DECEMBER 31, 1996
I KNEW I WAS DREAMING WHEN THE MONSTER CAME INTO MY ROOM TONIGHT BECAUSE the doctors told me he wasn’t real. I’d made him all up. The scary lady, too. They were a figment of my imagination, delusions I invented inside my own head, and I think that made me feel better because it meant I wasn’t really being hurt.
The scary lady wasn’t pushing me under the water in the real world, and the monster wasn’t putting things inside of my body, either. I didn’t have to fight back and scream and warn the monster that my best friend told me about the bad touch because it wasn’t happening.
That made me feel so much better.
I didn’t have to scratch and bite and push the monster off me. I could just lay there and be quiet because he couldn’t hurt me. The doctors said so. It was all in my head.
When the monster turned me over and pushed my head into the pillow, I didn’t need to beg to die because this was a dream. When he put the bad thing inside my body, I didn’t hope he would push me into the darkness and leave me there because he lived in the dark and I lived in the light. When he put the bad thing in my mouth, called me bad names, and told me to do what he taught me, I just did it. Whatever the monster wanted, the monster took, and I didn’t flinch. I didn’t have to wish to be a ghost without a body he could violate because in the real world, he couldn’t reach me.
In the real world, I was free.
“Come on, Liz! It’s the middle of the afternoon!”
Feeling sleepy, I blinked awake to find my sister standing over me. “What?” I groaned, snuggling deeper into my mattress. “I’m tired.”
“You’re always tired these days,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “Dad said you need to get up and help get the house ready for tonight.”
“Why?” I mumbled, eyelids drooping. “What’s tonight?”
“Uh, hello? Our annual house party.” My sister looked at me like I’d grown an extra head overnight. “It’s New Year’s Eve, Liz.”
“Oh.” Yawning sleepily, I rolled onto my back and mumbled, “Okay.”
“Come on,” she continued to say, reaching for my covers. “Dad said you have to help.” When she ripped the covers off me, her brows shot up in surprise, and she called out, “Mam! Come here, quick! Lizzie’s after getting her period!”
I was?
Confused, I pulled myself up on my elbows and glanced down at my blood-stained thighs. “I’m bleeding.” I looked back to my sister. “Am I dying?”
“No, no, you’re not dying, Liz, and I promise this is totally normal,” Caoimhe was quick to explain. “It’s called a period.”
“A period?” Numb, I continued to stare at my bloodstained sheets. “What’s that?”
“A period is when a girl bleeds from her vagina for a few days every month.” She helped me out of bed and quickly set to work on stripping the mattress. “It’s totally normal and happens to all of us.”
“Does it happen to you?”
“Yeah, Liz,” she replied. “Every month.”
I shivered in revulsion. “Oh.”
“Oh, my poor baby,” I heard my mother croon from my bedroom doorway. “It’s okay, sweetheart.” Using her cane, she limped over to us and pulled me against her chest. She was skin and bones, and when she held me to her flat chest, it caused my heart to pound and my thoughts to race. “We knew this might happen a little earlier for you.”
I didn’t know what she was talking about, and I didn’t have the energy to care. The only thing that was troubling me was her.
The medicine the doctors gave me in hospital slowed my thoughts down, and my angry feelings didn’t bounce around like they used to. I also realized, after spending nearly two months in hospital and away from my mother, that I felt better when I wasn’t around her. Because I was afraid of what would happen if she didn’t get better the next time. Because there was always a next time. Mam got sick and then better, and then sick again, while every time seemed worse than the last one.
It was a strange feeling, to not want my mother to hold me, while not wanting her to let me go all at once. But that’s what I felt when she held me.
“Come on, sweetheart,” Mam said, leading me into the bathroom. “I’ll run you a bath.” Sitting down on the closed toilet lid, I watched her draw a bath, not taking in a word of what she was saying. I knew she was trying to explain what was happening to my body, but I didn’t care. Because I didn’t like having a body. Then Caoimhe walked in and explained all about tampons. I didn’t care about that, either. It was fine. Whatever I needed to do, I would do.
“What if the bath water turns red?” I asked them, when I lowered myself into the water.
“It won’t,” Mam assured me before leaving the bathroom to give me privacy and taking my sister with her. The moment they were gone, I reached up with my foot and twisted the hot water tap with my big toe.
When the piping hot water started to bubble and the steam started to rise, I held my foot under the flow.
I was good with pain, and pain was good for me.
It made me feel better.
It helped me to concentrate.
To stop my thoughts from running rampant in my head.
The pain made all my thoughts float out of my head, and I sighed in relief.
Eyelids fluttering shut, I remained perfectly still as the water blistered and scorched my flesh.
Later that night, when my parents party was in full swing, I stayed upstairs in my room, too tired to talk to grown-ups whose names I never remembered.
I got a brand-new hi-fi stereo system for Christmas this year, with my very own copy of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, the deluxe edition. Tonight, I had Stevie and Lindsey playing on a loop, using their voices to block out the noise coming from the party. My belly ached and I was nervous to walk around in case my insides fell out. Periods were scary.
When my friends arrived, they came upstairs to me, but Claire and Gibsie eventually scampered off in search of snacks. Not Hugh, though. Instead, he flopped down beside me on my bed and stayed with me.
Keeping me company all night, he told me stories about his adventures with Gibsie over Christmas break, the new computer games Santa had brought him, and the new books he had read.
“I fucking hate him, Liz,” he admitted when I asked if he was happy that his dad had come to the party tonight. With his arms resting behind his head, Hugh stared up at my bedroom ceiling and sighed. “He might as well have just stopped swimming that day because he hasn’t lived a day since.”
The pain in his words was one I was all too familiar with. It hurt my best friend to watch his dad retreat from life. Unlike Claire, who never seemed to notice, Hugh took it hard. I thought it might have something to do with his big brain. It made it harder for him to ignore the problems at home. He saw it all, watched it happen, and it broke him daily.
Rolling onto my side to face him, I tucked my hands under my cheek and whispered, “You’ll always have me, Hugh.”
He shifted onto his side to face me and smiled at me. “You really love this band, don’t you?” By changing the subject, he was letting me know that he was finished talking about his dad. That was okay. I didn’t mind. I was happy to listen to him talk about anything, just as long as he stayed with me.
“What’s wrong?”
My brows scrunched up. “What do you mean?”
He touched my hand that I was using to cradle my stomach, looking concerned. “Do you feel sick?”
“No, not sick,” I replied. “Just sore.”
His brown eyes locked on mine. “Why are you sore, Liz?”
My cheeks flushed. “I got my period.”
“Is that the thing that happens to women?” He frowned. “With the bleeding.”
I nodded.
“But you’re not a woman yet.”
“I know.”
When he reached over and cupped my cheek, I felt that familiar swell of excitement rise up inside of me, causing my heart to buck wildly. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay.” Nodding, I forced a small smile. “I just…I don’t like all the changes.”
Several seconds ticked by in companionable silence. He shifted closer and moved his hand from my cheek, draping his arm around my body instead. “Don’t worry, Liz.” He wrapped me up in the warmest, safest hug I’d ever felt. “You’ll always have me, too.”
