IGNORANCE WAS BLISS
RUEN
I was on my way to meet Amelia in her parents' house when Sabrina called me to come and see Ria. I took a sharp turn and drove back in the opposite direction. I made a quick call to tell her that I will not make it to dinner. She was disappointed but she told me to call her when I am on my way home.
Home?
I wonder where that would be after this month.
Will these roads still lead me home to you?
I guess I'll never know for now.
Simon opened the door for me when I got there. After telling me that Ria was waiting in the library, he left. I knocked on the wooden panel door before I entered.
Before I sat, I could see that Ria's face was livid.
"What were you thinking?" She threw a tablet on my lap. It was playing a video where Jeric and I were singing.
"I don't see anything wrong with this." I put the tablet back on the table.
"Nothing wrong?" She threw the tablet against the wall. "You shouldn't have been in that video in the first place!" Ria was screaming mad.
Where's Sarah?
The last time she was this angry was when she caught me playing with her violin, I was eight. She beat my hand raw before Sarah came to stop her. Then the day after that, Sarah packed my bags and sent me off to live with her father.
Funny, when I first stood in this very room, my hand was wrapped in bandage too.
"How many times have I told you not to attract attention to yourself?" She threw a glass that shattered the window. "Live as if you don't exist! Keep your head down!" Another glass ornament was sent flying across the room.
The door opened and Sabrina came rushing in. "Mom, that's enough. You're making yourself ill."
"She wasn't supposed to be there! She shouldn't have!" Ria repeated over and over.
"I am so sorry I never should have shown that to you." She held her mother and turned to me. "Sorry, Ruen."
So, that's how Ria knew.
"Live as if you don't exist. Keep your head down. Do not attract attention." I looked at the woman before me. "Why, Ria?" I stood up.
"Because I told you so!" She freed herself from Sabrina's hold and came at me like a madwoman. Her nails sunk into my skin as she held me by my shoulders.
"Mom, please calm down." Sabrina tried to pry her mother's hand off me.
"Why so?" She shoved me away from her so roughly I was not able to maintain my balance that I fell on the floor. My wounds reopened as I tried to break my fall with my hands.
I watched as blood seeped through the bandage.
"You should have never been born at all!"
"Ria!" Sarah came rushing to her wife.
I stood up as Sarah finally managed to make Ria sit on the chair I vacated.
"She doesn't mean it, Ruen. She's just under a lot of stress." Sabrina said.
"Take her outside, Sab." Sarah turned to me. "Just give us a minute."
Sabrina tried to take a hold of my elbow and help me out but I shook her hand off me. "Why do you hate me so much, Ria?"
"Ruen, please!" Sarah begged me out.
"Just leave."
"If you hate me this much, why let me live?" I took a step closer to where Ria sat. "You should have just killed me then."
"Yes, I should have!" She exclaimed. "You remind me of him. It disgusts me!"
"Ria, love, please stop," Sarah begged her wife.
"By 'him', you mean my father?" I prodded.
"Ruen!" Sarah shouted at me.
"Your father!" Ria sneered. "The bastard who raped me!"
Raped her?
I took an involuntary step back.
"Ria!"
"A monster who destroyed my life." The woman before me shook with unsuppressed rage. "A monster's child! That's what you are!"
I stood still and looked at the woman who gave birth to me as if she was someone else.
"You remind me of him," she continued the verbal assault. "Every time I see you, God forgive me I—by gods, I want you dead!"
Sarah slapped her Ria.
"You don't mean that." She knelt before her wife. "Remember what you told me the first time you held her in your arms?"
"I—" Ria cried at that.
"You told me your heart felt better—warmer and fuller for the first time in months."
Ria nodded. "It did."
"You had her in your arms as you told me how much you love her."
"I love her so much but—"
"But what, Ria?" I asked her.
"It hurts."
Loving me, hurts?
"It hurts to see you every day. You are a living reminder of a wound that will never heal." She looked me dead in the eye. "Your very existence makes me want to hurl and cry."
Ria's tear-streaked face reminded of Amelia—torn between loving me and turning me away.
The answer to the why's a hard pill to swallow, Mim.
"It isn't her fault, Ria!" Sarah cried.
"He hurt you. He's a monster." I took a step closer to where they sat. "And I am his child."
"So, you understand?"
I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded. "But I am yours too."
"I know." Another tear fell from her eye. "But that doesn't make it hurt any less, child!"
"Sadly..." Bowing my head, I could see the trail of blood that dripped from my hand.
She must have seen it too because when I looked up, I saw regret filled her eyes. I smiled at that.
"I tried... I tried to raise you for as long as I could." She reached for Sarah's hand. "In the end, it was too much that I had to send you away. Still, in my own way, I loved you."
"You must have." I conceded.
"I am sorry it wasn't enough." She apologized.
"Sorry's like expecting band-aids to hold me together after cutting me up." I bit down on my lip until I could taste the metallic tang of blood. "Apologies don't make it hurt any less, mother."
That was the first time in years that I called her that. And it will be the last. Hearing me call her that must have stung because the tears came rolling down again.
"I—I was hurting."
Excuses!
"I know." I ran a hand through my hair and smiled weakly at her. "You perfectly made sure that I felt it too."
I walked out of there as calmly as I could, got into my car and drove back to Amelia's house. The moment I got inside, I ran into a bathroom and hurled until I was dry heaving on the bathroom floor.
"Ruen?" Tessa slowly helped me up and out into the kitchen. "Are you sick? Have you taken medicine?"
What do you take to heal a broken soul, Tessa?
Seeing me just staring blankly at her, Tessa took my phone. "I am calling Lia."
"Don't." I held on to her hand in supplication. "Don't let her see me like this."
She finally noticed my blood-stained hands. "Miranda, then. I am calling Miranda."
Tessa was just done cleaning my wounds and covering them up when Mim arrived.
"What the fuck happened?" She towered over me as I sat on the chair.
At the sight of her, the tears began to fall in torrents. I move a hand to my face as I traced a tear that ran down my cheek.
"I am finally feeling the pain, Mim."
She held me as the tears kept on coming. "Cry it out, Rue. I got you."
I cried for Ria.
I cried for Amelia.
My heart cried for the love I cannot give.