Just a toy

I feel his hands. They hurt me. I don't care. I'm used to pain. But then his hands soften and he only touches me. I know this is a nightmare about something I only want to forget. I only don't wake up. I feel his hands everywhere – everywhere where they don't belong to. I need to wake up, please let me wake up. I can't bear this. Please wake me up. Again I feel his strong hand on my shoulder. No! I open my eyes. I made it. I escaped. My breath goes fast. My heart beats like after a marathon. My vision clears and I see Sandy standing above me.

"Nightmare?" He asks. I only nod. A nightmare in the afternoon. What a screwed up am I?

"Okay, sorry to wake you." He says. I see his concern in his face. It's the same as everyday. No matter who is looking at me: Kirsten, Seth or Sandy. All look at me as if I'm damned to drop dead.

"It's okay. Thanks." I only say.

"Everything okay?"

"I'm fine." I can't hear this question anymore. Can't they just accept that I'm not one of these super happy kids running around in Newport? My clock says it's already late. Too late. Shit. I jump up from bed and put on my shoes.

"What's wrong?" He asks.

"I wanted to meet my Dad and I'm quite late." I admit. I storm out of the pool house. I hate it to be late.

"Bye!" I call back to Sandy and then speed up. Why in hell is everybody concerned about my wellbeing? I'm fine – as always. I know I'm not. I'm a train wreck emotionally. I'm a mess. I only don't want admit it. I only want to forget all. A little hard with all these nightmares and thoughts in my head. But that's it. I want to leave this life behind. Now my Dad's back. I'm not in Chino anymore. I can start a new life. But as Kirsten said: I need to settle. My past again is putting obstacles in my way. I hate it. Why can't my past just vanish? Because it's a part from me and if I want to get rid of it I have to get rid of myself. Fucked up situation. I hope this will change one day. Maybe one day my life calms down a bit and I can relax from all this. I arrive at the pier. My Dad is already sitting on a bench. It's my favourite place here. You can watch the horizon and the ocean. It's reassuring, as if things weren't as bad as they really are – as if I'm a part from here.

"Hey." He says. He looks sad. I figure there's something cooking.

"Hey, what's the reason for this mysterious meeting?" I ask him and sit down next to him.

"Can't I want to meet my boy?" He asked. But I see he's only trying to avoid the real point why he had wanted to see me.

"Dad, don't even try to play me for a sucker. I lived long enough together with Mum and her boyfriends to smell there's something wrong ten miles against the wind." I tell him. He still thinks I'm the six years old boy he had left the one day. But I'm not. From the second he had left I grew up to and adult. There was nobody anymore treating me like the child I had been. I had to start to cope with Mum's drinking, with Trey's outbursts and these numerous boyfriends – always on my own.

"Too much of a parent already, hu?" He asks. This question reminds me too much of Sandy. They have a lot in common anyway. Why? They can't be more different but in somehow both act similar around me. I can't get my head around it. But that's nothing new to me. I even still can't get my head around why the Cohens took me in and try to treat me …like their own son. But hell, I don't need to know everything, right?

"So, what's up?" I hate to wait for an answer.

"I have a job." He says.

"That's great. I mean now you can start to fix your life again." I answer. I know that ten years in lock up is making you unable to survive in society afterwards. It's just like two worlds collide. One just can't cope with his new won freedom. At least that's what my Dad says. And well even after my few weeks juvies I had little trouble to adjust to freedom again.

"Yes, that's true."

"And what kind of job is it?" I only want to be sure he doesn't reoffend.

"Well, that's a little complicated." He starts and I know I won't like what he has to say to me.

"I'm back in the Army."

"What?" This is even worse than reoffend. I had to cope with that once. I don't need it again.

"Yes."

"Do you…do you have to go back into…one of these trouble areas?" If yes, I know it'll destroy him. When he came back from his first war, he wasn't himself anymore. He had changed and I don't think I had liked his new character.

"Iraq." Fuck.

"You know what happened the first time."

"Yes, but I need to do this. I…need some order in my life and the Army can give it back to me. You know how strict rules are and I have to follow them. It'll keep me on the legal road."

"You're such an asshole, do you know that?" I'm angry. When he came back, Mum was only crying and started drinking. He hadn't been able to work in a real job. He came back as a wrack. And then he…ended up in jail.

"Ryan, you have to understand me."

"No! It had destroyed our family and you know that. You've been a psychological wreck when you came back. Not telling anyone what had happened, what you've seen there. You and Mum started non-stop-fighting. She started to drink and you started to…commit crimes. So don't tell me there's anything good and helpful at all!" I scream into his face. I hope he only had forgotten what this war-thing had done to our family. I hope now he would understand that this doesn't make any sense that he decides against it. But how was one able to forget something like that?

"I know Ryan. But this time will be different. I know what's coming up to me. And when I come back, I promise I tell you when something had happened. I…won't act like I did the first time."

"Sure. And what if you never come back again?"

"That… won't happen."

"You can't promise that!" I'm in black rage. He's back only for a few weeks and now he had decided to piss off again.

"Ryan I need to do this. I need it, for myself."

"You, you, you! Did you ever notice that it's always about you? Did you ever think of one of us?" I have to fight holding back my tears. And I thought my life was going to calm down again.

"You're destroying everything. I…I mean how am I supposed to have a calm minute, when I can't be sure, if I ever see you again?"

"Ryan…"

"Don't expect I'm supporting you and don't expect I'm going to pick up the pieces again when you come back. I left this behind and I'm not going to live through it once again." I say and then run. I can't stand to be near to him anymore. He disappointed me. My hopes? Just broke into millions of tiny little pieces. Why did he come back anyway? Only to tell me that he'll leave me again? I don't want to know that. I don't want to know that he enters a suicide mission. Fuck! I wish he never had come back. I wish he had stayed out of my life. My emotions are one fucking rollercoaster and I have no idea to control any of them. Did I really thought he had come back to live with me? Did I really thought he come back, because he cared? No I couldn't have been serious, when I thought that. And I thought we were going to start a new – the rest of our remaining family. I must have become sentimental when I really thought something like that would happen.

I don't know what to do right now. I…don't know where to go. I feel lost. Fucking lost. He's leaving me. Not even caring how I feel about that. Who the fuck ever cared about me? Nobody, right. They only pretend to, so you do as they're pleased. But when they have enough, they leave you standing in the rain, no matter how bad it pours down on you. This had been another of those lessons, teaching me that at the end it would only be me – alone. He knows how hard it is for me living here. He knows that I wanted to stay with him. He knows that. He knows all of that!

"Hey Ryan, what are you doing here?" I hear a female voice. I never thought I would listen to it again.

"Just nothing." I answer her. I'm not in any mood to talk to her now - especially not after she didn't even answer one of my calls or e-mails.

"Doesn't look like nothing." She replies.

"Since when are you talking to me anyway?" I snap at her. I know I shouldn't use her to let off of steam. But hell, with her penetrative behaviour she's asking for it.

"Sorry, that wasn't fair. I…should have let you explain yourself. I only was angry about your lack of self-esteem. I thought you knew that I care about you, any time." She starts again. I don't get the point of what she's talking about. I'm only pissed off and frustrated.

"Yeah, as long as you're interested and when you meet someone new in France, it's me on my own again. Thanks." It's not her fault that I feel like that. I only know it that way and my father had proven it to me once again. I only can act the way I was taught. That's it.

"Ryan, what the fuck are you talking about? What's wrong?"

"Just leave me alone." I say and pass by. I don't want to talk to her. I don't want to talk to anyone. I'm just a kind of thing. They use me. They use me as punching bag. They use me to satisfy their sick dreams. They use me to feel better. They use me to show the others how good they are. They only use me. Nobody really seems to care. And I can't blame them. I'm a hackneyed, battered and broken toy. Nobody cares about broken things. And again there's the pain in my chest making me want to cry out all the pain and emotions out. But I can't. I should disappear. Unfortunately there's no recycling mechanism that could rearrange me. I have to live with me for the rest of my pathetic life. I don't want to. I want to get rid of all these memories. I want to get rid of all these scars, punches, kicks and touches. I want to get rid of all these words. And I feel as if I'm close to break down, but I can't. I'm the only one who can protect me from getting used.

I feel some kind of strange warmth spreading through my body and I start to relax. The shakes get less. I have to fight these emotions and memories. But with every passing day it's getting harder. What do they say? I shell talk about it? Nobody can tell me he wants to listen to it. In this ideal world, without problems and conflicts, something like me is an intruder. I have to keep the abuse and insults hidden to not disturb their peace. I mean I shell talk:

"Hey, my Mum's boyfriends not only used to beat the shit out of me. They even liked to fuck me like animals!" I scream. I don't know into which direction I shout it, as my surrounding is already spinning and one blur. And honestly, I have no clue where I am. I only now I left her at the beach and ran. To where? No idea. What I've been doing? No idea. Where I am now? Fuck off. I start to feel hands on my body. This only can mean I'm again caught in a nightmare. Or reality? My nightmares had been all reality once, thus I can't tell. I fight the hands. I hear voices, telling me everything's fine and I should hold still.

"That's what they all say." I can pronounce. I'm not going to make it easy for them. If they want to use me, they have to pay a fee for it – fight. Again a voice tells me everything's okay.

"As long as I don't tell anyone." That's how it works. Don't dare to tell anyone, because then you're dead. I feel hands stripping down my pants.

"No!" I scream. I don't want this.

"Beat the shit out of me, but my ass belongs to me." That's all I can think about. I don't want to go through this again. It hurts and I still wasn't able to wash up the dirt from the former times they used me that way. I'm too weak to fight back anymore and where had been lights is only darkness left. I pass out. Better that way, because I don't want to witness, what they're doing to me.