Hope from the Ocean: 57

"Todd?"  Blair said softly, going to him again and hugging him from the back.

"Yeah, Blair?"  he said, but the words were hard to get out, and she noticed.

"Todd, it's all right, My Love.  It's all right to feel . . . like everything is going to be okay.  It's all right to hope in that."

He squeezed his eyes shut, covering her hands with his.  To do this, he crossed his arms over his chest, and met her fingers, running his thumbs over them.  Things would never change; there she was, always knowing him.

He heard her say, "You're afraid to hope in a happy ending for your mother, and for you."  She walked around to the front of him, and he tried for a moment not to meet her eyes.  "You still believe, somewhere inside you, that it's going to blow up for us, that things can't be good for us, or for your mom.  You're afraid to hope for that dream of her getting out of Mountainview and living with us, and the family being ultimately happy."

When he finally met her eyes, he couldn't stop himself from being drawn into them, and wanting to be drawn into her, fully, that very moment.  She's right.  When has she ever been wrong about me?  I want this so much.  This happy shit.  This normal, boring shit.  I want it and HER so much.

"She's going to be . . .okay."  He said, and his voice rasped.

She nodded, and ran her hand along his scar.  "Like you are, Todd."

He couldn't bear the beauty of the moment; it overcame him like a flood.  The next thing he knew, he had slipped his hand up through the back of her hair, and brought her mouth to his, as if he'd just returned from being away from her for eight years.

***

It hurt so much, what he did to me.  It always hurt, but it was worse then, because I was scared and it was cold and I knew I was going to die.  He hurt me with his body, like he did all those times.  And then, he kicked me in my side.  I wasn't ready for it, but he did, and I felt something crack in my body.

I asked him to let Todd go.  I asked him to give Todd back to his biological father and that made him angrier.  He kicked me again, and again, in my side and in my stomach.  I could barely breathe because it hurt, and I could feel blood coming out of me.  I screamed, but no one came.  I begged him to let Todd go, but the more I did, the more he hurt me.  Then he made a promise that Todd's life would be all in his hands, forever after that, until they both were dead.  

I started crying more, and asked him to finish me off, whatever he had planned.  He answered that he had lots of plans for how to end my life, and how to make Todd's a living Hell.  There was no more fight in me.  Nothing.  I cried, and yelled a little longer, but after that, I just stopped.  He just ignored it, as if I were not a person.  He had never loved me.  He had used me for every sick thing he ever thought of.  And I knew I was going to die.

He beat me everywhere there was a place to be beaten.  But I didn't die.  At one point, he got mad that I was still living, and went to grab his famous belt off.  I thought he was going to strangle me.  He probably meant to, but then he saw that during the first part, when he opened his pants, he'd flung the belt loose and it went into the swamp and disappeared.  He became very angry at this, and stomped around a bit.  I could feel blood coming from my lip, my head, dripping into my eye, and down my face, and everywhere else.  Blood was even coming out from inside me.  I was sure that I'd die, and Todd would be left to Peter's hand.

Just then, he said, "That freak of a son of yours, you kept him like a girl," and he tried to lift a very heavy rock from the ground.  And Ray, I knew, just then, what would come next, and I was so afraid, but at the same time, I was hoping for him to do it, crush me, and do it right, so I'd be free of the pain and the sadness.  

He couldn't get it loose of the soil at first, so he kept working on it, and he said, "You treated him like a baby, and made him into some pansy-ass wimp.  It's been my job, all along, to toughen him up.  Well, with you out of the way, there's nothing to stop me.  I'll break him, even if it takes years.  I'll teach him how to be a man and what it really means."

And I knew that he meant that Peter would teach Todd to be like him.  He'd torment him until he was.

He wrenched the rock free.  Lifting it with all his might, I knew it would be seconds more and then no more, no more light, no more pain for me.  But my baby, my son. I had to die knowing he would be hurt and beaten.  That's when I screamed out, "Do it!  Please," and the last thing I saw was him holding the very heavy rock over my face and it coming toward me, and then black.

The rest I can't really remember, not that much.  I heard voices.  I thought I was in heaven, or somewhere else.  I couldn't feel the pain anymore, or the blood.  I couldn't see Peter anymore, or anyone.  It was black, with voices.  Someone said, "She's alive," and the other voice said, "Holy shit, she's alive?  God, what the Hell happened to her?"

After that is not clear, because I think I might be dreaming or imagining it.  It sounded like Stick Falco, but I think I made it up, in my mind.  I thought he was there, and that he said, "I can't let him see her like this, let's get her out of here," but then it goes dark again when I try and still is a mystery if it were real or imagined.

That was the last thing before The Time of Black.  And when I woke from it, I didn't know names, places, or people.  I couldn't remember much.  I did remember Todd, but just as my baby, My Angel.  I did remember Peter but not everything he did to us, and I did remember Mitch, both with made up names.  And for some reason, I believed that Mitch and Peter both had something to do with my injuries.  I was confused.  I'd been so hurt.

It took weeks for me to be able to sit up.  More weeks for me to hold things.  And more weeks for me to move my arms and legs.  And more and more things slowly came back.  Not my memories, and not my mind.  And not my voice.  I could not speak ever.  No words could come.  It took almost two years for me to pick up a pencil and draw, and I've been drawing ever since.  

Later, they moved me to an institution, like this one, only really bad and mean.  They did terrible things to us there, more hurting with their bodies, but not me.  I fought them and I'd bite until I drew blood.  I wasn't having that happen again, ever.  They started to leave me alone after a while there.  It was too easy to take the others.  Most of them gave up where 'B' was concerned.  Then, the place closed down, and I was sent to St. Anne's.  Years had passed, but I thought my Todd was still a baby.  I met Sister Rebecca Katherine, the best friend I've ever had, Ray, and she led me, not on purpose, to My Angel and his lovely family.

So, there is what happened to me, at least what I can remember.  There are pieces missing, I know.  There are things I won't ever remember.  But that is what happened and what caused The Time of Black.  Maybe you are right.  Maybe I did everything I could to fight Peter, especially in the end.  I still wonder, what I could have done better, to protect My Angel, but I am not sure anyone was strong enough against Peter Manning and his rage.  And my baby, my son, was left with that animal for years, while I was off somewhere, didn't even know who I was.  To find out, later, that he did that terrible thing to a woman, and more bad things after to others, I almost could not believe it.  But then, I realized how much damage Peter had done to him and to me, all those years and I understood.

I forgive Todd, Ray, and I love him. And I know he's a beautiful man inside, because I saw and loved that beautiful child.

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