Haunted

The Day I "Died"

It was almost four-thirty. Katie should be here soon. I looked over at the plate of fresh baked white chocolate macadamia nut cookies on the table, and began pacing the length of my living room. My heart was racing and my mind was filled with so many thoughts it took me a moment to realize that there was a knock on the door.

I took a deep breath and slowly blew it out before I went to let Katie in.

“Hey girl,” Katie said as she waltzed into my apartment. She spotted the cookies on the table and gave me a worried look. “Please tell me those aren't white chocolate macadamia nut.”

“They are,” I answered with a sigh as I sat down on the sofa. Katie slowly sat down next to me. “I told you this was going to be bad, so I made cookies to make you feel somewhat better. Did you bring the tissues like I asked?”

She pulled a small pack out of her pocket and I scoffed. I reached down under the coffee table and I pulled out a box of tissues, opened them, and then sat them next to the cookies.

“I'm not going to need all of those.” she said with a chuckle.

“That's what you think,” I replied, reaching up, I undid the clasp on my choker and let it fall into my lap. I lifted up my head slightly so she could see the full length of my scar and so I could watch her expression. Her eyes grew wide with shock and was quickly replaced with a horrified look. Her mouth was opening and closing like she was trying to speak but the words refused to come out. After a few minutes she squealed out my fake name. “Trina-,”

“Yeah...Trina is not my real name.”

“What do you mean?”

“My birth name is Aurora Nicolette O'Dare.”

“Why does that name sound familiar?”

“Maxine and David O'Dare are my parents.”

It took her a second but sure enough recognition slammed into her and her big brown eyes went straight to the scar on my throat.

“Oh God,” tumbled out of her mouth before her eyes started to mist over. I reached over and grabbed the box of tissues and placed them on the sofa in front of her.

“Do you want to know the whole story?”

I could see the curiosity in her eyes but she hesitated. “Only if you want to tell it.”

That was one thing I loved about Katie; she was curious about everything, but never pushed someone into talkig about something they didn't want to talk about.

“You're one of the only three friends I have ever had in my life. The other two know the story because they witnessed it. It seems only fair I tell you.”

I took another deep breath while Katie waited patiently, with tissues in one hand and a cookie in the other, for me to begin.

“As I'm sure you know, my parents are extremely wealthy and, somehow, maintained that wealth even behind bars. To be honest, I don't know much about them, other than the fact they never wanted children. Obviously, they f****d up somewhere down the line and ended up with me.”

“If they didn't want kids, why didn't they abort you or put you up for adoption?”

“By the time my mother figured out she was pregnant, others had begun to notice. They didn't want to go to a doctor because they didn't want the doctor outing them or extorting them for money. So my mother had me at home and my father told everyone that I was a stillborn. The only reason I have a name to begin with was so they could falsify a death certificate. Every time someone came over they just told them I was the maid's kid.”

“Seriously?!”

“Yeah, the did that s**t till I was seven then they dumped me into a shack they paid for, under a false name, about six miles from their house. That's when the beatings started. If they had a bad day, their stocks dropped, or they fought with each other, they would come by and beat the s**t out of me until I could barely move. I lost count of how many broken bones they gave me by the time I was ten. This went on for years with no one having a clue that I even existed until I was sixteen years old and that's when I met…”

I tried to force his name out but it was like my throat had closed up. My eyes started to burn as tears threatened to spill over. Sucking in a sharp breath, that felt like I was being stabbed in the chest with a knife, I tried to calm myself and say his name but it just wouldn't come out.

“Met who?”

“M-my first friend. He lived in the house near the shack where they kept me. One night after a particularly bad beating, my leg was broken and he happened to look out the window and see me struggling to get into the woods so I could hide and recover before they beat me again. He followed me and caught up to me when I hid under a stone bridge that went over a dried up creek bed. He scared the s**t out of me but he took care of me. He made a fire, put a homemade splint on my leg, he fed me, and he tried to keep me as comfortable as possible so I could rest. He never asked me anything but basic questions and if I didn't answer he left it at that. About a year later, once I knew him better, I opened up and told him everything.”

“You can't tell me he was clueless. He had to have been able to figure it out.”

“Oh he did, but it's one thing to think it and another to actually hear the words. Once I finished telling him exactly what was going on, he starting making all of these elaborate plans on how he was going to rip them to pieces. After he calmed down a bit, he said he was going to talk to the police on my behalf. I told him about the time I went to the police and then my parents convinced them that I was a delusional relative with bad mental health. Anytime after that, the police would call my parents and they'd come pick me up. You can imagine what would happen afterwards.”

“So...if you couldn't go to the police and no one knew about you...what did you do?”

“We waited,” I said on a sigh. “He came up with a plan that would take place on my eighteenth birthday. I would meet with him and his parents. His Mom was a lawyer and his Dad was a doctor. He was going to ask his Dad to do a complete medical work up, which would document past and present abuse, then his Mom was going to petition for a DNA test to wrap things up and we would go from there. If they said no, he and I had made additional plans to run away. But...we never even got to talk to his parents.”

“That morning, they came and it was like they knew I was up to something. The beating was more ferocious, it didn't take me long to figure out that they were trying to kill me. I tried to run but stumbled from the wounds I already had and that's when my Mom grabbed me and held me down as my Dad ran the knife across my throat. They threw me to the floor and left. I managed to crawl out to the yard and halfway to my friend's house. He saw me and came running out and pulled me into his arms. He started screaming for his Dad and his Dad came out and tried to stop the bleeding.”

My emotions were spiraling out of control. I was no longer in my small apartment, but standing next to my past self narrating the scene.

“I can still remember the copper metallic taste of my own blood as I choked on it and I could still feel the crushing weight as my body grew heavier and heavier. Axel was screaming and crying and telling me stay with him. I kept trying to talk, to tell him that it's okay to let me go. I don't blame you, but will you sing me to sleep one last time.”

I could feel the tears on my face as the pain of that day came back to haunt me.

“He got this look...like he knew I was going to die and he knew what I wanted, he started singing the song he wrote for me. After the first verse everything went black. I woke up two years later and they told me that Aurora Nicolette O'Dare was dead and that I was now Trina Monroe.

“Wait! The government gave you a new identity while you were asleep?”

“More precisely a coma, but yes. With as much blood as I lost I should have died so when they managed to keep me alive the doctors told everyone I “died” so I could be put into witness protection. Axel never got to know the truth, and it's been tearing me up inside.

Katie was quiet for a long time. Risking a glance, I looked over and hoped that I didn't see pity in her expression. Thankfully, there was no pity, but there was an expression of deep sadness. Giant tears slid from her eyes down her rounded face and off her chin.

“Why are you just now saying something? You've been dealing with this all alone how do you stand it?” she asked with a tear stained voice.

“It is my burden. Why should I cause others pain when I know exactly how painful it can be? As for why now, I'm tired of living a lie. I never wanted to run and hide and now that they're getting out of prison, no amount of hiding will save me. I-I just want to live the life that was taken from me.”

Before I could say anything else, Katie wrapped me into a tight hug and then suddenly grew stiff and pulled back sharply.

“Wait a minute! What the hell do you mean they are getting out of prison?!”

“I saw on the news earlier, there was a problem with one of the jurors so they are starting an investigation and throwing out the verdict. An hour or so after I called you, a representative from the witness protection program called and told me again, and they also told me that they wanted to relocate me again and I told them to shove it up their ass and hung up.”

“You mean you want to go back to your old name?” Katie asked skeptically. “Why in the hell would you want to do that?”

“Because,” I answered with an exasperated sigh. “I want the life I should have had, and I can't have that as Trina.”

“Because of Axel? That's his name right, you said it earlier.”

I nodded. “ I found out that every year on my birthday, he relives that morning. He mourns me and he has no clue that I'm alive. He thinks I died in his arms. It's not fair for him to suffer like that.”

“Do you know how to get a hold of him?”

I shook my head. “That's what I need your help with.”

“Well it can't be that hard. What's his full name, I'll look him up.”

Katie pulled out her phone and opened up the f******k app.

“Axel Roman,”

Katie nearly dropped her phone and turned toward me with her eyes nearly bulging out of her head. “The lead singer of Heavens' Forsaken, Axel Roman?”

“Yeah, and that's the problem. How the hell do you convince a celebrity that his ex-girlfriend, the love of his life, didn't bleed to death in his arms?”