never had problems with his sight before that, never wore glasses, nothing. So, I read him everything and escorted him to school, the one I was attending, too.
But a couple of hours later, the teacher found me and told me he fainted and that they sent him to the hospital. I can't explain the fear of mine when I heard that, scared that he'd leave me, as well. That death decided to visit me again. All the way to the hospital, I kept telling myself, consoling it, that he passed out of non-eating, and stress. And when I came to the hospital, I was right. Well, partly. But he didn't faint because of that, but because of his sight, that decided to leave him due to stress he felt, the stress that consumed his whole body, as well as his eyes that cried so much, too much.
Doctor asked me if something strange had happened recently, and when I told him about grandma's death, he understood it immediately. He said that these cases that lose their sight due to stress are very frequent. At that moment, at that age, actually, I couldn't understand how a person could lose their sight because of stress. But, I was the one who couldn't sleep because of the stress of the accident.
We are both suffering from PTSD, but our body is suffering as well. The death of my parents was a flicker for me, my body, and I lost the ability to sleep. Grandma's death was a flicker for grandpa and he lost his sight. All that happened in two years. What strange appearances that stress and PTSD are. They can ruin your life in a mere of seconds, making you for the rest of it.
And being little, I kept thinking that his sight would come back, asking him every day when he woke up, can he see again. Hoping. I was fucking hoping, just how he was, well, seems like he still is that I will sleep again one day. Though, I felt hoping that he will see me again one day. He could if we had the money for a surgery years ago, but we haven't, we had to solve the house we were living in with grandma and so many other things. So, no, I'm not hoping nor for his sight, nor my sleeping. Imaginative or not, it's just not possible.
Do I want to explain to you the moment when I entered the room and grandpa asked me where was I, because he couldn't see me, because he met the first time with the complete darkness? No, I don't. It's too painful for me. The way he touched my face soaked with tears gently with his shaky hands, the way I touched his eyes which could no longer see... We both met with something strange. I with no sleeping and sleepless nights, living with constant fatigue, he with living in darkness 24/7. I learned how to live without having any break, he learned how to see things without his sight, through other senses.
I don't want to compare this, and I know it's so much worse to be sightless than sleepless, but neither one it's easy.
And now we are the only people each other has in this world, holding tightly onto one another, scared that one will slip and leave the other all of the sudden, just how grandma and my parents did.
"Luna!"
I storm through the house, not being able to hear anything, heading to my room, and rummaging through the drawers, trying to find something to stop my ears from buzzing. My whole head is pulsing and I can't concentrate on anything, than this disturbing noise I hear. It's silent, though it's noisy, and I can't describe it to you. Ugh, I don't even want to describe it to you! I don't want to go deaf. No. And trust me there is a risk. It's not just my bad scenario, but doctors' words, as well. Though, I know I said, I don't believe them, but... They said that since the buzzing is permanent as collateral damage that maybe when I grow up someday it can overtake my hearing leaving me in nothing but silence. And no matter how much I thought that they were just saying bullshit, as they always are, I had a slight fear. And now it's finally happening. I'm about to lose my hearing.
"Luna!"
I think Scar is barking because I can see him jumping on me, scratching my clothes with his paws.
"Get off me!", I yell, trying to find something to calm me down.
I don't care if grandpa finds out that I'm on pills, I just need something, anything to stop this state of mine. I feel as if I'm going crazy, and deaf at the same time.
"Luna!" Someone pulls me and the big hands jerk my small shoulders.
It's grandpa.
"What are you doing?"
"What? What? I can't hear you!"
"What is going on?"
"I'm going deaf! It's happening! They were right! The fucking doctors were right! I won't be able to hear the music anymore, nor to listen to your peaceful voice quoting me stories I love! Nothing! Nothing!" I pull my hair with my fists, and I feel his taking mine.
"Calm down." I read from his lips and I shake my head.
"No! I can't calm down! Could you calm down when you were losing your sight?" I want to take back the words the moment I say them when I see the sadness on his wrinkled face, but I'm in delirium and I can't think straight.
Maybe this is because I didn't take any... Wait, I took that pill h-he gave me. No, no, don't come back please, no more flashbacks from the last night, I'm begging you.
"No! I don't want to become deaf! Where are those pills that I use when the buzzing can't stop? Where?", I yell, taking out the drawers, while everything in them falls on the ground. Unfortunately, I can't hear the sound of it.
I shouldn't be taking any more pills, especially after last night, but maybe that is the solution, maybe they will calm me down. I mean, they are just for the buzzing, they can't make me numb, as the one h-he gave me, right?
"You don't use it anymore! You say they don't help!"
"Where is it? Where the fuck is it?", I snap, pulling the sheets of my bed and tossing them on the floor.
"Luna!" His hands try to keep mine at the side, while I try to free from his tight grip, patting the ground with my shoe, as a child.
"Luna!"
"Don't you Luna me!", I shout, reading my name from his lips. "I'm going deaf and you are blind and we are alone and screwed, while everything is taken from us! Our loved ones, our senses! Every-fucking-thing!", I scream and manage to free myself from his arms and I scurry to the shelf where the books are resting, pushing them to fall on the floor like dominoes.
Just like my strength fell last night.
Last night. Last night. Last night.
It replays in my mind, the image of that man, burying in me, while the moans fall from his dirty mouth covered with a black beard and mustache.
"No!", I scream the loudest I can, falling on the floor, my knees colliding with the old and rough carpet, on which my bruised and tired hard body fell this morning.
This morning. It hasn't even passed a few hours and I'm here breaking. How the hell will I survive if I can't get through one fucking day?
This isn't me screaming because of losing my hearing. No, all of this was because I lost my strong self. I just didn't want to admit it. I didn't want to shout because I didn't want grandpa to suspect something, so I kept it all in myself and now after only a few hours, I can't hold it anymore, so I have to scream. I wanted to scream from the moment I lost my parents. But I haven't.
I wanted to scream from the moment I lost my grandma because it was my fault, but I haven't because I needed to be strong for grandpa. I wanted to scream when he lost his sight, but I haven't. I wanted to scream when I realized that Manuel was only using me, that I was stuck in the club, in his arms, and that I couldn't escape it. I wanted to scream when I saw Ginny being murdered, but I couldn't if I wanted to protect myself. I wanted to scream when that man hurt me, when I realized what he did, but I h... Actually, I have, I remember just now, but I want to do it again.
I want to scream till I lose my voice, again, because I never have it. I could never say what I think, what I want, how I feel. I had to pretend so everyone around me would be satisfied, and when I shared my opinion, a person died. She died. Grandma died. I could never say Manuel how much I hated him and how I hate his alcoholic breath and his dick that I have to suck each day if that is what he wants. I've never said how much I hate the club, and its owner, all the men that visit it. I've never had a chance to say any of this. And I never probably will.
"Luna!"
She was right. Katy was right. I should jump off a train and everything will stop. The pain, the fatigue, the hurting, the buzzing... Everything.
I feel something being plug in my ears, but repeatedly falling out of them, and when I open my eyes I see grandpa trying to put headphones in them, while touching my backpack, searching for MP3.
"They don't work!", I scream at his face, and he doesn't even flinch. "They don't work just like I don't! I can't work anymore! My body can't function anymore! I should die. I should have di..."
Slap. I close my eyes, feeling fire spreading through my left cheek. Just how it happened the last night when Manuel slapped me. I open my eyes, putting a hand on my cheek, gasping, looking at grandpa to see that he is not Manuel, nor am I at the club.
"Stop."
I widen my eyes even more shocked that I can hear everything now, well not that clear yet, but not through fog anymore, at least.
"Do not say that ever again."
I stay quiet, opening my mouth and closing it, while the air circulates through it, making a quiet sound that I can hear as well. My breathing comes back to normal and I confuse when I hear it, too. I also become aware of the pain my knees are feeling, touching the rough floor.
I sniffle and feel tears falling down the burning cheek.
"Luna..." Grandpa stretches his hand to touch my face, and I pull away, not letting him touch me.
"Don't touch me."
"Luna..."
I get up, and I can hear Scar's paws colliding with the floor. Yeah, seems that my hearing is back now, completely. Thanks to the slap.
"Luna..."
"Luna! Luna! Luna! Luna, what?" I turn, but when I realize that I'm so close to him, I step back scared that I'll be slapped again. And maybe I deserve to be. Maybe if he was beating me like Manuel is, I'd be a better person.
"Luna is the reason why her parents died! Why your daughter died! Why even your wife died! I told grandma to stop trying and her heart broke because she couldn't bear the fact that she had to give up, to resign without succeeding in helping me. But there's no help for me! NO H-E-L-P!", I spell it, yelling, feeling the heat in my face, and I don't think that it's from the slap anymore.
"Come on punch me again if you want I don't care! Your slap won't make me think differently. It won't make me not regret each decision I made. It won't make me stop regretting that I'm living while they are all d-dead...", my voice finally breaks.
"Luna..." His arms pull me and my head is soon buried in his chest.
"I'm the guilty one."
"No."
"I'm... If I hadn't told her to stop trying, she would have been here now and you wouldn't be sightless..."
"Luna..."
"Yes, it's true..." I sob in his chest, squeezing his shirt in my fist, a little stronger than I should.
"Lulu..."
"I have to go." I pull away and turn on my heel before he can reach for me, and grab my wrist.
"But, Luna..."
"I'll be back. I just have to go now."
I have to go to visit the people with whom I should have spent more time. The people whose absence is the reason I don't sleep, the ones who if they were here, would help me sleep, just how that doctor said. But do you know what she said, too? That if I could find a person who could replace my parents, who could comfort me before sleep the way they used to, this torture would be over. If I could let someone comfort me, they could make me overcome that fear, that imaginative insomnia I made in my head, they could break the rule I made in my mind of how I can't sleep without them. But that is a little hard since no one can replace parents. Or someone can. And someone did. Pure shame that he, too....
Awful chapter and so boring one I know. I'm sorry.