She was mentally ill.
She needed help and no one gave it to her.
“You abandoned her,” I tell Aunt with a chilling calmness. “You abandoned your only sister when she needed you the most.”
“Elsie, I…”
“Am I your way of redemption. Is that it?”
“No, Elsa. I love you. You’re my daughter.”
“I only became your daughter at the expense of losing my real mother, Aunt.”
Before she can say anything, I drop my backpack on the chair and walk out of the door.
Then I start running.
34
Elsa
I run.
I go at it for hours or a day, I’m not sure.
I run until no breaths remain in my lungs.
I run until everything blurs.
The rain pounds down on me, soaking my clothes and my hair. My fingers become stiff with the cold and my shoes slouch with water.
My heart’s palpitations become scarier by the minute, but I don’t stop.
I can’t stop.
No tears come out no matter how much I want to cry. Droplets of rain stream down my head and my cheeks as if rinsing me.
But there’s no rinsing me from the past.
Everything will come back.
Everything will hit me again.
I gulp air, but barely anything reaches my lungs.
There’s a monster in my chest, a dark ugly monster who claws at my walls.
The monster wants to be set free.
It’s one of the monsters from the nightmares. A monster that will eat me alive.
The same monster who took Eli.
My heart thuds at the thought.
Eli.
My brother Eli. My mother Abigail. My father Ethan.