Choking Game (13 page)

NINETEEN

Teenage Revenge
@TeenageRevenge
can you honestly say you like the company of your own self in the empty moments of your life #bullying #teens #lonelypeople #lying #hurt #rumors

~How do you like my tweet?~

"I'm not sure I follow. Seems like you're asking me if I like you but then you add those hashtags that completely throw me off."

~I'm wondering if you like me talking to you. I'm also curious what the mean bullies really think of themselves when they're alone, when there's nobody watching them. Do you think they like what they see in the mirror?~

"I don't see how; but then again, I'm not a bully so how would I know?"

~It'd be interesting to know.~

"I'm more curious to hear what Angelica has to say."

~Let's go back then.~

"Here," Angelica said as she took off her leather bracelets and turned her wrists upright. "See the scars?"

"Did you—"

~Did she cut herself?~

"For years I actually believed I was doomed. Every time something good happened in my life, it was almost immediately replaced by something bad. I felt like I had no control over anything that was happening. I felt out of place, lonely. The only thing that made me truly happy was my painting.

"Things went from bad to worse when we moved in with Roger, my sister's father. I was excited at first to live in a beautiful, huge house in an upscale suburban neighborhood only a few miles from Manhattan. I was a fool; I never fit in. I knew within days that it was a mistake, but Mom was too awestruck by all the luxury. It didn't last, of course. The first time Roger hit her, she went from awestruck to dumbfounded. The second time, she got pissed and fought back. I wished she had packed up and left, but she just kept fighting and then excusing his behavior. He was a very good looking man, and he knew how to get under her skin. Each time Mom would decide to move out, he'd plead and beg and promise and shower her with gifts. Mom fell for it every single time.

"It pained me so much to watch that, I had to distract myself from the sharp pain inside of me. The first time was the scariest. I remember I picked the biggest knife we had and traced my wrists with it careful not to really cut myself. That made me believe I was nothing but a wimp who could not even cut her own wrists. The next day I rushed home, grabbed a smaller knife, closed my eyes and cut quickly before I could stop myself. I squealed from the pang of sharp pain and waited for it to subside before I had enough courage to look at what I did. My left wrist was bleeding. I let cold water run over the wound while I recalled every second from when I got home to when I looked at my bleeding hand. It was a blur I could not make sense of. The only good thing was that once I felt the pain I inflicted on my own body, the anger left me, and I was able to put my day behind me.

"I didn't cut myself every day, maybe once a month or so, and it got more intense each time. The cuts got deeper, I let the blood flow longer, and the marking of the end of that particular day was that much more significant. The pain was my outlet. I'd closed myself to the world around me so much, I barely noticed anyone else. When I cut myself, ironically, I felt alive. I was able to draw the inner pain through my blood flowing out of my fresh cut. The physical pain gave me relief from the pain I kept inside. I felt in control of my own life, free to end it if I wanted to."

"I'm so sorry, Angelica."

~I did not expect that.~

"Wow, I'm sorry too," Luke said.

"It was my way of coping with the lack of control over this never-ending drama. Unfortunately, Roger upped the drama even more. He was eyeing me ever since we moved in. Over the course of one summer, I grew like three inches and changed a lot. He started to touch my arms, my back, even pat me on my butt a lot. It made me very uncomfortable."

"Did you tell your mom?"

~I hope so!~

"What was there to tell? Roger did it in such a playful, hard-to-pin-down way, I wasn't sure he really meant anything by it. I made myself believe he wasn't serious and I was just imagining things, jumping to conclusions. The more I thought about it, the worse I felt about myself. I thought it was all my fault for growing up, for simply being. To distract myself, I started to cut even deeper. My scars got bigger, and they took longer to heal."

"And your mom didn't see your cuts and scars?" Luke said.

"I got really good at hiding them," Angelica said. "The bracelets helped."

"But you have so many scars, how could she not see anything?"

~That's what I was wondering.~

"I don't know. She was probably too distracted by Roger's outbursts to notice much else," Angelica said. "I was in a dark place. I started to believe demons were a part of my existence. Like you, MJ, I became a loner. Kids at school didn't like me very much. The girls were jealous because a lot of boys wanted to date me. Boys thought I was stuck up because I wouldn't date any of them. I became depressed and disconnected until one day…" Angelica's voice trailed off.

"You okay?" Luke said.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Angelica said. "Mom volunteered as a chaperone at my sister's school trip. They weren't coming home until late, and I was busy writing a report. Roger came to ask some stupid question about something, and I don't think I even bothered answering. He got mad and grabbed my arm. I jumped from my chair and yanked my hand back. He held me so tightly, my shirt ripped at the arm seam as I yanked it even harder. That's when he started laughing and saying all this nasty stuff…" Angelica trailed off again.

"You don't have to tell us. It's none of our business."

~It's nice that you said that. I think she wants to talk, though.~

"I know. I want to. I've never told anyone other than my mom what happened exactly. I have to break this self-imposed silence. It's still eating me up inside. Just this once and I'll never have to talk about it again," Angelica paused. "Roger called me a whore and a tease. He said I was too stupid to know what was good for me, and that he'd throw us all out of his house if I said a word to anyone. I started to call him names too. I said I was going to tell mom if he touched me and that I'd call the cops."

"Good for you!" Luke said.

"He started to laugh like a lunatic.
'You stupid little bitch, don't you know who I am? There's not a cop in this county that'll touch me! It's your word against mine! I'm the lawyer here, and I can assure you if you say one word, I'll make sure your mother will never see your little sister ever again! I can do whatever I want, and there's not a single damn thing you or your mother can do about it! Now shut up and do what I say or I'll knock you out cold, have my way and you won't even know what happened to you!'
That's what he said. I still remember it word for word," Angelica said.

"What an asshole!"

~My exact words.~

"I backed off but he grabbed me and slid one of his hands under my t-shirt. Then he started to yank on my jeans with his other hand. I started to kick him and push him away. He got really mad and slammed me against the wall. My head hit the wall so hard, I thought he cracked my skull. He started to kiss me and I was so scared, so shaken up, I froze for a while. He must have thought I stopped fighting him, so he eased his grip on me. I took my chance and kicked him in the groin with my knee so hard, he squealed like a pig. I ran out of the house and into our backyard. I had my cell phone in the back pocket, but before I dialed, I saw Mom's car pull into the driveway. They got home earlier because a few kids got some food poisoning from something they ate at lunch.

"I told my mom what happened and that was the first time ever that I saw my mom get so mad, she could have killed that son of a bitch. I honestly thought that's what she was going to do. She stormed into Roger's home office and pretty much knocked over every piece of furniture, stack of papers, books, and everything else that was anywhere near her path. I could see Roger frozen in a stupor as she jammed her fist into his face calling him every possible f-bomb there was. She said she was going to call 911 and report he was beating us all up if he as much as stood up, which he did not. She was holding her cell phone with the 911 numbers waiting for her to hit the call button. She ordered us to pack some basic stuff, and we left within half an hour. We stayed with one of Mom's friends for a couple of weeks. Mom told her friend what happened. The woman was mortified and urged us to go to police but we didn't want to. Roger was right; he was a well-known lawyer. It'd be impossible for us to prove what he did. He's a snake, and he knew how to play the system. We didn't. It was almost the end of the school year, so Mom wanted me to finish school first before we'd decide what to do and where to go. It almost worked. We almost made it.

"The first week at school was okay. I was still shaken up but at least no one knew what happened. But the next week turned out to be a total disaster. Someone must have found out, and within days a nasty rumor spread like wildfire. Someone actually claimed I was having sex with Roger. Not like rape, but willingly and repeatedly. When I saw that on a social site, I thought my world had ended. You'd never believe what kind of lies people made up about me after that. Within that one week, I became the whore Roger called me. I became a lot more than that. I no longer existed as Angelica or even as a teenage girl. I was some kind of trash left by the sidewalk. And the worst thing was, I began to feel like it."

"I am so, so sorry, Angelica."

~That poor girl! I'd cry a river for her if I could actually shed a tear.~

"And then, when I got to school on Friday of that second week, I saw a picture on Instagram. It was me with Roger pinning me against the wall in my room with his hand under my t-shirt. The caption said,
Money can buy you anything...
By the time I saw it, it had over four hundred likes. I was sick to my stomach. I felt completely naked with imaginary mud and spit smeared all over my body and face. I could not hold the tears that were running down my burning cheeks. Each time I wiped them, I imagined I smeared some of that mud across my face and made it even worse. My mascara burned my eyes and leaked dark smudges under them. I ran out of the school, and I ran all the way to where we were staying. I didn't stop the whole eight miles until I was inside the house, shutting the door behind me.

"No one was home. I was all alone, free to hate myself for allowing everyone at school to think the rumor was true because I did not stay to defend myself. I felt like a complete failure for running away, a despicable fake who could not stand up to bullies and nasty rumors. I took out the knife and went to the bathroom. It was exactly at that time when I looked in the mirror and saw nothing in the empty glare. No solution, no argument, no possible explanation for my stupid, pathetic life, for my utter incompetence to protect myself from a vicious, untrue rumor. It was then that I saw no point in existing anymore because I hated the person staring at me in the mirror. A shame, a horrible, ugly, hurtful shame filled every crevice of my inner being. I was ashamed for a rumor that was not even true.

"That was my breaking point. I went from hating everyone else—the whole world I lived in—to hating myself. That's when you're standing on top of a cliff. That's when you believe the only way out is to jump. When you hate yourself enough, you don't see any other option. You don't plan it; you don't even write a note. You don't think it's important to tell anyone why. You hate yourself enough to believe no one cares, so you don't bother.

"I locked the door of my temporary bedroom, sat down on the bed and clutched the handle of the knife. I'd always cut enough to bleed but not deep enough to cut any major vein. This time, I really meant it. I aimed at the veins and the artery, closed my eyes, and pushed hard and fast before I could feel the pain and jerk my hand away. I could feel the warm blood flowing immediately. Before I even lay down, a huge blood stain formed in my lap and on the bed covers. I was surprised how little pain my deep cut actually caused. It made a big mess around me but very little pain. Within minutes I felt the strange peace and quietness even as I heard the knocking on the door. I just drifted away as the voice got louder and the knocking more intense. In my world, all was quiet. I was surrounded by a haze that spread all around and protected me from thoughts, voices, feelings, and from the demons that took over my soul."

"Angelica!"

~Why are you so shocked? You did exactly the same thing! Maybe not with a knife, but just as crazy!~

"I opened my eyes one more time and saw the blankets soaked red. Then I fell into a deep sleep. It was coma. I call it a dream you'll never fully wake up from." Angelica took a glass of water and downed it in a few gulps.

"How long were you in a coma?" Luke asked.

"Five days and seven hours. The doctors called it a coma, but they were baffled because there was no measurable brain activity. They actually thought I was clinically dead," Angelica said. Luke's jaw dropped and she giggled and pushed it back up. "You look funny with your mouth opened like that. You wanna hear what it was like?"

"Yeah, duh!"

~Yeah, duh!~

"I could feel myself slipping away. Not like sleeping—more like flying, but without wings. I couldn't open my eyes, yet I could see everything. Soon I was looking at my motionless body lying on the bed. I could not tell if I was still breathing, that's how impassive my body was. My eyes were closed and my eyelids wouldn't even flutter. I wanted to get closer, but something was tugging me away instead. I didn't understand what was happening at first, so I pushed down hoping to get closer to my body, but the more I pushed, the farther away I actually moved.

"That's when it hit me that I might be dying. I watched myself on the bed, but I was moving farther and farther away, unable to come back. I had no limbs. I had no substance. I was free as a bird, but I did not feel free at all. I can't explain it because the emotion was something I've never felt before or after. It was a bewildering shuffle of high, trance, freedom and happiness on one hand, and agony, depression, sorrow, and remorse on the other. Except I didn't experience each emotion separately. They were all so strongly palpable at once, pounding me, filling me up and leaving me alone to sort them out. I thought I was going insane. I wished I had one of those 'walking through a dark tunnel and into a beautiful garden of light' experiences, but I did not. The state I was in was utterly confusing. I was scared for my own life that I took away."