𝓒𝓵𝓪𝓻𝓪

In the beginning, it was hard.

I couldn't escape. I felt trapped.

I gave myself up. Selling myself so she could eat, sacrificing my body to men in the orphanage so she wouldn't have to experience what I had.

I wondered if she realized how much I cared for her.

Then she had met Dominic, and I feared I'd lost her forever. As time went on, I understood she was safer with him than she was with me. What could I do? A girl who was weak and small, what could I do against a man?

I did what I could.

I knew she hadn't lived the same life I had. Hers was sweet, merciful. I was forever grateful she hadn't experienced what I did.

Ending my life seemed so easy, just within arms grasp, but the thought of leaving her killed me. I couldn't live with myself, the things I did, and the things that happened, but I could never leave her alone.

She needed me, and I needed her.

Sometimes, I watched her with Dominic, afraid she'd leave and forget about me. Sometimes, I wished to disappear, my memory removed from her mind. Maybe she didn't need me. There was Dominic, she had Katie and Mini.

I could leave. Pack my things and leave the house to her. I was nothing but a figure, a statue, a silhouette. A shapeless being, dead among the living.

The knives looked so easy, forever sitting in the kitchen, whispering my name. It was so easy, so accessible. I itched for the pain; the relief death would bring.

It was so easy.

So easy.

She was gone in Florida, and I had stared at the dirtied knife on the counter.

It was there, waiting for me.

I had picked it up, staring at my reflection in the metal.

Slowly, I rolled up my sleeve and brought it to my arm.

The veins coursing with blood, tainted and infested. My arms were covered in scars.

It was so easy.

I pressed the tip into my skin until a drop of blood appeared, letting the knife drop to the floor at the pain. I watched as the blood spread.

Do it, Clara, it seemed to whisper.

It'll be over.

But I couldn't pick up the knife.