Many people avoid me. I’m not normal, I’ll admit. But I don’t think I’m as intimidating as I could be if they knew a thing about me.
Mainly, I leave people alone. I don’t talk to people I don’t have to, and avoid human contact whenever possible. My father always told me I inherited my mother’s indifference. He said that only when I was disappointing him though.
I don’t remember much about my mother. I remember she was blonde, with curly beach-like hair and pretty. She always wore a type of lipstick that never smeared, usually the reddest she could get her hands on. I had never seen her without it. The last time I saw her, we were at the grocery store. She had said she left her purse in the car and told me to wait with dad while she ran out to grab it. She never came back into the store. I was 7.
Now at 19, I’m a spitting image of her. Luscious blonde hair, curves to die for, and lips people usually have to pay for. Honestly, not to sound vain, but I’ve never met anyone who was more beautiful than the person I see when I look in the mirror.
But The funny thing Is, I don’t feel like the person I see.
I’ve always felt like a disappointment. Never good enough to be worthy of anything given to me. I suppose that’s what started my mission.
My dad always told me that I was lucky to have the food he gave me and the roof over my head that he provided. Even though he did terrible things to me, I was lucky. So when I screamed out, I was being ungrateful and disrespectful. Because even though some of those things hurt, I should’ve known to keep quiet.
I left my father when I was 14. I’ve never returned. I’ve sustained my own needs my own way since then. At first it was difficult to find a place to sleep, wats to get clean, and food to eat. But I found a place to call my own.
On the outskirts of town, most of the houses have burnt at some point or been condemned for one reason or another. I was lucky enough to have found one that was abandoned due to a fire years ago. The only damage done by the fire was the front porch. But it was abandoned all the same.
Nobody claims this place, nobody wants this place. But for about 4 years now, nobody will even come near this place because of its occupant- me.
Food was the hardest thing to acquire. Day after day, I chased scraps wherever I could. I begged, I dug through trash, I even killed a few squirrels to eat when I couldn’t find food that week. But the day I became enlightened, I had been outside the local Walmart for 7 hours and had $0.38 cents to show for it. Begging for change all day to get food because I hadn’t eaten in 9 days.
A middle aged woman approached me, and offered to take me to personally buy me a burger. I was thrilled and eager to eat, so I rushed toward her to hug her and thank her. Surprised at my sudden move towards her, her footing slipped and she fell on the side of the curb, scraping her heel and ankle up a good bit.
My sense of smell has always been extremely keen and accurate, and I immediately smelt the blood rush to the surface and begin to slowly make its way down her skin. It smelt so welcoming and savory, I couldn’t have stopped myself if I had tried. I got down and crawled to her, grabbing her foot and kneeling over it.
The woman looked at me as if she assumed I merely was concerned. She brushed her mid-length dark mahogany hair from her face and exclaimed a little breathlessly, “Oh, don’t worry about that, Dear. It’s just a little scrape. I’ve got bandaids in my glovebox of my” -
I couldn’t help myself. I bent right down and licked up the warm gooey stream of blood leaking from her ankle. It tasted like heaven, so velvety and rich. So full of nutrition, I could’ve sat and licked and sucked on that one spot all day.
The woman gasped in shock and quickly pulled her limb from my desperate fingers, away from my watering mouth. She fumbled to get up as hastily as she could.
“Good heavens, Child!” She burst, backing away from me. “You need medical attention! You are not well at all!”
She took a step toward me then, with her hand reached out as if to feel my forehead to check for fever.
I panicked and fled. I couldn’t have anyone taking me and contacting my father. I couldn’t go back there. It was bearable when I was younger, right when mom left. But the older I got and the more I grew to look like her... the more dad treated me like her.
I couldn’t go back to be touched like that again. To be hit like that again. To be forced like that again. To have to pretend that I like it, that I deserve it. I couldn’t!
