I don't know the girl I used to be. She has been removed from me, beaten out of me. She died so that I could be born. I'm not sure who I am yet, I just know that I am not her whoever she was. I am not ready to talk about what happened to me, because if I tell then it will get real. When I am silent, I can pretend none of it happened and that I was born this way. That I was born an adult, rather than having my childhood beaten out of me. Having my innocence replaced by this maturity and patience. And sadness, so much sadness.
I have cried, I have yelled, I have fought. I have paid, for whatever it is that I did to deserve what I got. I proved that I'm a fighter, despite my gentle upbringing. I fell, nobody caught me and I had to learn to get up.
So I threw myself into religion. The Maker saved me, without him I would have simply been dead. Andraste suffered like me, it gave me comfort. It had a meaning. I didn't suffer just for the sake of suffering, but I suffered because it was my fate. I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry. I am sorry for whatever I did that made me deserve this. Tell me how, Maker, and I will repent.
People complain that I am too happy; that I act silly and naïve. They don't know that what they see is just a shadow of who I used to be. I am just a performer, I am performing the act of the very happy girl I once was. I feel the difference though. All my happy feelings are tainted by the emptiness and numbness. I am a little bit numb inside. At times I am actually happy. I am a happy person, just not as happy as I used to be.
Sometimes I get sad, not just numb but sad. And I feel sorry for myself, not me as I am now, but the girl I was. I want to hug her, protect her from growing up so fast suddenly. I want to shelter her from the blow of sudden realization that the world is not nice and people aren't kind. I want to tell her that it is not her fault, it is my fault. It is my fault she hurt. Most of all I want to tell her that everything is going to be okay, or if not okay, at least they are going to be better. That we will get through this together, her and I. I cannot tell her that though, because that is a lie. We didn't get through this together; she died along the way, she was too sensitive and couldn't handle it. She left me, the shell of her. And this is who I am now; Leliana.
