Free Within by Rachel Rae Page A

your truth, Krys, you shouldn't have to hide behind those two people anymore.”
    I covered my face with my hands, crying harder, “This truth is painful and a constant reminder as to… As to…” I stopped; sliding my hands down my face, I looked at my aunt and then back at my hands that were now suddenly smeared with blood.
    “Aunt Courtney?”
    I ran to the kitchen sink, turning on the water and letting it run until it was scalding hot, and then placed my hands underneath it.
    “What are you doing? What's wrong?” she asked, running up behind me.
    I ignored her and poured the last bit of the green Dawn dishwashing liquid on my hands, scrubbing.
    “Krystle!”
    “The blood!”
    “What? Where are you bleeding?”
    “The blood that's on my hands!” I screamed.
    “I don't see any! There is no blood anywhere!” She turned off the water; then grabbed a dish rag. “Look!”
    She slid the towel from my wrist to the tip of my fingers, exposing my hands for what they really were. There was no blood, only blistering caused by the hot water. I stood there in disbelief, looking them over from the back to the front.
    “But it was there,” I whispered, still examining them.
    “We have to get you to a hospital; that looks bad, Krystle, let me see.”
    “But the blood…” My mind began to crowd with words and whispers from past conversations.
    I could hear them all in my head, from Bishop to Akira, and FiFi.
    “Have you looked at your hands in a while, Krystle?” Akira’s voice repeated.
    “Remember what happened, but it will only start after you take your medication,” FiFi’s voice trailed in.
    “You will rot in hell for what you did!” I heard Bishop's voice boom.
    My mind was going in circles, repeating the loud, congested whispers of my past.
    I can't remember when it stopped and I snapped out of it; the next thing I knew, I was lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by the two people that have been lying to me.
    “What happened?” I asked, trying to sit up.
    “Relax,” my father spoke softly, “you burned your hands pretty bad.”
    “We think you passed out from shock.”
    “I have to go.”
    “No, you have to rest,” Aunt Courtney said, putting her hand on my chest, pushing me back down.
    “Y'all don't understand, Bishop's blood is on my hands, and I need to know why.”
    They both looked at me, then at each other, and then back at me.
    “Baby…” my dad started.
    “No! Y'all wanted me to start taking that shit; unknowingly I did, and now we all have to suffer the consequences of my memory. Those days are very vague, I need answers.”
    “Where do you wanna go?”
    “Courtney!”
    “Hush Tony, she's right! Krystle, where do you wanna go?”
    I looked at my father before answering, and then back at my aunt. “My apartment and the Motel 6.”
    “Do you understand the lengths you are trying to go; just to remember something you didn't want to remember just a couple of months ago? This is ridiculous!” he spat.
    “Daddy, if I want to be able to start to rebuild my life back, I have to forgive myself.”
    “Well, do it! Forgive yourself, but not like this, please not like this.”
    “I have to know what I'm trying to forgive myself for.”
    He sighed deeply then shook his head. “No good is going to come from this.”
    “Daddy please.”
    He never responded to me; he shook his head again, while walking out of the room.
    “I take it you're angry with me too.”
    “I can't be, can I? I'm the one who started this; I put the meds in your food. Are you angry at me?”
    “When I was younger, you used to tell me, ‘the ultimate ignorance is the rejection of something you know nothing about yet refuse to investigate it’. Do you remember that?”
    “Yes,” she smiled, wiping a tear from her left eye, “I remember.”
    “Should I continue to be ignorant?”
    “You've been ignorant for too long, baby girl; we have to talk.”
    “Can it wait? I have to try and piece these things together