The weight of memory

It took me five years to speak up and two more years to finally write about it...

Memory works in mysterious ways—a labyrinth of shadows and light. One day, if asked about it, I probably won't remember it at all, as if it happened to someone else entirely. Another day, it hits like a tsunami, devastating everything in its path, leaving nothing untouched.

My skin shrinks within... making me want to bathe myself in acid. To cleanse what cannot be cleansed. To burn away fingerprints that have long since disappeared but somehow remain.

No one understood where the anger came from. To everyone around me, I was just an angry teenager... a disgrace, a disappointment. A problem to be managed. They left me with the very person I wished to disappear from, trapped in a nightmare they couldn't—or wouldn't—see. At the time, my mind couldn't comprehend—I was 15, so pure... how could he mean something wrong? It feels just wrong and disgusting, but he's so kind, and I've known him my whole life. The contradiction was unresolvable.

Life is cruel in that way. It places monsters in gentle disguises.

I remember locking myself in my bathroom only to emerge and find him sitting on the couch in my room, just hovering. Waiting. My dad wouldn't give me a house key and would leave me locked in with him the whole day. My prison, his playground.

I grew up, gathered every fragment of courage I possessed, and I told Dad. He apologized—empty words filling the space where action should have been—and asked if I wanted him to do something. I wished he did, with every fiber of my being. He called me after a week, told me he saw him and wanted to hit him but shook his hand instead.

At that moment, 2 years ago—at that exact moment—I knew for a fact that I was alone. I've always known, but it wasn't a fact, just an inner knowing. Now it was undeniable, written in my father's extended hand.

Now I'm crying in the car writing this because I suddenly remembered everything... I just want to be hugged and cry and be sure that I'm safe. For once, I don't want to have to look out for my own safety. For once, I want to lay down this burden of vigilance I've carried since childhood.