Total pages in book: 171
Estimated words: 170885 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 684(@250wpm)___ 570(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 170885 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 684(@250wpm)___ 570(@300wpm)
And it worked like a charm.
For her. Not me.
Even before Grace, I didn’t like physical touch. I made out with a few girls, and some of them gave me the occasional blowjob, but I had to stop myself from pushing them away every time they touched me. I had to play the game and pretend it was okay.
Lan, Eli, and Remi kept saying shagging was so fantastic and I felt extremely alienated in their guy talks. So for a short period, I suspected maybe I was gay. Maybe the reason physical touch was revolting was because I played for a different team.
The thought freaked me out to no end. I remember thinking, why can’t Lan be the gay twin? Why does it have to be me? He already excels at drawing everyone’s attention, so why can’t he at least be the different one?
But that thought didn’t have any credence. I never felt attracted to my teammates who stripped in the changing room, and they had pretty fit bodies. I never ogled them even subconsciously and never saw them as anything more than teammates. However, I had to test the theory.
One night, I went for it. There was an openly gay boy at school and he often flirted with good-looking straight guys—Lan and me included. When he followed me out during a party, flirting and touching, I kissed him to see if I liked it.
I nearly threw up in his mouth.
So I thought maybe it was because he was so flamboyant and I wasn’t into that. I tried it with a few other boys, but the result was the same. I felt disgusted and couldn’t get past a kiss.
Turned out, I wasn’t straight or bi or gay. I was simply broken like a fucking malfunctioning machine. When Lan and I were in Mum’s womb, he took everything and left me with nothing. That caused me a lot of stress at the time, and I wanted to talk to Dad about it, but I couldn’t bring myself to. I thought he’d be disappointed or something.
He had headaches because of Lan, but he listened with a grin whenever my brother told him about his endless shagging adventures. Dad didn’t agree with many of his actions, but he’s always been irrevocably proud of how my brother handled himself in the outside world.
I was so jealous of Lan, so filled with envy that I started to distance myself from him. I blamed him for how I was broken. I hated him because I wasn’t like him. I despised him for having everything while I had nothing.
It was colossally irrational, but there was no logic in the daft, angsty fifteen-year-old me.
My biggest mistake was voicing my displeasure about Lan to Grace. She latched on to it like a hyena and got me exactly where she wanted me.
Powerless. Hopeless. Used.
Since then, I’ve been submerged in the dot of ink on my hand that I looked at the entire time she fucked herself on me. While I screamed and begged her to stop. Like a fucking weakling.
I could’ve fought her or pushed her off. I was hitting puberty pretty hard and was definitely physically stronger than her. But I was too confused, too caught up in the attention she showed me, too scared and horrified about the thought of hating the idea of having sex with everyone.
The reason I cut my left hand is because it’s the hand I wrapped around her nape when I kissed her that day. When I gave her the opening to violate me thoroughly.
I’ve often had fantasies about cutting off that hand. Chopping it to pieces. Extracting the cancerous organ that signed my mental death certificate.
The reason I posted stories with #NewDay every day is because I was proud for surviving another day, for not letting my head get the better of me and pushing me down the cliff of my sanity.
It’s been over eight years, but I still can’t escape the ink and the nausea that flooded me during the whole experience.
I remember that day so well. After I stumbled out of her flat, I spent it roaming the streets, walking in the rain with a dazed expression. Though I was drenched, it wasn’t the physical discomfort I felt.
No.
I was frozen, cold and frosty, all the way to my goddamn mind.
When I got home, I stood in my shower for two hours. But it wasn’t water that rinsed me.
Black ink poured down on me, covering my eyes, nose, and ears and jamming inside my throat until I was retching on the shower floor again and again. At some point, I was dry heaving. The entire time, a strong floral perfume clogged my nostrils and my fucking throat and her red fucking nails choked me.
I didn’t go to my bed. I couldn’t.
Whenever I moved, I felt her ghost right behind me, cackling and cooing, her nails sinking into my arm.