THE PAINTING

Caleb walked over to me.

I bit my lip, anticipating his strength.

Caleb grabbed me by the jaw.

But immediately pulled himself away.

“Fuck.”

He swore under his breath.

I began to worry.

“My love…”

“Shut up.”

I froze, not knowing what to do.

Caleb flew into a rage.

“I’m done.

“I’m fucking done.”

He stepped so close to me that there was almost no space left between us.

His hair was still wet from the shower. Water dripped from it, somehow making him even more frightening.

Caleb stood in front of me, furious as hell.

His eyes burned red.

He grabbed me by the hair.

And immediately released me.

Then, in a fit of rage, he drove his fist into the wall right beside my ear.

I began trembling with fear.

“Caleb…”

I swallowed.

“I’m scared.”

Caleb raised one hand and clenched it until his knuckles cracked.

Then he spun around sharply.

And began tearing at his own hair.

“It’s you. It’s you!” Caleb screamed into the empty air.

“It’s all you!

“You cursed me!”

He began hurling things around the room.

Destroying everything in the bedroom.

“You fucking witch!

“It’s you!”

He collapsed onto the floor.

Covering his ears with his hands.

Crying.

I began to die.

Inside.

I realized that this was how he had protected himself when he was a child.

Covering his ears.

Trying to save himself from reality.

I took one step toward him.

Don’t move, Brain warned.

I looked straight ahead.

Caleb’s spirits appeared.

They shook their heads.

Don’t go near him.

I awkwardly rubbed my arm.

Maybe I was bad.

My eyes began rolling backward.

I sank into the deepest part of my own trauma.

I fell into a state where I was a little girl again and violence was simply part of the daily routine.

My body arched.

I began babbling in a child’s voice.

A seizure tore through me.

Foam gathered around my mouth.

Code Red.

The bracelet on my wrist lit up.

Security broke down the door.

I wasn’t me anymore.

I began babbling like a little girl.

Completely losing touch with reality.

“Miss?”

“D-D-D-Daddy…

“Daddy, do you love me?”

The guards stood there in confusion.

No one knew what to do.

Caleb was still out of his mind, rocking back and forth and muttering nonsense.

I was completely unaware of what was happening around me.

“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy…

“Why is Daddy touching me?”

“Shut up, you stupid girl.”

Mommy slapped me.

I held my chubby cheek.

“Mommy’s not bad.

“Mommy’s just mad.

“It’s my fault.

“I made Mommy mad.

“I’m bad.

“And Daddy…

“Daddy smiles sometimes.

“And the uncles who come over smile too.”

I began licking my fingers as though they were lollipops.

“Oh, candy.

“I love candy.

“I love…

“Candy.

“I love sweet things.”

Then I grabbed my little feet the way small children do.

And began making soft baby noises.

“I’m bad.

“I make everybody mad.

“I make Mommy mad.

“I make Daddy mad.

“I make Caleb mad.

“I’m bad.

“I’m not a good person.”

I saw a knife in my hand that wasn’t there.

I began dragging it across my wrists.

“I shouldn’t live.

“I’m a bad girl.

“Bad.

“Bad Nazokat.

“You should die.”

HOSPITAL

I sat playing with dolls.

Caleb kept rolling a coin between his fingers.

It was already his seventh cigarette of the day.

Sam was on edge.

So were the other guys.

Nate was barely holding himself together.

“Is she going to get better?” Colin began trembling.

“I don’t think so.”

Caleb swore and walked out.

Nate tried to touch me.

I threw my arms over myself.

And began to cry.

“Daddy, no.

“Don’t, Daddy.

“Please, don’t.”

Sam exploded.

“You can’t fucking touch her!”

“She…

“She…”

He wiped his nose.

Then the guys began crying, one after another.

No one was holding it in anymore.

I sat there with my hair in braids.

Singing the songs I had sung to myself as a child.

Imagining that I was a creature from another world.

Fairies surrounded me.

They stroked my hair so I could fall asleep after the beatings.

“Tomorroooow, little baby,

“you’ll look out the window.

“Tomorrow, little baby,

“you’ll go to preschool.

“Your favorite teacher will be there.

“And we will dream.

“And we will dream that when we grow up,

“we will have a family.”

I began spinning around.

“I’ll puuut on

“a beautiful wedding dress.

“I’ll marry someone I love,

“and we’ll have lots and lots of children.

“I’ll maaaarry someone I love,

“and we’ll have lots and lots of children.

“Tomorrow, little baby,

“you’ll look out the window…”

Weeks dragged into more weeks.

Nate lied to the children.

Sometimes he told them I was away at a summit.

Sometimes I had supposedly been called away on an urgent trip.

Anything to buy time.

Anything to prepare the children.

Sam squeezed the bridge of his nose, unable to cope.

Caleb returned with one hand in his pocket.

The pain of the entire world was on his face.

Hidden beneath a cold mask.

Nate flew into a rage.

“You did this to her!

“You broke her, you fucking bastard!”

Nate began hitting Caleb.

The other guys snapped back to attention.

Caleb’s guards tried to pull them apart.

Then Sam suddenly lost it.

He began destroying everything around him.

The others simply froze where they stood.

Only one sound remained in the silence.

The thin voice of a little girl singing about a mother hen’s love for her chick.

3:01 A.M.

I got up and walked over to the window.

“Damn, baby. You look like shit,” Hades said.

“Mm-hmm.”

“Even the whores look cleaner than you.”

I was about to laugh, the way I always did.

I had always thought it was funny.

It was supposed to stay funny, wasn’t it?

Hades was funny.

Then Hades appeared in the room in all his glory.

He threw an arm around my shoulders like a brother and began steering me along.

“Baby, listen…”

But his sweet talk didn’t work on me the way it used to.

Something inside me twitched.

I moved away from him.

“Baby…”

Hades flashed me a crooked, rotten smile.

“Little mouse.

“Bunny.

“Little fish.”

I began backing toward the wall.

He started losing his patience.

Then he ground his teeth and forced himself to regain control.

“Little mousie…”

I froze and narrowed my eyes.

“Am I fat?”

“Baby…” Hades sang in a soft voice.

“Sweetheart…”

My fists tightened.

“Answer me.

“Am I fat?”

But the words came out as a scream.

Only then did I notice that Caleb was asleep in a chair in the hospital room.

He instantly jumped to his feet.

Medical staff rushed into the room.

I began thrashing in fury.

“Answer me, you bastard!

“Am I fat?

“Answer me!”

I screamed at Hades with every ounce of rage inside me.

The nurses restrained me.

The doctor injected me with a sedative.

5:40 P.M.

Drool ran from my mouth.

“Fucking hell,” Hades said.

I realized I could barely understand what was happening.

My brain tried to recover its usual sharpness.

But the drugs muffled it.

Slowing everything down.

Damping the agitation.

My arms were strapped to the bed.

So were my legs.

Dolls surrounded me.

My mother sat beside me, crying.

I flew into a rage.

“Who invited that fucking bitch?”

I glared furiously at everyone gathered in the room.

Then slowly examined them one by one.

My blood turned cold.

I imagined what I must look like.

Even in grief, all those men looked as though they had been carefully selected.

Handsome.

Well groomed.

Successful.

And there I was.

My hair tangled.

Unable to speak properly.

Drool running down my face, and I couldn’t even wipe it away.

No makeup.

Recovering from breakdowns I couldn’t remember.

“Pathetic,” Hades said, delicately filing one of his nails.

“You’re just pathetic.

“Stop embarrassing yourself.”

I lowered my eyes and fell back against the bed.

I stared at the ceiling as tears streamed down my face.

A mother.

A wife.

A leader.

And who was I now?

A woman who couldn’t even wipe the drool from her own face.

Suddenly, I stopped breathing.

If I couldn’t wipe away my own drool, how was I going to the bathroom?

The horror made my entire jaw seize.

Caleb entered the room.

Carrying a bedpan.

I stopped breathing.

I jerked, trying to cover myself.

But with my arms restrained, I couldn’t even turn away.

I closed my eyes.

And began sobbing bitterly.

I had become so pathetic.

So completely humiliated.

Caleb was being forced to take care of me.

All my feminine energy.

My sexuality.

My strength.

They died in that moment.

It felt as though I no longer existed.

I would never be able to look the guys in the eyes again.

Caleb most of all.

What unbearable humiliation.

5:15 A.M.

I woke up.

And rubbed my eyes.

Then did it again.

Then I clapped my hands.

“Yay!

“Oh God, yay!

“Yay!”

It meant I could touch myself with my own hands again.

God, what happiness.

I went quiet.

And looked around the hospital room.

Nate and Colin had fallen asleep in their chairs.

Caleb was sitting separately.

I began to cry.

While they were sleeping, I could look at them.

Thank God I only seemed to wake up at night.

That way, I didn’t have to look them in the eyes.

“How humiliating, being such a pathetic little thing,” Hades said, lighting a cigarette.

“Want one?”

I grimaced.

“Fuck off.”

“Whoa, whoa.

“Whatever you say.

“Want me to sing you a song, baby?”

I understood the joke.

He was humming the same tune that had helped push me over the edge.

“Well, if you’re still in there, you’re not completely cuckoo.”

“Exactly.”

God, where had that come from?

Sam walked into the room.

I frowned.

“Sammy, if this is a joke, it isn’t funny, my friend.”

Sam was wearing a hospital gown.

Then I realized he wasn’t joking.

His hair was a mess.

He looked unwashed and completely neglected.

“Sammy…”

He burst into tears and rushed toward me.

We sat down on the ice-cold floor.

I swore that, for what Caleb was paying, he could at least have put me somewhere a little fancier.

“Sammy…”

I wiped away his tears.

“What’s wrong, my friend?”

He shook his head.

Then collapsed, sobbing.

I glanced over my shoulder.

My guys were asleep.

All right.

“Listen, after everything that happened…

“You know…

“Nate betraying me with the marriage.

“Colin and the prostitution—”

“Speaking of prostitution, baby,” Hades cut in.

“Was it really worth being so stubborn?

“So what if you’d slept with him?

“Maybe we wouldn’t have lost the business.

“And besides…”

He tilted his head.

“Hmm?

“Baby?”

I didn’t get to finish.

“Ooh, and the cherry on top,” Hades continued.

“The psycho.”

I wanted to object.

But Hades raised one hand, signaling for me to be quiet.

He began pacing around the room.

“A psycho.

“Hmm.

“We dragged him out of such deep shit that even talking about it is terrifying.

“And somehow he still got you.”

Hades looked me up and down with greasy, disgusting eyes.

“Oh, you’re quite the trophy.

“So many pathetic bastards fought over you.

“And none of them could get you.

“But the psycho did.

“And not only that…”

Hades arrogantly ran one manicured fingernail along my chin.

“You love him.

“Poor little girlfriends of his.

“Nate and Colin, always crying.

“The stupid whore chose the psycho.

“Ha.

“Is anyone surprised?”

I narrowed my eyes.

Something in Hades changed.

He became the real psycho.

“Look more closely, baby.”

I froze.

“You remember, don’t you?”

My heart dropped.

The eyes in Hades’s face weren’t Hades’s anymore.

They were his.

Hades’s face spread into a sick smile.

“You remember, baby.

“Don’t you?”

His breath came hot and foul.

I remembered the sexual abuse.

The beatings.

The insults.

I remembered all the men who had abused me when I was a little girl.

“You remember?”

I couldn’t remember how to breathe.

But help came from where I least expected it.

Pull yourself together, Brain ordered.

I immediately straightened my back.

Hades snorted in irritation.

He swore.

And disappeared.

But I still couldn’t remember how to breathe.

The problem wasn’t only the abusers and monsters from my childhood.

The problem was what my mind had done with them.

My mind had turned the abuse into strength.

In other words, it had taken the man who raped me and made him my friend.

I sat there, unable to breathe.

“I remember.

“I remembered.

“I remember.”

And it felt like freedom.

It wasn’t only the sexual violence from men.

Or the beatings from my mother.

It went deeper.

To protect me, my mind had made a substitution.

There was another self inside me.

Whenever I felt myself losing touch with reality, that other self took over.

And afterward, I remembered nothing about the abuse.

As I grew older, the mechanism became so autonomous that I simply stopped remembering my childhood.

Completely.

I remembered absolutely nothing.

I frowned.

Then began feeling sick.

I turned around.

Poor Sam had fallen asleep directly on the floor.

My heart softened.

“Poor thing.”

I tried to cover him.

“That won’t help.

“Are you stupid?

“The floor is freezing,” Hades said.

I tried to lift Sam.

But he was so big.

I couldn’t do it.

And I fell.

The sound echoed through the empty hospital room as though someone had struck a gong.

The guys instantly woke up.

I froze and didn’t move.

Caleb rushed toward me.

He pulled me up, bracing my body against his.

I blushed with shame.

He led me into the bathroom.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“Uh…

“I don’t know.

“And forgive me for asking, but what are you doing here?

“Didn’t you decide to leave me for another woman?”

Caleb snorted.

“Are you finished?”

I shook my head.

“I’m still peeing.”

Caleb waited.

“Do you need help?”

I blushed so deeply that I didn’t think I had ever felt so humiliated in my life.

“No.”

I leaned against the wall and stood up.

Caleb immediately caught me.

Leaning against him, I made it back to the bed.

“Sam is going to catch a cold.

“We need to move him.”

Caleb nodded.

Nate nodded in response and left the room.

Colin was trembling all over.

I lay down on the bed.

“Colin.”

He raised his eyes.

They were completely red and filled with tears.

“What are you doing here?”

“I…”

He jumped to his feet.

But it was too late.

Another shudder tore through me.

That crooked little smile tugged at my mouth.

Drool slipped from the corner of my lips.

And I clapped my hands like a little girl.

Caleb swore.

Colin covered his face with both hands.

Once again, he began choking on his tears.