Trauma in Alice Walter

That wasn’t the first time it had happened, I just didn’t wake up early enough to know what was wrong with me. By 15 I had surgery to restore my hymen because only virgins are being auctioned, the rest have fixed prices or are gifted in exchange for protection from gang members. I tried running away again when I was 16, Penny doesn’t know this, it’s a different story altogether, when I understood that mistress Amy and Harper weren’t done with me, I tried to end at 17 but Penny found me and flushed my whole system, I am grateful to her but I sometimes wish she had let me go. “Bullshit Roseanne, it’s me and you okay, I am not letting you die on me, we will through whatever this is” her voice rang in my head while I was slipping in and out of consciousness. She asked what happened. I told her I didn’t want to talk about it, 3 years now and I still don’t want to talk about it.

“Anne? Are you listening?” “Yeah sure, what were you saying again” My mind was far off from what Penny was saying. “I said, during the auction, they’ll be more guards, guns, and all sorts of other weapons, when were led into the car of our buyer, he’ll still be in here, finalizing payments, this is the trickiest part, we use this to stab the guard leading us to the car and then we get a hold of his gun, don’t be afraid to use it, Anne, we’ve been thought how to shoot, we just haven’t practiced on a human before I brought a little assurance for you.” She then proceeds to bring out a gun. From under her pillow, “I smuggled it out from practice earlier this week…” “Wait a minute Penny, how long have you been planning this?” I was a little scared to hear the answer. She smiled at that, “It’s been a while now, anyways Anne, I know you’re a little slow so I guess I’d give you the gun it’ll be easier for you to disarm the guards following you with this because they won’t expect you to escape being sold and they certainly won’t expect you to have a gun, she smiles. “Woah Penny, I underestimated you,” I say. “What if we get shot before we make it out?” I ask. “I’ll never let that happen to you Anne, I want you to live and discover yourself, I don’t want this for you, I don't want you to be a slave to the wishes of men. Dios, odio a los hombres.

she sighs in Spanish, she’s a little dramatic if you ask me.

I look over to her dresser, and the clock reads 00:00, “Happy birthday hermanita” I say. She smiles at me, “It’ll be happy when I get you out of here, get some sleep, Anne, we have a big day ahead of us.” She sighs and then proceeds to hug me, I return the hug and we stay like that for a while none of us saying what needs to be said ‘We won’t survive this plan and we’re never going to see each other again’ we don’t say it, we delude ourselves into thinking it’ll work out for us, into thinking we can make it out of here and live the life we’ve dreamt about since we were younger.

We finally let go of ourselves and lay next to each other, today the darkness won’t eat me up, I have Penny here, she always chases them away, she’s the light that I never knew I needed until I met her, I snuggle up to her, she sighs, pets my head and whispers a goodnight to me. That night I slept well, I slept without my demons paying me a secret visit, I slept without interference and I slept like I never wanted to wake up again, in a way I wish I wouldn’t but then I won’t get to be a part of this new world with Penny even if that world is sitting on a lot of ‘ifs’ and probabilities. If I die tomorrow, I die knowing that I tried, not once but thrice to get out of this hellscape that has been designed specifically for me, I once read that bad things happen to underserved people, and I understand how true that is, sometimes I wonder if I’m paying penance for the sins of my biological family, If it’s my contribution to a family I have nothing from, apart from DNA, they’ve given me nothing, I wonder if I was that much of a cursed child that I couldn’t even be given a name, they didn’t want to identify with me, but that’s okay because now, I can find my own identity, I can create my own life my own Identity without interference, without a care in the world and this is the beginning of my new identity, tomorrow I follow a different part, I take a different route in life and, only I can decide what I want it to be, not a group of powerful people whose interests lie in trading humans. Whatever their aims are with picking up young girls and turning them into slaves in their flesh it’s disgusting and even if I have come to accept that I have no other life apart from this, some of the girls here don’t, Penny was taken from her home, she was taken forcefully, Penny has been with me in everything that has happened, she stood up for me in times that I needed her to and I will forever be grateful for her presence in my life, I knew that she came in here with demons of her own but she’s never spoken about it, she always says to forget about it. I have no idea why she would think I do not want to be a part of her life or that I do not want to share her burdens with her because I do want to be there for her just as she is always there when I need her, always ready to put everything aside to come to my rescue and the least I can do is to also be present in her life. There was a particular period where she and I were caught sneaking into each other's rooms, the mistresses decided that we should be dealt with in that regard. Ma couldn’t do anything to help us and I appreciated the fact that she did try at the end of the day she is a mistress here and I’m just one of the girls, there’s not much she can do, I have no idea what they did to Penny during those days that she was in solitary, I do know that I was told to scrub the abandoned building at the other end of the Alice Walter, I wasn't allowed to go out, just food once a day, Penny was not there with me, after we were met back out, she didn’t say a word about it to me, I told her about how I scrubbed the whole place with a brush, nobody goes there because it is under construction, well it was under construction. She didn’t tell me about it, she didn’t breathe a word, but I do know that she came out different, she was thinner, her bones were showing, she had sore spots and I later learned of the scars she had on her thighs. She said that she slipped while doing the task she was assigned but I know Penny, she’s not that clumsy that’s a me thing. The only thing that didn’t change was her spirit, it'll take a lot more to break Penny, I love that about her, she has always been strong for the both of us. I will protect her too, I just need to get out of this hell hole first