Hannah's first farewell
Hannah’s first Farewell
She opened the door slowly and gently to keep from waking her parents.
It wasn’t that they didn’t know that she had been out; they had to know that by now. No, it was that she wanted to postpone meeting their enraged faces.
As she gently closed the wooden door she heard shouting from above.
Okay. Not asleep then, she thought to herself.
Hannah started walking up the stairs. The fright made her body shiver as she took each step closer to her life. The life no one knew about.
She always tried to stay calm and pretend it wasn’t a big deal, but the truth was that she was scared to the point where she couldn’t even stand most of the time.
She reached the top of the staircase, and she leaned her shoulder to the wall for a second. Trying to regain some strength before walking into the known warzone.
‘’You filthy whore! I can’t believe that I got stuck with you and that worthless piece of shit!’’
Hannah pushed away from the wall and walked over to the door. It was wide open, and she froze. Her father was pinning her mother down by her hair. Her mother was pleading for him to let go of her, but he didn’t care.
‘’I ought to end you and that tramp!’’
Hannah walked in and swung her right hand once in his face, and once under the belt.
‘’Don’t talk to her like that!’’
He threw her mother away and looked at Hannah with raging black eyes.
‘’You’’ he shouted.
He stumbled over to her and grabbed her shoulders. She couldn’t wriggle out of his touch and he lowered his face to look her in the eyes. His breath smelled strongly of alcohol and cigarettes.
‘’You’re gonna pay for that, bitch’’
He backed her into the wall and fastened the chains around her body.
It was the usual routine. At first he beat her. And with every strike she took, her mother just watched. Bruised and beaten blue eyes stared at her, unable to move away.
After the beating he proceeded to undress her, and that was the part where Hannah always wished he had beaten her unconscious first. But that never happened. He wanted her to feel the pain. The betrayal. The roughness. And he had no mercy. Never any mercy as he brought forth the knives. The fists. But those things weren’t the worst. These nights weren’t even the worst. It was when he had friends over and passed her between them to be their slave. Chained to a bed with no escape from several different men. Afterwards, they paid him.
‘’You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me. You would have been nothing. Show some fucking gratitude!’’
He slashed his knife into Hannah’s skin and Hannah cried out.
‘’Say you’re sorry’’ he shouted in her face.
His alcohol stained spit landed on her nose and mouth, and she tried to shake it off.
‘’Say you’re thankful!’’
This proceeded at hours at an end.
This was a typical ‘’family night’’ in the Hart residence. Mother gets beaten. Daughter gets beaten and cut open. Never deep enough to kill, but always deep enough to hurt.
He liked making them hurt. To enforce the pain he always was conflicting.
Hannah would scream out muffled screams that wouldn’t be heard. At least not by anyone that cared. Not by anyone that wasn’t high on various narcotics or wasn’t in on hurting them.
Hannah had never felt love. She had never known soft touches that were safe. When she thought about it; she had never felt safe.
At least not in her home. But she did feel safe when she was with The Stranger. Even though she had never heard her voice, or seen her outside the rain, she had seen her. And what she had seen was just simply safe.
Hannah wondered if it was possible to love someone you don’t know. If it was possible to know someone you don’t know. Because even though she didn’t know The Stranger, she knew her. She knew her muddy brown puddles. She knew her smile, her hands. She knew her.
Her mother loosened the chains and helped Hannah down.
‘’Mom, we have to leave. He’s going to keep doing this until one day when we lay cold and dead in front of his feet’’
Hannah looked up at her mother, tears running from her eyes. The pain was too much for her this time. He had fucked her up more than he used to.
‘’No, he just had a long day at job.’’
Hannah scoffed and looked away as she clung to her mother. The blood was still sliding down her skin.
‘’A long day in the bar, you mean?’’
Her mother slapped her, and Hannah laughed.
‘’Don’t you speak of your father like that’’
Hannah returned her gaze to her mother. Cold blue eyes fixed on bruised ones.
‘’What, are you going to do as he has done with me for so many years now? Are you really about to go down that road?’’
She slapped her once more and proceeded to stop the bleeding of the cuts. As she put the bandages over the cuts Hannah looked away again.
‘’Mom, I turned 18 a few hours ago. You can’t keep me here anymore. Whether you like it or not; I am leaving tonight. I would like you to come with me’’
Hannah could hear the quiet sobs and the silent tears from her mother.
‘’I can’t leave him, Hannah. He’s all I have’’
Hannah felt anger rise in her beaten body.
‘’You have me’’ she shouted.
Her mother smiled weakly and put a hand on Hannah’s cheek.
‘’No. I lost you when I let him lay a hand on you the first time’’
She kissed Hannah’s forehead and pulled back to look into Hannah’s blue eyes.
‘’Come on. Let’s pack your stuff before he comes back’’
She didn’t have much, but she had enough. She had two shirts, one pair of pants, two T-shirts and a couple of underwear and socks. She had her one book, her favorite book; Behind my Ribs. It was her life. The author described it so beautifully down to every last detail. Sometimes she thought that she was the main character. That she was a character living inside a book.
But the most important thing she owned, the most important thing in the world, was the necklace around her neck. It was the only thing she had from Drew.
It had been quick packing them down into a bag and leave the house. But now she had nowhere to go. Nowhere to sleep. She had nothing but the bag and its contents. But it was better than to live the life she had lived for the past 18 years.
Hannah ran for an hour. She didn’t know where she was going. She didn’t know where she was going to end up in the end. All she knew was that she had to keep on running so that her father couldn’t find her.
She stopped after an hour and laid down. It was still raining outside, and the pavement under her was the same she had laid down on with The Stranger. A little part of her hoped that she would still be there. That she would be waiting for Hannah, but no one was there except her. And the rain.
She didn’t know how long she was just lying there, looking at the stars and thinking of how the world would perceive her now that she was one without a home. A wanderer. Without family or anyone who loved her.
She had The Stranger, but how would she react when she heard Hannah’s history? How she was abused sexually, emotionally and physically. But if she didn’t tell her, where would that leave them? If all Hannah did was deceive her, how could that be friendship?
Were they even friends? They couldn’t name each other. They didn’t know anything about each other.
All these thoughts, Hannah decided, was self-destructive. So she stopped thinking for a while and just laid there listening to the rain. Missing the sound of another slow heartbeat in her presence.
Hannah closed her eyes and drifted into the darkness around her.
She opened her eyes to see a little girl standing over her. Looking at her with confusion in her eyes.
‘’Are you okay?’’
The little girl tilted her head as she asked the question.
It was a simple question. It was ‘yes’ or ‘no’. So why couldn’t Hannah answer it?
‘’You don’t look okay’’
Hannah offered a weak smile to the girl.
‘’I’m fine. Just a little tired’’
The little girl smiled and then pointed beside Hannah’s head.
‘’What is that?’’ she asked.
Hannah turned her head to see her necklace on the ground.
‘’Oh, that. It is a symbol. My brother gave it to me’’
Hannah turned to face the little girl.
‘’What does it mean?’’
Hannah took the metal in her hand and traced her fingers over the engraved symbol.
‘’It means ‘Protect the Unprotected’’’
The little girl smiled and sat down beside Hannah as Hannah sat up.
‘’And where is he now, your brother?’’
Hannah looked up at the sky. The sun was shining down at them, and the rain was gone. It was a new day.
‘’He’s..’’ she started.
Her voice croaked as she tried to go on.
‘’He’s, umh. He’s not here. Anymore’’
She tried to smile at the girl, but all that came was the trembling in her lips. The welling in her eyes. The feelings she had tried to hold back for so long.
‘’Then where is he?’’
Hannah looked at this little girl. This curious, sweet little girl that wouldn’t stop digging in her wounds.
‘’He’s… I don’t know. But I like to believe he’s in a better place’’
She smiled as she felt one tear slide down to her mouth and merge with her lips.
The girl smiled and put a hand on Hannah’s shoulder.
‘’It’s okay. My sister says that our mother is in a better place too. Maybe they are together’’
‘’Maybe’’
Hannah smiled at the girl. The girl without a mother, but at least she had a sister. Someone to look after her. Hannah didn’t have that. Not anymore.
She took the necklace off of her neck and handed it to the girl.
‘’Here. You should have it. It will protect you when you are scared’’
The girl took the necklace out of Hannah’s hands.
‘’My sister says I shouldn’t accept anything from strangers’’
Hannah laughed.
‘’Tell her that she is doing a very good job at taking care of you’’
They locked eyes, and Hannah could swear she had seen those eyes somewhere before. They looked so familiar. As if she knew her from somewhere.
Then it hit her.
She had seen the same eyes before. Not on this little girl, but on someone else.
Brown puddles, full of life. Splashing inside the irises.
The Stranger.
Before she could be even more baffled by the newfound revolution, a new voice appeared.
‘’Come on, Lex. We gotta go’’
The little girl turned around and smiled.
‘’Okay’’
She got up on her feet as Hannah heard footsteps come to a close behind her.
It couldn’t be… Could it?
No. Hannah decided that; no, it couldn’t be her. It couldn’t be The Stranger. She couldn’t be hearing the voice for the first time.
A part of Hannah wanted to turn around. To face the unfamiliar voice. The voice that held all the strange things Hannah saw in the deep brown.
But another part of her wanted to go. Run and don’t look back. It wanted her to never face the silence that had been broken.
But yet, she did.
She turned around and saw the brown locks fall over shoulders as the humid air moisturized it. She saw the slender body lowered to face the little one. She saw sun-kissed skin glow in front of the girl. She saw lips smiling, then stop when she laid eyes on Hannah. But most of all; she saw the bewildered look in the brown oceans staring back at her.
Hannah didn’t know what to do. How to respond. Her thoughts wouldn’t, nor could, form coherent sentences. Not even in her head.
But then The Stranger smiled.
‘’Hi’’
Hi.
Hannah realized she didn’t say the word aloud, but it wouldn’t come out. Everything that came out was an incoherent sound.
The Stranger laughed, and the little girl looked up at her sister. What was her name? Oh yeah, that’s right. Lex.
Hannah smiled as she finally whispered ‘’hi’’.
The Stranger laughed again and whispered back another ‘’hi’’.
‘’Dadda, do you know her?’’
Hannah had forgotten about Lex for a brief moment, but when she heard her it hit her that The Stranger wasn’t something her mind had made up. She was real. She had a real family. Real troubles.
‘’No’’
Hannah couldn’t tear her eyes away from the ones looking back at her.
‘’But yeah, I do’’
Hannah smiled at the beautiful stranger. It seemed as if she felt the same way as Hannah. Like they knew each other, even though they hadn’t exchanged a single word with each other prior to this moment.
She looked down for a moment, biting her lower lip before looking into Hannah’s blue orbs again.
‘’Come back on a rainy day and find me’’ she grinned as she turned around and started walking hand in hand with Lex.
‘’You know, I don’t even know your name. I just call you ‘The Stranger’. The one that came into my life with no explanation’’ Hannah laughed to the back of The Stranger.
Hannah stared at the woman in front of her. She turned around, smiled and winked at Hannah.
‘’The Stranger? I like it’’ she murmured before she was gone.
Hannah was left alone yet again. But what a beautiful way to be left.