Chapter Two

The nightmares didn't stop. Not even during the day. I would wake up in a bed soaked with cold sweat, to my own voice screaming for forgiveness. I tried to get busy, find a hobby like knitting or painting. For some reason, the cello that I had played for ten years sat untouched after the day I got the news. I associated it with ignorance and nativity�"something I couldn't afford now. My world was spinning out of control. Sometimes, I would spend entire days in bed listening to my thoughts race around a circular track. I would think up ridiculous fantasies, which always ended with me opening my eyes and realizing that the past few weeks had been a dream.

My mom tried to be there for me. Truth was she could barely be there for herself. I knew that the life she had so carefully put together was falling apart, piece by piece.

I felt uncomfortable in my skin, like I wasn't meant to inhabit this body. Like I didn't belong. Every kid needs to know that they are wanted. Loved. I knew that my mom loved me and I thought she wanted me, but after that day, I wasn't so sure. She'd given me the best life a single mother could give, maybe even better, but was she happy doing it? Because the kid she was buying presents and paying tuition for, was a constant reminder of something that anyone would want to forget.

I searched my past for proof that she hated me. I don't know why�"maybe I just wanted a reason to run away from life. But every memory I could think of where she was mad at me, she had a reason to be. Most of the time, it seemed, she was mad because I did something that scared her and she wanted to protect me. I couldn't grasp the concept of protecting what had resulted from violence and the violation of her rights as a woman and a human being.

There's no arguing with what I am�"a mistake. I wasn't supposed to happen, but when I did, my mom took it upon herself to raise me as if I were meant to be. In elementary school we learned that babies were created by two people, who mutually consented to have a “special cuddle.”

“Why are there babies that the mommy and daddy don't want?” This question is from Kevin, who everyone knows will grow up to do something important.

The teacher is caught off guard, and cautiously tries to avoid the question by mumbling something about poor families in Africa who want their babies to have a better life.

“But why would they cuddle if they don't want a baby?”

The teacher doesn't answer. She's noticeably uncomfortable, and suggests that we take a break. No third grader would say no to that.

That night I have a dream: I'm on the top of the play-structure. I jump down, and when I reach the ground I'm a baby. When I wake up, I blink to clear the image out of my head. But it is plastered to the back of my eyelids.

When I did do something, it was always mindless doodling on a sticky-note. I would sit at the computer, staring at the blank screen, and then pick up a pen or pencil and begin to draw my mind into a trance. When reality would come to slap me in the face, I would stare at the tiny drawings covering up the sticky-note, and try to make sense out of them. It was impossible to tell what anything was. Sometimes I could see a face, or a heart, but beyond that they meant nothing, other than the fact that I had nothing to do.

My mom placed her hand gently on my shoulder to wake me from my mindless doodling. I jumped, surprised at the interruption

“What are you doing?” She asked a deeper question underneath the shallow remark.

“Nothing.”

“Maddy, you need to do something. You have to stop wasting your day. Play your cello or something, but enough of this.”

“I’m doing stuff.”

“Oh really? What?”

I lifted up the sticky-note, and showed it to her. She laughed out loud. I could feel the laughter bubbling up inside of me. I tried to resist it, but the giggle came with my exhale. I felt a tremendous relief as I sat there, letting the laughter soothe my worry. My mom’s smile reached her eyes. It’s the first time I’d seen her lids crinkle in true happiness for a long time.

But then as the mood faded to darker emotions, I watched her smile fade with it. And I could feel my own mouth contort into a frown.

“I know you’re scared. But you’ll regret it if you waste your life away. Trust me.”

I didn’t need to ask why I should trust her. We’re in the same boat, both sinking, both clinging to the side, afraid to drown.

“I feel awful,” I admitted.

“I know. But you shouldn’t. I’m thankful that you came into my life. People have told me that everything happens for a reason. And you’re proof of that.”

I didn’t believe her. I knew then, as I know now. Things don’t happen for a reason. There is no balance in this world�"good things don’t come with the bad. Some people are just lucky.

“What’s he like?”

“Oh, Maddy.”

“I want to know. He’s my dad.”

She paused for a second. I could tell that she was censoring her own words, debating between breaking my heart, and putting it back together just so it could break again.

“I’m visiting him. I don’t think it’s in your best interest to come. But you are eighteen, if you want, you can come meet him.”

“Why are you visiting him?” It confused me that she would want to see the man who took so much from her.

“I just have to,” she said, staring into the distance, a haze fogging her eyes. I knew that it was time for me to leave. I had heard her crying a lot in the past few weeks, but I knew she wanted me to at least pretend that she was strong.

I went up to my room, cluttered with papers from the school-year, clothes, and books. I found a spot on the floor and curled up into the fetal position, hoping to squeeze the pain out. My lids closed, and I found myself transported into the darkness

“The best way to protect yourself is to act confident. Criminals are less likely to seek you out if you look like you know where you’re going.”

Why am I here? I wonder. My mom signed me up for a self-defense class, said it was something every girl should take. It seems pretty pointless. I mean, I feel like if I ever get attacked, I would blank out on everything I'd learned. Plus, poking someone’s eyes out is too gruesome for me�"even if they’re about to kill you, or rape you, or do whatever they’re going to do. I know it won’t happen to me. It’s never happened to anyone I know. It only happens to unlucky people, I’ll never be that unfortunate.

People always think they’re above the bad stuff. They think it won’t happen to them. That’s what everyone thinks, until they find themselves caught up in the terror. Odds are we’re all going to end up there at some point; it’s just a matter of when. I realize the point of the self-defense class, now. My mom had experienced the pain of not being prepared, and she wanted to protect me from it. I think she knew it wouldn’t do much, but it probably gave her peace of mind�"which I know now, is worth so much more than reality.

She said we’d go at 9:45 AM on Saturday. He was in a special unit, “The Condemned Unit.” He didn’t know we were coming. I wondered what it was like, sitting by yourself all day, in a tiny cell. I wondered what it was like to know that you were going to die, to be labeled “condemned” for all to see. To be given no more respect than a dead person, because in the eyes of society, once you walk through the doors to the condemned unit in San Quentin prison, you’re dead.

I wanted desperately for him to like me, or at least approve of me. But my mom protected me once again, by warning me that he wasn’t “warm and fuzzy.” I wondered what he was. What genes did I get from him? Was he anything like me? My hopes were up, despite all my attempts to keep them at bay. I was expecting the best, which I knew deep down, I was not going to get.

My mom was acting strangely the next couple of days. She barely talked. She barely ate. She barely came out of her room. I was too jittery to sleep, too anxious to do anything else. The life I had lived, was about to take a turn. And that turn, I knew, was destined to lead to tears.

Reviews

[CrimsonBlaze]

Argh! >_< I'm gonna read the next chapter just for the sake of actually seeing what happens next, what her dad is like, and whatnot. I have to say, apart from what I said earlier about indentation, everything is fine. I had no trouble understanding anything. Capital punishment was in my mind from the first paragraph in the book, and immediately I wanted to know everything about the main character's background. Maybe it's just me, or did you not introduce the main character's name yet. I suggest you should if it doesn't come in the next chapter but otherwise, I like this. :3