I don’t know how much time passes. Weeks? Months? I don’t leave that room. I don’t want to. Maria comes in and forces me to eat and shower. Rafael comes in every day, though I can see him deteriorating right along with me.

I know who I was. I know who I am, but I can’t seem to find her.

It’s like I’m locked inside a glass room, and I can see out, I can hear what’s happening, but I can’t be heard. I can’t be seen. There are two versions of me: the one who lives and loves and laughs. And this: a girl who survives, no matter what the cost. In that place, I was alternating, flipping between the two. Hope kept me coming back. Hope stopped me from going dark altogether, but the second my sister walked out of that room, my severed finger in her hand…well, the switch flipped, and I can’t turn it back.

I don’t want to feel that level of betrayal. I don’t want to remember all those men, their hands on me, their cold eyes as they fucked me. I squeeze my eyes shut as the memories try to rise, but that darkness is right there, offering me it’s embrace. So I step into it, allowing the numbness to creep over me until there’s nothing but this existence.

The door clicks open, and Rafael walks in. Shadows linger beneath his eyes, and he’s lost weight. The stubble on his jaw has grown out to a full beard. He’s giving up. I can see it in his eyes. He’s realizing that I’m lost, and he’s drifting right along with me.

My chest aches, and I frown at the sensation. I close my eyes, and for a second I can almost recall what it felt like to be kissed by him, to be loved. The memories are muddied and blurred, like a dream that you can’t quite remember. I think I want them though.

“I want to leave,” I say.

His gaze snaps to mine as if he’s surprised I’ve spoken to him. Have I become so bad?

“And go where?”

“The garden.” I want to remember what the outside feels like. I need…something.

I get off the bed, and he holds the door open for me. We walk silently through the house. I can feel eyes on me, but I don’t care. Once outside, the sun bathes me in its red-hot rays. I close my eyes and turn my face towards it, submitting to its power. The dry grass brushes my bare feet as I walk and everything feels…more. A warm breeze skitters over my skin, bringing the scent of eucalyptus with it. I keep walking into the eucalyptus grove until I reach where it all started. I can hear Rafael right behind me, but he hangs back when I stop and stare at a spot on the ground.

It was here that I was dragged away from Lucas. He was bleeding in the grass. He was dying. That feeling in my chest intensifies, and again I retreat away from it. I’m scared to feel it. I’m scared I can’t survive it.

“Lucas?” I ask quietly.

Rafael moves beside me. “Alive.”

I nod. “I want to walk alone.”

I hear his heavy intake of breath. I can practically feel the sting of rejection as it passes over his features. He turns away from me, his shoulders tense, even as they slump under the weight of defeat.

I walk through the garden for a while, battling with myself. It’s not that I don’t want to feel these emotions. I do. I just can’t. I’m terrified to feel again because it just hurts so much. I think of Rafael, of the pain I’m causing him. He’s saved me. Twice. He doesn’t deserve this. I want to be able to ease his pain. And it’s this solitary fact that makes me desperate.

I go back to the house and quietly move along the hallways. I hear voices coming from around a corner, so I duck into the kitchen.

“She’s getting better. She left that room.” I think that’s Carlos.

“I’ve lost her, Carlos. I was too late.” Rafael. He sounds so broken, and I realize just how much he must have been holding it together in front of me.

“What are you going to do?”

“Protect her, like I said I would.”

“Rafe…maybe you shouldn’t do this to yourself.”

“She’s mine,” he snaps. “Even if she no longer knows that.”

Their voices drift away, and I press a hand over my chest. Leaning against the worktop, I close my eyes, feeling the hurt, trying to embrace it. It doesn’t work. I find myself needing it with overwhelming desperation. He’s giving up, but I’m not so broken that I don’t know I need him. He can’t give up, which means I can’t give up. Opening my eyes, I turn around, and that’s when my eyes land on the knife block. I need to feel. Something. Anything. Snatching a knife from the selection, I hurry out of the kitchen and up the stairs before shutting myself in his room.

I stare at the knife, turning it over in my hand. The sun catches on the metal, glinting. With a deep breath, I go into the bathroom and stand in front of the vanity. I look at my reflection, meeting my own lifeless eyes in the mirror. Gone is the strong, beautiful girl that once stood before Rafael in a powder-blue dress. That girl was brave. That girl hurt. That girl was broken and at times weak, but she had courage. She felt it all, and she loved. Fiercely. The girl looking back at me, she isn’t me. Now I see that she is the lie. She’s someone I’ve become to survive, but I don’t want to survive. I want to live.

Holding my arm over the sink, I take the blade and press it into the flesh just below my elbow. Inhaling deeply again, I push harder and drag it over my skin in a burning trail. It hurts, and the pain radiates up my arm. I feel it. Moving the blade, I draw another line, next to the first. Blood wells, running over my skin and pouring down the drain, and as it does, it takes my numbness with it. As the pain radiates through my mind, it releases everything else. I feel the shame and the disgust, the hatred and the loathing. I remember the feel of their hands on my body, the bile that would rise in my throat. I feel the blinding sting of my sister’s betrayal, the utter desolation of watching her—my last hope, walk away from me. Again and again I rake the blade over my arm until I’m buckling under the weight of all my pent-up emotions. The ache in my chest becomes so intense that it feels as though I’m being torn apart from the inside.

A sob breaks from my throat and tears stream down my face. This is what it is to feel. This is what it is to live. I just may not survive it.