Page 20 of Thrust into the Light

“Cconnor, OH! Connor!”

He grabs me fast and spins me around the room. I laugh because it makes my stomach feel funny, and he sets me back down again and just looks at me.

“Do that again.”

“What?” What did I do? He doesn’t look mad, so I know I didn’t do anything wrong.

“Laugh again sweetheart, I think that is the finest sound I have ever heard in the entire world.”

“Don’t know how to.” I’m not sure how the sound escaped from me, or even where it came from. I don’t know how to make it happen again.

“It’s okay sweet girl, I think I just found my new purpose in life, I am going to make you laugh so much and so often that you’ll always know how to, there will never be a day in your life where laughter doesn’t come naturally to you.”

He takes me back over to the table and sets me down in my chair. He hands me some more letters to work on. I work on the letters for a long time, still saying out the words he has mewrite. Trying to say some words right is hard, but he is always there to help me if I need it. After I finish the last one, he goes into the kitchen and comes back out with some peanut butter sandwiches. We eat in silence and he hands me a cup with a lot of white stuff in it. I don’t know what it is, but I know Connor wouldn’t give me things that would hurt me, just things I might not like. I take a sip of it, it’s cool and a little heavier than water, and reminds me a bit like ice cream.

“Alright, so milk goes in the maybe category.”

That was the word I wrote today. I didn’t know what it was, but now I do! Milk. I like this feeling of knowing what something is called and being able to remember what the letters look like for it. Even saying it, I can almost picture the letters that make up the sounds.

I finish my peanut butter sandwich and milk. Connor has already eaten all of his. He hands me my sunglasses. Yay, it’s one of my favorite parts of the day. We go out and walk in the sunlight. I love the feeling of it on my skin, the way it warms my body.

As soon as we step outside, I already know there’s something different. I can hear more people walking around and a lot of talking farther away. I don’t think Connor can hear them, and we keep walking anyway. As we leave the trees and get out into the big open area, there are so many people here now. I thought there were a lot of people when we went shopping, but now there’s so much more. I quickly count to ten, and then count to ten again, and count to ten eight more times, and there are still more people here than I can count. A lot of people are looking at us, some of them pointing at me. One male that was staring got hit in the back of his head by the older male behind him.

“Why hit?”

“Saw that, did you? Well, it’s not really nice to stare at people who look different from you do. And I am assuming his father didn’t hit him very hard, just enough to get his attention, so he’d stop acting so rudely.”

“I’m not nice.” It feels like my stomach fell out of me. I stare atConnor all the time, and he looks different from me. He’s nice to look at.

“What makes you say that, sweetheart?” We’ve stopped walking now, and Connor has hold of both of my hands.

“I stare at you all the time.” Even though he is trying not to hear my thoughts, I always tell him what I am thinking, even if it takes me a while to get my mouth to form the words I need to say.

“Sweetheart, I don’t mind you staring at me. Not in the least bit. I like the feeling of your eyes on me. You can stare at me anytime you want. The difference between what they are doing, and what you do, is I like your eyes on me. I can tell by the way you are trying to hide behind me that you do not like their eyes on you. They can all see it as well, and can see how uncomfortable it makes you. Which makes them not nice. Not you.”

He puts his hand under my face and tilts my head up so he can see me.

“Now I don’t want to hear you say that you are not nice again, sweet girl. Let’s continue our walk, and then we can head back to the house and work on lifting things some more.”

Even as we walk. I know Connor is mistaken. I remember thinking about those mean things about HIM. I remember wanting HIM to die, wishing HE would die, so HE would stop hurting me.

We finish our walk; I am still thinking that I am not nice. Connor takes us to the room he calls the home gym and sets me down on the chair. He hands me the weight he has been having me use and watches me as I lift it up and down. I’ve gotten a little better at it. The first day, all I could do was three times before it felt like my arm was going to rip apart. He makes me count them out every time I bring it close to my face. Which is when he figured out I didn’t know my numbers. Today I get to seven. Connor goes over and lays down where he does his weights. He lifts the bar up and I get to watch all his muscles move as he lifts it up and down. I try to count how many times he does it, and Idon’t know the number for it, but I counted to ten five times. He puts the bar back where the metal pieces hold it. And sits up.

“Alright sweetness, let’s go get cleaned up, then we will have some dinner and I will read to you some more, then bedtime. You have a long day ahead of you tomorrow. Classes start in the morning and you have an assembly first thing. I will walk you to the assembly hall and wait for you to come out and walk you to your classes.”

I fall asleep again, listening to Connor's soft voice reading a book to me about a woman who saved all ten of her matches from something called a manticore.

I can feel Connor pushing on my shoulder and whispering my name. I open my eyes and stretch out my body. My scars always feel like they don’t want to move in the morning.

“Go take your bath Farlen, I’ve got food coming. It should be here in about twenty minutes, so you’re going to need to be fast if you want to eat while it’s still hot. Don’t brush your teeth after your bath today. Usually I try to wait to feed you a little while so you don’t still have toothpaste flavor in your mouth, but today we are going to eat, then brush our teeth.”

I nod to him and hurry into the restroom. I am hungry so I can be fast if it means I get to eat again. Once I’m done cleaning myself, I wrap up in the big fluffy towel and go into my clothes room. I find clothes to wear and make sure I have my pants on the right way. A few sleeps ago, I came out and my pants weren’t on right. I couldn’t figure out why they felt funny. Connor told me what I did, and I fixed it. I didn’t like how they felt, so now I always make sure my pants are right.

I head out to the table room and there is lots of food. I see bacon, and sitting next to it on my plate are round things. They are brown, too. There’s also a cup of light brown liquid. I sit down and try a little bite of the brown round thing. It isn’t as good as bacon, but it’s not bad. Connor calls it sausage. I like it more when I dip a little of it in the gooey part of my egg like he did. I reach out to grab the cup of light brown liquid.

“Careful with it, it is hot. Take small slow drinks of it.”

I take a small slow drink like he said, and it is very hot. I feel like I had fire poured down my throat. It’s sweet and creamy and makes my stomach nice and hot.

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