Grey

Dammit, why do I always watch Ghost when it's on? It always makes me cry.
Lately I haven't needed much help either. I've been laying in bed late at night sobbing like a child for a few nights and it makes me feel so lame. I look at myself and feel like slapping me and saying 'hey kid, stop it already'.
Ok, so why?
A few reasons, one of which is due to the wonderful world of being female, every emotion is magnified about 5 times at the moment.
Another is... ok for those who don't know, I was friends with a girl in primary school, some called us lovers but we weren't really, for a while i did have a bit of a thing for her, but we ended up just close-ish friends. not best mates, not acquaintances, you know. we just were.
Anyway, part of my intrigue with her came from my protective streak. Before long she half told me/ I half worked out that her dad was abusing her. I won't get into detail, but it was really bad stuff.
This wasnt like her mum's boyfriend, or her uncle, or her dad's mate - this was her father doing these things to her. And i think thats the only reason she never did anything about it. I used to tell her that she needed to tell someone, to turn him in, but she wouldnt. I remember thinking how absurd it seemed, for her not to do anything, but now I think back and say to myself 'well you could have done something too...'
Truth was, I was scared too, I didn't want the responsibility of telling my parents or the police about what I thought was happening.
No, i knew. I just didn't want to know I knew.
One day I was at her house, we were both watching TV in her lounge room. We had just been speaking about her finding help, me getting more and more angry at him, when he came in yelling shit at her. To this day I don't know if he was drunk or just derranged. Neither would have surprised me. I remember I slowly stood up. Tall-ish even then and he being a fairly average height - I met his gaze easily, my anger and disgust at him overpowering any fear I should have felt.
I faintly remember my fingernails digging into my palms, I wanted to hit him. I glared at him but he just scoffed at me, and she took my hand and led me outside.
I was just a kid. We were both kids. We both felt we were powerless.
Her age increased my feeling of protectivity. It's something no one should go through, adult or otherwise. But she was so young, too young to have to grow up so quick, too young to die.
Yeah, she faded away gradually, she was absent from school more often than not- I dont know where she went on those away days, I would just hope she wasn't at home with him.
Years went on and we drifted, each going to different schools and leading increasingly different lives, but my thoughts always strayed back to her.
Then the day came that I met someone on the street walking back from my bus stop, someone who went to school with her and I. And they asked me casually "hey did you hear about...?"
And then, as though discussing what the weather would be tomorrow, they told me:
She had hung herself.
I would learn later that she had made a makeshift noose from belts, looped them over the shower curtain rod, and ended it. Despite those facts, I still say he killed her, not her.
This was about 6 years ago now. We were 15/16.
After her death, her folks moved, though I heard through the grapevine that now it was over, the whole thing with him was being investigated. But I never heard what happened to him, I will always wonder. I dont even remember their full names, so I can't even find out.
Anyway, it still hits me with some guilt. And the reason why it's been playing on my mind recently is because it happened early september, before I went away to Japan.
I keep turning it all over in my head late at night, blaming myself for not doing anything, hating him and hating me and hating her mum for ignoring it all.
I want to see him again, to stand face to face with him again, and this time he wont laugh when I walk away. The same goes with my ever increasing list of other people that have scarred people I love.
I'm not in the habit of turning the other cheek. Perhaps if it had happened to me I wouldn't have the courage or the strength to stand up to them, but this way I can fit into the roles I feel most comfortable in; Protection, and Revenge.

Feh, I'm such a scorpio.

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