Forgotten

I sit alone, as I always do. In a corner where everything is seen and I am seen by everything. Fear rushes through me as someone enters the room. I cannot see their face and I tremble at the thought of what they want. Words, sounds, speech, a question... a conversation. I thought I had forgotten how to have a conversation but it seems, as the draftiness in this room persists, so do old habits.

I start talking, tentatively at first, unsure, guarded. Words pour out like water from a relieved pipe. It is my turn. My time. My moment. I express everything that has been holed up in a long forgotten room, in the back of my mind but always at the front. Every second. Every emotion. Every little thing that wasn't necessary to remember, but I did. "You are all that matters," this unknown person says to me and I scoff.

"I have never mattered," I guffaw at the thought, the words. Always words. They don't matter, just like me. I don't matter.

I don't matter.

I don't matter.

I don't matter.

I had heard it every day of my life, for 15 long years. "You don't matter. You have no say. You are what I want you to me." Tears, always tears. Red, blue, black.

I do matter.

I do matter.

I do matter.

I have told myself this for the past 10 years, ever since I left that room. Ever since I found them. They are the one person who knows I matter. "But if you only matter to one person, do you really matter at all?"

YES! I matter! It shouldn't be about 'to how many'. It should only matter to whom do I matter. If I am responsible for making one person's day better, brighter, happier, then I MATTER.

'You mattered back them,' the person says my name and I wince. I did matter, but for all the wrong reasons. I couldn't escape the room. The room with no windows, no doors, no way out, no way in. They always found a way in. How come I couldn't find a way out?

"That... That... that is a disgusting way to put it." I spit, thinking about every time I 'mattered' when I was alone in that room.

"Tell me about the room," they say with sadness in their voice and a look in their eyes that tells me they already know.

I sigh. A heaviness fills me like a balloon full of air. "I can't," I whisper back.

"You have made so much progress, Holly. It's been 15 years. You are never going back to that room again but we need to visit it. It's okay to visit it, we don't have to live there. I'm right here with you. You are safe now." They tilt their head downwards and look at me with eyes of pity. No impatience, no distain, no arrogance... compassion. Anger. Solidarity. They want to know how to help. They want to help. They can help.

"We have been fighting for you for 15 years, Holly. It's time. Take this step and let's move forward." They coo.

I agree. A wave of fear and relief wash over me. I can do this. I am not the only one to do this. We are many. "You have to fight if you want to stay alive," a voice said to me. I had been in that room ... I lost track of time. I didn't even know how long I had been there. There was nothing to reference, no sun, no clock, no footsteps coming and going. It was all, silent. Dark. Terrifying.

"No, Holly. Go back. Tell me about the room. Not what happened in it. I want to know about the room."

"It was the ugliest room I've ever seen. There were bay windows in the floor that led to nowhere."

"So there were windows."

"No. They didn't lead anywhere. Just more wood. More darkness. It didn't make any sense. It was such a stupid design. Why would you put windows in the floor?"

I think about that room every day. For 25 years, I've thought about that room. Dark green, emerald, walls. Wooden floorboards with an Espresso finish. A bed in the far corner of the room. Big, fluffy, inviting. Until you've slept in it. A Mahogany vanity with a medium sized oval mirror sat against the wall at the end of the bed. It had lights all the way around it. Not bit stage lights like some fancy ones do. LED strip lights that you could change the colors of. Three big drawers, one, two, three. A dresser on the far wall. No closet. I wasn't allowed clothes. Whatever they wanted, I wore. No toys, no personal belongings. Whatever was in there, was theirs. It wasn't mine. It's never mine.

There was a big woven rug in the middle of the floor. One, two, three, four, five, six steps to the dresser. One, two, three steps to the wall where the closet should be. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight steps to the vanity. One, two steps to the bed. Nothing on the walls, nothing on the ceiling, not even a light. There was no light in that room.

"How did you see, Holly?" I'm jolted out of a memory, back to the present. Back to the room that I sit curled into the corner of. "Holly, if there's no lights, how did you see what was going on?"

"That's the point, I didn't." If I can't see, I can deny it. If I'm asleep, I can deny it. If I'm never conscious, I CAN DENY IT. It didn't happen.

It didn't happen.

It didn't happen.

It didn't happen.

"But it did happen. You know that now. We know because we've talked about this. Every week for the past 10 years, Holly. We've talked about this." Brown. Brown hair and brown eyes. The person looking at me lifts their eyebrows. Subtly. It conveys a sense of faltered hope.

"Yes. I know it happened. Everything happened. That's why there's the room. The room is where it all happened." I breathe heavy, in and out. One, two, one, two, one, two.

"Holly. Nothing happened in that room." Leaning back, Brown Hair, Brown Eyes looks at notes. Pages and pages of notes.

"I know." Weak. Worn. Torn.

"Where is this room, Holly? Find it." Settling. They know it's coming.

Deep breathe in. One, two, one, two. "Up here." I say as I point to my head.

"Good. Now, what's under the bed, Holly? That is why this room exists, isn't it? To hide what's under the bed?" Brown Hair, Brown Eyes, Black pants, High Cheek Bones.

"...Yes..." I think. The room is where I go to think. To cry. To look. To wonder. Curled up on the bed, under it, in the corner next to the dresser, at the vanity staring at myself. I go back to the room and reach under the bed. I grab the shoebox and sit on the floor, back against the bed and I cry. Wail. So many pictures. So many memories. Everything comes back. Torn dress, red heels, no coat, no meals, left out, can't fit in, angry, afraid, reactive. I look at more pictures - a hand flying across the image, tears, one person, two people, SEVENTEEN people's hands all flying through the air. Not at once but individually, throughout those 15 years. I count. I name. I cry.

The pictures consume me now. I see all of them. People are laughing, but not at something funny, they're laughing at me. Why are they laughing at me? I'm weird.

People are pointing. They're pointing at me. Why are they pointing? I'm bruised and broken and hysterical.

Every picture is another memory. None of the pictures in this room have good memories in them. This is a room I had hoped could be forgotten. Years of pain - physical and mental - are in this room. Pictures of my sister and what she did to me. Pictures of my first boyfriend and what he did to me. Pictures of my dogs and how they all died. Pictures of people I don't recognize. Pictures of every memory that made me cry.

"You have built this room to keep your traumatic memories in. How does that work?" Lacey. Her name is Lacey.

"When I finally got out of that room, I told myself all those things would destroy me, if I left them free inside my mind. I built that room from other bad memories and I left that box under the bed in case I ever needed to go back there. There is no door because I don't need one to get into it."

The bed is not mine. I don't use it. I've only been on it once. It's an awful bed.

The vanity isn't mine. It's my sister's. She's an awful sister.

The dresser isn't mine. It's my mom's. I hate how she looks at me but doesn't see me.

The rug isn't mine. I was forced to lay on it for 15 years. But I don't have to anymore.

The shoebox isn't mine. It's my dad's. Everything I know about him could fit inside of it.

I say that nothing in that room is mine but it is. It's all part of my memories. The memories are mine. I can't erase them or forget, or forgive so they sit in the room, waiting. In case I need to look at them, or cry, or wonder why.

I step out of the room that stole my childhood from me and I'm back in the office with Lacey. "It's okay to go back once in a while."

"That's right," she says with a smile. "Revisiting all those memories can help you understand them and process them."

"This time, it's my choice though. I get to decide when to go inside." I let out the air inside me that I didn't know I was holding on to.

"That's also right, Holly. You don't have to stay in that room anymore. You've got a good life now and a wonderful partner who's there to help you whenever you need them. You've got myself and anyone else you could possibly think of in your life right now, to help you." She leans forward now, a deep and caring expression on her face.

"But what if I'm a burden." I say, going back into myself. Scrunching into the smallest form possible. "I don't want to be a burden."

"Holly, we are all burdens. Every single person on the planet is a burden. Some of us more burdensome than others but to those who matter, you are a willing burden they take upon themselves because they care about you and love you. Find someone who thinks the burden of living without you is more unfathomable than the burden of living with you." She smiles and stands. Our time is over.

"I have." I say as I stand up and walk with her towards the door. "Thank you, Lacey. I'll see you next week."