The Outcast 14

‘Yeah, Carmen’s order.  You are to be treated like a Queen until you learn to accept him,’ That immediately snapped me out of all the awe I was feeling. A trap! So, all this was simply to trap me into accepting him, buying my affection.  Albeit, no-one had ever worked this hard to gain my approval, yet no matter what, this was just a prison.  Another mind game into making me give in.  I wouldn’t.

‘Why doesn’t he just let me go?’ I cried, making me scoff.

‘Because he really wants to impress you. Just take it.  Not many girls to be treated that way.  Now, go. One of the helpers, here, will take you to your room.  You have to come down at 6pm.  Carmen had arranged a candle show for you…’  she shooed, making me wince.

Prison; it could be glamorous, so filled with luxury, but it would always remain a prison.

I decided not to go downstairs.  This whole ploy of making me accept.  I wouldn’t do it, wouldn’t accept.  It was insane. My family, I was missing them so much.  Bradley, how was he? I just wanted to go home now.

While straightening the white satin-blankets of my bed, I jumped as my room’s door opened behind me.  Turning around, I stopped myself from rolling my eyes at the sight of Jean leaning against the door’s threshold and returned back to making my bed.  It was anxiety.

‘You know I don’t get you at all,’ she spoke from behind me.  I simply ignored her, working to take out the wrinkles out of the bed covers.  My depression returning back.

‘You have everything, everything a girl could want, yet you always have this frown upon your face, why? It seems highly ungrateful.’  That fumed me.  Everything? I just had my freedom taken away by a notorious psycho, and this woman had the guts to say that I was being ungrateful? What the Hell??.  I was in mental agony, the constant feeling of fear, anxiety, and loneliness was destroying me, and she thought I was being ungrateful.

How twisted.

Leaving the blankets alone, I abruptly swayed back towards Jean and scowled with anger. ‘Ungrateful? Is this how you are quenching your guilt? Is this how you are ignoring the fact that you are helping a psycho torture a young woman? You were the one to firstly caution me about his ways, and now you have the guts to claim that I am being ungrateful.  How convenient.  I don’t think you would even last a day if..’

‘Last a day?’  Her voice turned furious, as she stepped into the room.  ‘YOU have no idea how many days I can last with bigger problems than this.  In fact, you don’t have a clue about me, so stop it with your high and mighty ways.  I warned you before about Carmen, but I can see how he is treating you, he is trying. In fact, everyone in you life has tried, yet you have this whole wall built up in which no-one is simply good enough.  Your ex ‘Bradley’, he dumped you, yet he is better off than those who care.’

‘How dare you-’

‘Oh, give it a rest,’ she snapped, rolling her eyes while folding her arms, irritation clealy her stance. ‘You got rejected, deal with it, in fact, you know what your problem is, you think this world is this whole big wonderful place where everyone gets to live in this dandy place, and if you see anyone rebelling, you immediately start hating that person because ‘miss princess’ just can’t deal with low-lives.  Well, news flash, princess, it’s not.  There are many who didn’t get the same options as you,  who didn’t get to heal or were given a choice, yet even then they tried, I tried,’ her voice abruptly cracked, making me look up at her.  ‘This princess might not remember, but after your rejection, I did try consoling you, being there for another human, but what did you call me? What did you say about me on the phone?’ My eyes immediately widened with the realization.

‘Weird emo - girl,’ I voiced.  After Bradley chose another, I had escaped to a nearby restaurant.  I was crushed, bitter and feeling worthless, and just didn’t want to face anyone from my family.  I felt humiliated.  It was then I met this girl.  She was constantly trying to cheer me up even when I wasn’t in the mood, and once she moved away, I got a call from my mother.  In my moment of bitterness, I just told my mom not to worry and that I had this weird girl accompanying me at a restaurant.  I can’t believe she heard that, can’t believe that I was meeting her again.  I actually felt ashamed.

‘Right,’ she let out a bitter chuckle. ‘The weird girl.  You judged before you even got to know me, and you are doing the same with Carmen.’  Her voice grew quiet, and with that, she turned around to walk out of my room.  I was feeling so tangled and confused.  She was right.  I did mess up.  But, this situation, it wasn’t right, either. I just didn’t know what to do.

I was feeling so naïve, so confused and so guilty. Had I really been a biased fool who knew nothing about this world? Was that the reason Bradley left?

Now with tears flowing down my cheeks, I sat down on my bed, leaned against the headrest and peered outside the window.

I didn’t have any friends.  The bullies, they were mean.  Yet, I believe my act of shutting down the world had left me so far behind. I was failing miserably in every aspect.

Jean was right.  I needed to get off my 'high horse' and face the world, try giving its people a chance.

‘DOES IT BURN ENOUGH TO MAKE IT DISAPPEAR…’

I couldn’t sleep.

The guilt, the anxiousness, the complete tingling of my nerves, it just couldn’t let me relax.  Knowing, I couldn’t deal with loneliness anymore.  I decided to get up and go search for Jean.  She - I just had to talk to her.

Hesitantly stepping out of the room,  I chose not to wear shoes as I moved around the marble floor.  My heart was beating fast.  All the workers were probably sleeping now, my one true friend ‘the old woman’ she was so far away from me, I needed her.

The floor seemed so cold.  I could see the moonlight glistening all across its floor.  There were no lights switched on.  My room was upstairs, so after checking all the rooms upstairs, I slowly began climbing down the stairs.  The darkness was making me feel, scared.

Cautious and hesitant, I managed to reach the bottom of the stairs without slipping and began looking for Jean.  Was she not staying here?

Searching, I stopped upon seeing a room with a partially open door.  Candlelight was escaping from it.  Hesitantly pushing the door open, I gasped at the sight of a hall decorated with dozen of beautiful candles placed all over its floor, leaving only a small part in the centre of the hall empty.  That portion was covered with fluffy cushion bags.  Jean was sitting on one of the cushions, just staring up at the glass ceiling.  I hesitantly walked up to her.

‘So this the candle show,’ I joked.  She simply ignored me.

‘Ummm,’ Embarrassed, I lowered my gaze towards the floor and cupped my elbow in nervousness.  Sitting on the cushion bag placed right next to Jean, I too began staring at the ceiling.  The stars were glistening and twinkling with delight.

‘There was something wrong with him.’  Jean spoke after a few minutes, still staring at the sky.

I gave her a curious look, ‘Carmen?’

‘No, my dad,’  she sighed, meeting my gaze, ‘He wasn’t stable, my mom knew, Ouma knew it, but we compromised, stayed quiet, because that’s what most do when they care, but not Carmen.  He was the same as him; so rebellious and twisted, yet he suffered the most.’

‘What did your dad do?’  I voiced, shifting on my cushion bag.

Jean chuckled bitter, pain evident in her tone as she met my gaze, ‘Nothing, we didn’t expect him to.  When my mom married my dad, she knew he was an ex-murder convict, yet she gave him a chance.  She was willing to take a leap with him, but she was wrong.  We all were wrong, people, like Dad, can never change, so when my mom left him, I was surprised when Dad managed to get another girl.

It was crazy seeing the number of women who believed that Dad could be healed, he couldn’t.  First, it was schizophrenia, then bipolar disorder, then it was plain evil.  Carmen was like him, too. Ouma had a fit when she realized that Carmen was keeping a crime journal, the details in it were horrifying.  She followed the 'news papers' for days making sure that my step-brother hadn’t committed some felony.

We would often find weapons stashed in his drawers, all those parent-teacher conferences, they were a nightmare.  Yet, nothing was more painful than seeing that my step-brother, despite resembling with my  Dad so much, did show a glimmer of being saved.  There wasn’t pure evil but a brain in deep need of healing. He would be thrown into the dark basement for days, tortured for weeks because Dad wanted the future heir of his Mafia gang to earn his lead, yet my brother would stay strong, he was strong when Dad used a hot glue gun to past a black mask on his face because of intense jealousy, strong when Dad made him stay in the snake house, which ultimately became his pets, he was strong, and now, I see him so so weak,’ her voice cracked.

‘So weak, so lost, his IQ has always been his problem, he never learned how to use it, and now is so engulfed by the dark side of his soul.  His insanity is contagious, so dangerous, but he isn’t all bad, he is trying to fight.’ My own sobs escaped at that. This story, it was so disturbing and heartbreaking.

‘What do you want me to do? I hiccupped, my heart deeply hurting. This was so messed up.  How could anyone do that to their family? And how could a mother simply watch her son getting tormented by a criminal? Was fear that over-powering? Carmen - Jean hadn’t tried to present him as a good person, but more like a person who was in deep pain.  It didn’t make his actions right.  In fact, I was more terrified by him than ever before, but I was beginning to understand - see the reason behind the scars.

‘Nothing,’  she quickly wiped the tears escaping from her eyes.  She didn’t want me to see her vulnerable.  ‘I just want you to, I just want you to not act so naïve towards everything.  It infuriates me so much, makes me wonder what life must be like when you aren’t tainted.  You haven’t faced pain and aren’t suffering.  It just messes me up so much.’

‘Jean’

‘I think its getting late now,’ she straightened up, her cold façade returning back.  ‘I am going to my room.’ she announced, swiftly getting up and heading out of the door.  I was left behind feeling so tangled.

Black, white and grey.

My perspectives, I had never felt so conflicted before.  It was always evil and good for me, never evil, broken and good.  There has never been grey before, until now.

What happened to the 1st Sept's Potgooi???