"MARBELLA" by Erin Horgan

©2003 by Erin Horgan vcaoriginals@yahoo.com.au

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AUTHOR'S NOTE

Written in Australia. I welcome all comments. Post a review and/or e-mail me at vcaoriginals@yahoo.com.au. This chapter includes a lot of thinking.

CHAPTER TWO: MIND GAMES

I remember not having any real thoughts in the car trip to the local hospital. But I do remember being able to vaguely hear my parents talk. I cannot remember their exact words, or indeed most of what they said, but a particular part of their conversation stuck out to me like the sun on a cloudy day…
"Alright, Selena, look what you've done. How are we going to explain this to the hospital staff?"
"We'll say she did it herself."
My father scoffed. "Don't you realise that the first thing hospitals do with child violence is blame the parents? They'll blame us."
"They will
not," my mother disagreed. "Australia has one of the highest youth suicide rates in the world. If need be, we can use that as a defence."
My father could still see the problem with my mother's logic. "But won't they be able to look at her injuries and
tell that she didn't do that to herself?"
"Can
you?" my mother challenged.
"That's different because I
saw you inflict those injuries!"
Silence followed this, but my father soon spoke up again. "Besides, won't Layla tell them the truth?"
"Layla is an
actress - actresses are perfect liars! She'll stick to our story."
"But surely she has her own-"
"She does
not. She's been following my lead since her birth, and she won't give it up now."
"Well, not now that you've showed her what you're capable of. Now she'll be too frightened to do anything her own way because she fears what you will do to her…"
"Oh, be quiet, Grant, don't you give her ideas! We have a story, and we'll stick to it… You
do love me, don't you, Grant?"
I blanked out after that, but I didn't have to be awake to have known what had happened. As I gained consciousness, I could sense the decision my father had made as easily as I could sense rain coming on. I knew my father had agreed with my mother. He always had, and he always would. I could never understand why he would eternally bend like trees in the wind for her, and not just divorce her.
But then again, if I always bent for her, then why couldn't I understand why he did, too?
We were two different people. I didn't have to explain myself to myself. There must've been a place of me internally that knew why I did - and didn't do - what I did and didn't do. I had to know, because otherwise I wouldn't cater to each and every whim of my mother's. I just couldn't explain it. That must have been the same unexplainable reason that he had. We loved my mother. Wasn't love enough?
But what was love? Who could explain it? I certainly couldn't.
As my eyes opened, I became aware of the decision, and I saw a kind man with Indian features and wearing a white coat smiling down on me. "Good morning, Layla. Glad to have you with us again," he said softly.
I struggled to sit up, but he gently placed my lifting shoulders back onto bed sheets. I knew this was a hospital, despite having never been in one before. I was tucked in tightly, and my head felt extremely heavy, weighed down with possibly the same anvil I had felt on my chest earlier, travelling through my body like cancer. The private room with the blue paint, the white bedding, the tiny periwinkle-blue flowers in a tiny plastic vase on a small table by my bed… it all seemed somewhat familiar.
And then I remembered. For years, I had been fed on the entertainment industry. Though the public had almost never seen me with my parents, I knew all about them. My parents had brought me up watching film after film, whether they be local, American or foreign, and I had seen a lot of them. Some I had liked, some I had not and others I had had no opinion of. In fact, after viewing too many motion pictures, I noticed too many similarities, comedies weren't humorous to me, dramas seemed too unrealistic and I couldn't understand why people were singing and dancing in those musicals.
I had seen hospitals on the silver screen, but more often on my television, through video, so that's why I felt as though I had known this hospital before. After awhile, all hospitals seemed to run together until they were indistinguishable from other hospitals. Real or just sets, they were all the same.
"Layla, can you open your eyes a bit more for me, please?"
I did as I was told, struggling as I was, and a tiny light shined in front of each eye in turn. The light clicked off, and the man, who I presumed to be the doctor, smiled. "Okay, can you follow my finger, please?"
With my eyes, I traced the paths of one of his index fingers, north, south, east, west and all around. My head still pounded like gunshots, but I was able to keep my eyes open, though I wanted to close them desperately.
"Alright, just stay awake a little longer, Layla. I can see you want to sleep."
I willed with all my might to keep my drooping eyelids raised for just a little longer.
"I'm Dr Rajah, Layla. Do you remember why you're here?"
Thinking? I couldn't think. I could barely keep my ears attentive. "Head… hurts."
"Well, you remember that," he commented. "I'll let you nap for half an hour, alright?"
I didn't signal any confirmation, except for immediately shutting my eyes, and drifting off into oblivion.

When I awoke from that, I saw that there were no people in my private room in the hospital this time. I wasn't tired now. I felt almost ready to get up, and move around. Surely it was Monday now, and I would have to go to school, despite being hospitalised. I could still get out for my lessons after lunchtime.
I sat up, and cleared out my eyes with my fingers, wiping aside the sleep and gluggy moisture that came with waking up, and I felt something strange at the sides of my face. As I reached to smooth down my hair, I got a shock.
I could feel cotton bandages on my head, small ones in various positions, and I could feel them as I cleared my eyes, too. I moved my fingers around to find my forehead slabbed in a large one, and there were small ones near my temples.
Bandages. I had never worn any before in my life. Band-Aids, yes, for childhood cuts and scrapes, but bandages were as confusing to me as the Arabic alphabet.
My confusion was interrupted with the arrival of Dr Rajah and an assistant, clearly doing the rounds, knocking and opening my door to peep in. "Oh, you're awake now," the doctor commented. "Do you think you could answer some questions for me, please?"
I said, after clearing my throat a few times, "yes," and the doctor came into my room, his assistant leaving. I made a few sounds to make sure my vocal chords were still working, for I didn't want to risk moving my head and dislodging the bandages that were beginning to cage me in.
"Can you remember your name?"
"Layla Marie Westfeld." I wasn't sure of many things in life, but I was sure of that.
"And can you remember why you ended up in the hospital?"
Suddenly, I could. It all came rushing at me like a thunderous waterfall, and I desperately wanted to trap out the sounds of my memories, but I couldn't. It was peculiar how I couldn't make myself do what I wanted to do, though I could easily do what my mother wanted me to do. Maybe I was destined to be a "yes" person for all eternity. I probably didn't even have a soul, not that I knew what one was.
"Mirror," I forced out. I wasn't sure what else to add.
"Your mother said that you were trying to cause yourself a brain haemorrhage in order to commit suicide. Is that true?"
I didn't dare move my head, and I didn't dare disobey my mother. I didn't want me to be taken away from her and my father because she abused me. But she wasn't abusing me. She was forcing me to face myself, and maybe I felt the pain because facing myself hurt me. Maybe I really had just imagined Mama slamming my head against the mirror. Maybe I had just imagined my father calling out my mother's name, asking rhetorically what she was doing. Maybe all that was my mind at work, my imagination at its most extraordinary. Maybe I had slammed my own head against the mirror. Maybe I did want to have a brain haemorrhage and die.
Once again, I didn't know what was real anymore.
"Yes," I replied. I had taken awhile to answer that question, and I hoped that the doctor took that as a sign of me taking my time to admit to my own suicide attempt.
"Well, we've had trouble getting you back to health," Dr Rajah informed me. "You had glass embedded in your forehead, and you were bleeding from various cuts, but we've extracted all of the glass, and you should recover well."
Recover well? What did that mean? I was alive, so was that what he meant by recover well? Maybe it just meant that my bandages would be removed with time.
"However, you have been scarred, Layla. Scars don't really heal, you know?"
"I know," I said blankly, automated like a computer-programmed robot. But I really was listening to what he was telling me. I just chose to go about it expressionlessly. It's what my mother would have wanted me to do. I could act. I didn't have any awards to speak of, but the whole world was a stage.
"We had to shave off part of your hair to treat your wounds," he continued. "But that should grow back soon."
"I know," I repeated, my voice at a very low tone, the way it always went when I didn't speak much.
"We're going to have to send someone from the psych ward down to talk to you."
"I understand."
"Good." He paused for a moment. "Would you like to see your parents?"
I actually had to think for that one. I didn't want to see either of them ever again, but the sooner I did, the sooner I would be allowed out of hospital. But wouldn't hospital be a much better location for me to live in, as opposed to the tension of my mother's house? But the longer I stayed here, the longer I would be prolonging the inevitable. I had to move on… it's what my mother would have wanted, and darn I ever to have an original thought.
"Whatever will make me leave the hospital faster," I answered.
"Alright." He smiled. "Your mother is waiting here. I'll send her in, and I'll organise you an appointment with a psychiatrist."
"Thank you, doctor," I said mechanically. Politeness…
"Always be polite to everyone you meet… Keep everyone on your side, and then you'll live your life freely…"
I pushed my mother's words out of her head. But what would I know about living life freely?
I watched him leave the room, and as soon as Dr Rajah left my vision, I clenched my eyelids shut, and tried not to cry. The clenching had the tape of my forehead bandage stretching, so I immediately released the tension, though I kept my eyes closed. Had to breathe carefully. Had to open my eyes to show no sign of weakness when my mother arrived. It was all about strength. But what could I ever say to her? I could remain mute, never saying another word to anyone ever again.
But what would I say to the psychiatrist? I was so out of touch with reality that I didn't even know if Mama had really hurt me, or if I had been violent with myself.
"Layla! Oh, my poor baby…"
I opened my eyes, kept my expression blank and made no reaction to my mother's cooing.
She came right up to me, sat down next to me on the mattress and pulled me to her in a hug that I did not return. "It's alright, darling, I'm here for you now…"
"I'll leave you to it," I heard Dr Rajah say. I couldn't see him because all I could see was my mother's woollen long-sleeved top. I heard the sound of the door shut firmly.
My mother kept me in a hug. "You're a good girl, Layla, such a good girl telling the truth," she told me.
The truth? Did that mean that I really had attempted suicide? Or was she playing mind games?
"It's alright, we'll get you the help you need, and we'll help you get you back on track." She pulled away slightly, so that she could look at my face. "Your father and I love you very much. It takes a lot of courage to admit your faults, and you've done it, Layla. You confirmed to that doctor that you attempted suicide, so now it won't take you long at all to admit to all your faults, and then you'll get the help you need to have you grow up right."
"Grow up right?" I echoed in question.
"That's right." She held me to her again, and I could smell the roses clearly. "You're thirteen, Layla, but women usually grow to be eighty, at least. You've got plenty of time to blossom." Her voice shifted to a whisper. "And we'll see about having those scars removed with surgery, don't you worry. Of course, we'll have to wait until it's time to take your bandages off first…"
I tuned out, but I knew she continued to ramble on. I actually wanted to keep my scars. I wanted to use them as a reminder of my faults. I had to promise myself that I would never attempt suicide again, for it would fail, just like this attempt.
I actually believed now that I had turned suicidal. It wasn't a possibility to rule out - it was certainly possible, and I could have actually done it. Or Mama had done it. It could've gone either way, but I liked to think that I was so psychologically advanced that I could convince myself that someone else had abused me when I had really abused myself. The thought of that was absolutely fascinating, and I marvelled at my own mind power. Here I was, finally good at something, and something that my mother didn't view as a "fault." She was proud of me now, proud of what I was almost certain I had done.
My mother could love me again! I had always loved her, but maybe along the way she had lost love for me, but now it would be back and stronger than ever.
"We're going to have to pull you out of public school, of course," she said to me now. "After all, it would be painfully embarrassing for you to be around your peers after this incident." She pulled away from me, and sighed, sadness on her face. "You're only thirteen, and your peers would have so much trouble trying to understand why you tried to commit suicide… God knows this country has had far too many youth suicides. You don't know how relieved I am to actually have you alive with me now! If you had been home alone…"
She couldn't have been acting… could she? If she had, wouldn't she just keep up the façade for the public, and be truthful with me?
Suddenly, I was aware of the pains in my stomach and my back, and I could feel a thick wetness down near my vagina, on the bed sheets beneath me. I was bleeding. This had been the thing that had got to me so much, I remembered. This bleeding had come upon me, and I had talked to my mother about it.
Then hormones must've caused my wild emotions to go out of control, and so devastated was I by this new bodily change that I had attempted suicide…
Or was I just playing mind games with myself?
"Mama… it hurts," I whimpered.
"Your head, honey?" she asked, seeming concerned.
"No… down there."
"Oh? Oh, dear, I know it hurts," she told me, understanding what I was telling her. "I have things in my handbag for you. I'll go get a nurse to bring around a bucket of water or something, and I'll help clean you up, okay, darling? Don't you worry a thing, Layla, Mama's here for you, and your father and I love you very much…"
Mama was here, and she loved me. She was proud of me, and she loved me. She would take care of me, and she loved me. Finally, I was on track with her! We were in tune now. She could really be my mother, and I could really be her daughter. I knew I had caused her so much disappointment, but that wouldn't be so anymore.
It was only a shame that an incident such as this had to happen in order to bring us together. I still didn't understand what had been so terrible as to bring me to attempt suicide…
It seemed I was endlessly going to ask myself this over and over. Had I really tried to hurt myself so badly, or had my pain been brought upon by my mother's hand? Why, why was I doubting myself… or why was I doubting my mother? Why did I have to doubt anyone? Why did there have to be reasons for what had happened? Why couldn't I just say that somehow my head had had glass embedded in it, it was spotted with bandages now and I was scarred? I was scarred on my forehead, and with the bandages off soon, people would see the scars, and wonder to themselves, "Whatever happened to that girl? Was she abused, or did she do that herself? It's a real shame, the youth of today…"
Stop that! I yelled to myself. Stop doing this to yourself. Give yourself a break from all this psychological torment.
It seemed that someone would always be playing with me, whether it be someone else, or my very own self.
Would these mind games ever stop?