Page 34 of Eternal
Past
My hands are so cold.
I don’t even know if I still have fingers. They’re all red and sore, but I have to keep scrubbing. I don’t want to feel the cold anymore, but it doesn’t matter what I want. The window’s still dirty, I need to get it clean, that’s what I’ve been told to do if I wanted to eat tonight.
Clean and you’ll eat.
Because I cried too much yesterday, I didn’t know saying sorry would get me in trouble. But Christian hates it, and Brittany hates it too.
It hurts so much. The ice water makes my hands burn.
I don’t stop scrubbing, even though I think I might pass out from the cold, I can feel the ice all the way down to my bones.
Remember Azra you’re not allowed to stop.
The water is really too cold, but I keep scrubbing, faster, faster because I don’t want to make her angry.
She’s behind me, watching, I can feel her eyes on my back, the coldness in her gaze is worse than the water. “You’re not done yet?” she screams.
I don’t dare turn around. “I can’t… I can’t feel my hands,” I whisper, but she doesn’t care.
Without warning, she picks up the bucket of ice water and pours it over my head. It splashes across my shoulders and down my back.
I can’t breathe… It's burning. It’s reallyburning.
I gasp, but the cold knocks the air right out of me. I fall to the floor, shivering uncontrollably, my teeth chattering like they’ll break if I keep opening my mouth to breathe.
I can’t stop shaking.
“You’reuseless,” she says, her voice cold and angry. “I told you to clean that window, and you can’t even do that. Why do I even try with you?”
Useless.
I don’t answer, I can’t open my mouth, I don't even have the strength to lift my head, nor to reply.
And then she gets out, throwing a drape on me like it will make it less painful.
It’s so thin that I feel the fabric melting on my skin with the water.
I lie there on the cold floor, my body trembling, and look out the window, through the frosted glass, and I see the small and dirty garden.
It’s empty, and sad.
I wish the irises were here. I know they’d be beautiful by this time of year.
I squeeze my eyes shut, and I can almost see them. Purple petals opening up, like they always used to. I wish I could feelherhand in mine again, warm and safe, her smile before she stopped smiling.
But the reality is that it’s only me on the cold floor, shivering and alone.
I wish I didn’t feel this way. I wish I could have something warm. Something soft. But all I have is the cold, and the silence.
The irises won’t grow here.
They’llnevergrow here.
11
AZRA
