Suriel – angel of healing, whose name means “God’s command.”
“Come on, wake up, sleepyhead!” I heard my aunt’s voice as she snatched the headphones away from my head.
I struggled to open my eyes. I looked at my wristwatch. It was one in the afternoon. I slept in again and I knew Meredith hated that. But sometimes, I couldn’t help it. It was hard for me to sleep at nights. In the dark, the nightmares got worse. I couldn’t sleep with the lights out now. But even with the lights on, I still found myself waking up in the middle of the night, screaming as the memories of the pain I had experienced during that night come back to me, making me retreat, and curl up in fear and misery.
Meredith stared at the dark circles under my eyes and smiled apologetically. “I told you… some counseling can help you, sweetheart. Really. I can afford a few sessions.”
I shook my head. Meredith is my mother’s younger sister. She just graduated from college when she got the call that changed her life forever. She found out that instead of looking for a job and exploring the world like she originally planned, she had to move to a strange town to take care of me.
I felt guilty for what happened to her, too. She was just a kid out of school, and now she had to grow up faster than she first intended to so she could make ends meet and take care of a troubled teenager like me.
“That’s not necessary, Meredith,” I said. She didn’t want to be called aunt. She said it would make her feel old. “We’re already struggling to get by each day. I don’t want you to waste your hard-earned money to pay somebody who will only eat donuts and drink coffee while I lie on the couch and talk about things I would rather forget.”
She came to sit beside me. “At least… that person can prescribe pills that can help you… fall asleep.”
“I already have something for that,” I said, with a wide smile on my face. “Your manuscripts!”
She glared at me. “How dare you go through my things?” She hit me with a pillow.
“I’m kidding!” I said, laughing.
Meredith was an aspiring writer. One day, when I had nothing to do in the house, I went to her room and decided to be useful for once and cleaned up. I found some of her manuscripts and read them. She was actually pretty good but I thought none of the stuff she wrote was PG-15.
“I’m going out,” she said. “I have to be in CRC in an hour’s time.”
“Alright. I’ll just be here,” I said to her. As always, I added in my head.
She looked at me apologetically. She stared at my face for a while.
Two guesses which part of my face she was staring at.
It was my scar. The one on the right side of my face, between my cheekbone and my ear, and ran down all the way to my jaw. I immediately felt self-conscious. The skin was damaged and the scar was horrendous. I was told that I was lucky my stepdad only let the chemical trickle on the side of my cheek, and it didn’t go further on the other parts of my face. I was luckier it didn’t hit my eye.
Even before that tragic night, we didn’t really live a charmed life, so there was no way I could afford plastic surgery.
I combed my hair to the side to hide the scar from Meredith’s view. That way, nobody would know how damaged I really was.
Meredith sighed and asked, “Why don’t you come with me?”
I stared back at her. “Why?”
She shrugged. “The kids at the center could use a little encouragement.”
I smirked. “From me? Seriously? Have you met me lately?”
“I don’t know how you do this, Alice. I would have been…” She trailed off then she said, “You always look and sound positive, nobody will be able to guess what happened to you that night.”
“By that you mean, I still look charming, nobody will really be able to guess that I was Scarface in real life?”
“No, silly!” she replied. “Not that. I meant… you still laugh a lot, joke a lot. Nobody would guess what really happened to you. I would have been… devastated. Some kids from the center would be able to learn a lot from you.”
“Really?” I was quite uncertain about what she was saying.
She nodded. “Some of them didn’t even go through half the stuff you’ve been through and yet, they lost the will to live.”
“I don’t know, Mer. This may very well backfire.”
She shrugged. “Well, in any case, you could use a change of scenery. The institution has beautiful landscaped grounds, a library, a game room and best of all… a music room.”
I stared up at her. “Music room, huh?”
Meredith looked like she really wanted me to come. Not just because she thought I would be able to help the other people there. But because she thought it would help me to see those who stayed in the center… the ones who were as broken as I was.
I stood up from my bed. “I’ll just shower,” I said.
She beamed at me. “You will like it there, Al.”