InsaneJournal

79: The Scarlet Pimpernel
You know, whenever I think about how I was abandoned under my step-father's roof, left to suffer by his hand and whims, I get bitter. I cried out for help so many times - to my mother, to my teachers, to neighbors and priests and friends and anyone I could get ahold of for five minutes - but nobody wanted to believe that William Herald was capable of such cruelty. So I was pushed aside for his reputation, with no one to fight for me.

Well, almost no one. There was one who protected me, one who sat with me as I cried myself to sleep. But you'll never meet her. At least, I hope you won't Because I've done my best to lock her up, so tight she can't come out again.

It makes me sound terribly ungrateful, doesn't it? She saved me all those years, and now she's hidden away from the world by my doing. But you see, I had to. She was too dangerous, too angry, to hellbent on violent satisfaction. I was in high school the first time I realized it; somebody at school made fun of me for being clumsy with my arm in a cast, and she used it to put him in a two-day coma. My step-father had it purged from my record - one of the few times I was ever grateful for his influence - and chalked it up to disorientation from the pain medication. But from then on, until I graduated from Columbia, a healthy portion of my diet consisted of anti-psychotics and anti-depressants. They didn't do much to keep me from carving into my wrists or trying to see how long I could go without oxygen underwater, but they did help to subdue her enough for me to gain control.

It's a terrible thing, to have someone like that in your life. You constantly live in fear that something will happen, that she'll cause trouble and you'll be left with the mess. It's why I hate dreaming; I can't tell if it's just an illusion, or if I'm witnessing what she's done. Sometimes I know - I can hear the screams, feel the adrenaline, smell the blood - but others, it's not so clear. It's what terrifies me about her, what's kept me afraid all these years. Not that you would have ever known.

But the crippling fear of what she might do isn't nearly as tragic as the truth that without her, I'd be nothing. She is my fairy godmother, my guardian angel. My sister and confidante, whom I love more than I have loved anyone else in my life. Above my father, Ravi, David - good people, good hearts - I love a monster more. And I shall until we die.

"I shall love her until the day I die. That's the tragedy."
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