"Lie To Me, I Dare You"
It was our final day here at the lake house, as we would be going back to reality tomorrow morning, so I savored whatever hours I had left here. But, that didn't mean that I didn't have Hugo breathing down my neck in some way or Teddy begging me to swim, while I denied.
There was no way that I was going to crack this easily, there was just no way that I could let everything go to them that easy. It had been too long, away from them, for it to just be a walk in the park to expose everything in my life that they had missed. Every injury and every cry of pain couldn't just be washed down the drain with no repercussions.
At least, with Hugo following me around like a hawk, it was like he was trying hard not to miss something in my life, after everything he had missed all these years. He could never know, how truly damaged I had become in the last 3 weeks. There was no changing the person that I had become now.
"Eve, come for a swim" every single time that we had been out on the boat, I had refused to get in the water. Partly because it was the dead of winter and freezing cold, but mostly because I had things that I didn't want people to look at. Scars and bruises that no one needed to see, from people that had hid themselves so well in my past, there was no coming back.
There was obvious reasons as to why I changed from certain sports, but there was the selective few, where I had no choice. No choice because someone was already better at it than me, whether it was my siblings or just another person that my mother despised their mother of something from way back in their childhood.
Something that didn't concern me. So, I shook my head at Teddy, just curling further back into the pool chair. "Did you bring swimmers, Eve?" Amelia's sweet voice filtered into my ears, as she came and stood near me, but I remained as still as possible. There was an answer that I didn't want to give here, because than that would mean I should swim.
I had always swum here, as I had been a swimmer at some point. I had become a volleyball player that did track and field on the side. I played tennis on the weekends, and the occasional soccer game when I was needed. I used to be a ballet dancer and a gymnast at some point, but those both had ended badly.
"Eve?" I looked up at Hugo, before pulling down the sleeves on my hoodie over my fingers, and pulling my arms tighter around my body. "Milly offered to give you some swimmers if you didn't have any. Do you have any?" I just shook my head, unsure of which I was answering. Hugo's voice was harder to ignore, and pretend that I was in my own little world.
"Come with me" Amelia then gestured for me to follow her, so I did, avoiding the glances that were being shared between Teddy, Hugo and Silas. I kept my head down, as I followed the girl that had once been the person I had truly called my big sister, and not the one that was actually related to me.
I followed her up into the room that we had always sat and had chats. Chats about the boys and even about my sister and mother. She had hugged me on this bed a million times, before we had laughed as we laid down on our backs and stared at the stars that we had stuck on the roof. "What's going on?"
Amelia had always been straight the point, so I don't know why her voice made me flinch. Maybe it had reminded me of someone from a long time ago, that even she didn't know. Teddy didn't know for crying out loud, and I had always told him everything. He knew everything, or he used to know everything.
"Nothin'" I muttered, as I swayed a little, staring at the room that had changed since I had last been in here. The stars were still there, but everything else felt like it had changed, or maybe I had just forgotten what it was all like to be in here with someone that I had once loved like a sister, but now she was like a stranger.
"You always go for a swim. Now, you are holding back. Never not wearing jeans and a jumper, when you used to say that jeans were uncomfortable. You always went for a swim, no matter the time of year, as we had to beg you to get out to eat. Avoiding certain conversations that you used to love, and isolating yourself, only coming out when you need to"
The obvious statements caught me off guard. I didn't know what to say or do. It was hard, when people could read you so easily. I don't know why I thought that going to the Wilson household would be easier to hide the person that I had become while they had disappeared. They had left my life, and to say it didn't hurt, was an understatement.
"I don't know. I guess I have changed" was the only response that I could muster up at the moment. I didn't want people to find out just how ugly everything was underneath. People would run away and never look at me the same way, and I didn't want that. I liked the life I was living, with this small little lie. Plus, these people hadn't been my second family in a long time, so they didn't have the right, in my mind, to know just yet.
I wasn't ready to tell them, would have been the better response. Everything had started to fall back into place, like they had never really left, and that reality wasn't knocking back down on my door every breath that I took in, but now, they were knocking on my door, asking me to open it back up to them, when I wasn't ready.
I was far from ready for this conversation, but I guess we were having it, right here, right now. "Eve, we aren't going to hurt you. We aren't them. We want to help you. There is no need to keep fighting to hold your head high, you can keep it down" she murmured, pulling me close to her, as I hid my head in her chest, tears rolling down my cheeks.
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"Dinner is ready-" Teddy entered the room, rounding the corner, before he stopped in his tracks. I wasn't sure if it was because I looked different in his sisters clothes or that I was curled up under her arm, tears still streaming down my face.
After a while, I had told her that I would tell someone, whether it was Hugo or Teddy, I promised I would tell someone about what had happened, so then she had said, to take our minds off everything, we could play dress ups. Obviously, I sorted through the clothes that would either show too much or not fit me at all, and I think she knew.
She had then allowed me to wear this outfit, as I had only brought about three outfits, and two of them were already dirty and in need of a wash. So, she had given me a new pair of jeans, a long-sleeve top, and another sweater. I loved her for this, and the warmth that these clothes gave me. She even braided my hair for me. I felt like the little girl that she would carry around the house for no reason.
For me being so small, she had always treated me like a little baby, even at the age of 5, she loved carrying me around. She loved it. I remembered the days when she would take her dolls out of the pram and put me in, and I would fit almost perfectly. Those were the days when I still had my own pacifier and nappy on, just like the other dolls did.
"How about I bring you two up some dinner instead" Amelia unfurled herself, as she walked out, but not before whispering a few words to Teddy, and then he was climbing into bed with me. A movie was playing in the background, but I had completely forgotten about it, as the boy beside me climbed into bed with me, bringing me more comfort than he sister.
"What's going on?" he questioned as I fell right back into his chest, with his arms wrapped around me, keeping me warm. I didn't know that I was feeling so cold without his arms here, holding me tight to his chest. It was warming me from the inside out, and I would forever be grateful for these hugs, that I had missed for so long.
So, so, so long without a hug that had meant this much to me. A hug that Addie couldn't replicate and a hug that my family hated. They would never hug me, and I had grown to know that I would have to find someone else for a hug. Teddy had been that person. We used to always have our arms wrapped around one another in one way or another. It was just how we had stuck together for so long.
"How about I tell you what I think is going on?" he kept his voice soft, but is was enough to still put me on edge. I didn't know what he knew or what he thought that he knew, and I guess that scared me. I didn't want someone else to know or to even think that they would be close to knowing what had happened to me. What had happened was a scary place for me.
Even I didn't want to admit how scary it was. Maybe that was why I didn't want to talk about it. Because I hadn't fully processed what had happened, and why the scar on my back wasn't so easy to say goodbye to because it wasn't like the small ones that I could hide that my brothers had done to me over the years. They were small, and nobody asked questions like they did to one that was the biggest of them all.
That was the problem with me. I hadn't admitted why I was so scared of what had happened to anyone. Not even to myself. I couldn't bear the thought of finally realizing that it was all real. That what had happened, had happened to a person like me, over and over again. I had let it happen then, and I was sure that I was going to let it happen again.
"You have been hurt" Teddy's voice reached my ears, and for the first time in a long time, I used it as my lifeline. I had gone dead silent, and that was enough for him to continue. "You were hurt and you can't see yourself as the same person. You left, gymnastics, and I knew that it had always been your dream, meaning that something drove you away fast enough that you would give up a dream that you had spoken about for as long as I can remember"
He had caught onto it exactly. He knew just about half the story without my words. Maybe it was time that I should admit to what had actually happened. "Ted, you'll have to bear with me on this one" I muttered, pulling away from him, and even standing up so that I was away from him and the bed.
I locked the door, making sure that someone would have to know. I was sure that Amelia would have told them that I needed space, especially with Teddy. "Please don't see me any different" I said that when no more words feel from Teddy's lips at what I had said about saying my story. "I would never" he murmured, keeping his eyes on my pacing body.
"I was at a competition in Florida, with the team, and my parents had flown out with us to watch, as had many other parents, and I had gone to the physio for treatment. I had a niggling pain in my lower back at the time, and it wouldn't go away, so I told the coach that I would go, and he came with me. He proceeded to lock the door, where I was with two men" I paused at this point in time, feeling it all hit me.
When Teddy said nothing, I continued. "I thought nothing of it, until the door opened and shut, and I was left with the coach. I didn't know at the time, that it was just him. He started to do what a normal physio would have done, before he was forcing himself to touch me in ways that I knew he shouldn't. When I screamed, he used the scissors to cut down my back, leaving me in tears from the pain before he left me in there, where I couldn't move to get help"
The tears were back, streaming down my face, as I came to the realization that I had almost been raped, if I hadn't of screamed. I was sliced open like a piece of meat because I denied my coach from raping me that day. I never returned to get my gear, leaving that up to my parents to sort out, and then they turned on me even more.
They never knew what had happened, thinking that I wasted their time and effort of going to Florida and the money they had spent on me. They still talked to the coach, after that day, while he looked at me like he had always wanted to do more to me than he had let happen.
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thoughts? xx