Ancil“Yes. Once.” Kate made herself more comfortable on the bed. “It was just my father’s way of dealing with the death of my mom, you know. He had never sexually abused me before but on that one day after my mom’s funeral, he did. As soon as we got home, I wasn’t even given the opportunity to take off my funeral clothes before he grabbed me. I was only 14 and it hurt. Every minute of it.” She looked me deep in the eye. “Sometimes, I still feel it. It was the first time anyone had ever been in my…space, in my being, in me. I remember trying to push him off. I fought really hard at first, kicking and screaming and pushing but it was all useless. I wasn’t strong enough and there wasn’t anyone to stand up for me because the only person that ever really cared for me in this world was gone. So, I stopped fighting back and you know what, I stopped fighting my dad on a whole. That was the moment I gave in and let him take me; not just ME but a part of my soul and Ron, I don’t know how to get it back.” Her eyes seemed redder now. “Can you imagine how it felt? Not just the physical pain but the emotional pain as well. It was already bad enough having to deal with the loss of my mother. The pain propelled me into severe depression and I contemplated suicide on so many occasions. And what made it even worse was that I didn’t have anyone to share my pain with. That’s when I started writing. I channeled my pain into my characters and for just a moment every day I was happy, despite it all. And from those little bouts of happiness I experienced every day I learned that you can search all your life for happiness and never find it because happiness cannot be found. Happiness is a choice. No matter how much pain there is in your life you have to decide to be happy for yourself and not rely on other people because frankly, people suck. I learnt that and I want Julie to learn that too.”
“I think Juliet will be fine.”
“Yeah.” Kate sounded unsure.
I always had a thing for helping others and I absolutely dreaded the sight of someone suffering. Maybe, it was because I knew how it felt. I knew about the sharp shards of emotional pain that came with feeling helpless and alone in a world that didn’t seem to care. I knew how it felt to lose someone you loved most. I knew how it felt to cry your eyes out hoping that someone would notice but crying, which was once my only form of escape became as useless as seawater in a drought and a complete waste of my body’s resources. Feeling helpless and alone became as meaningless as sand in the desert.
Maybe the person I am is exactly the person I’m supposed to be. Maybe everything that happened in my life was part of my destiny. Maybe it was life’s way of equipping me to deal with this little one-eyed girl from Trinidad. Maybe the person I never had was the person I was supposed to be to Juliet.
My life finally had purpose.
- Katherine Warren, Stuck As Kate
