I took a couple of days off from writing to catch up with an old friend and attempt to kill a persistent headache. Drowning it in beer did not help, but I had a good time anyway. I'll try to catch up and get 30 in 30days.
Title: Because She Felt
Character: Leila from Suspicious River
Rating: R. Because of subject matter.
Word Count: 350
Notes and a Warning: If you’ve seen Suspicious River you’ll know what to expect. If the movie disturbs you, then you may not want to read this. There’s nothing graphic, but it’s just not happy making, you know. If you haven’t seen the movie, this may not make sense, but if you choose to go on and read it anyway, you should know that there are allusions to Non Con and attempted murder. I’m sorry.
Down
When her mother died, people said it was okay for her to feel down. It was normal, they said. The same when her father died. Feeling down was a part of grief and would pass.
She often wondered what those people would think if they knew she wasn’t feeling down. She wasn’t feeling anything. Not sadness or cold or hunger. Every now and then there was a flicker of something like desire, but it passed so quickly that she barely noticed it. Rick never seemed to, either.
It seemed to Leila that maybe a person could be so down that there was no way to get any lower and maybe that was why she didn’t feel those things that other people felt. What use is a negative feeling when you’ve got nothing positive for it to take away from you.
So when she got down on her knees, she felt nothing. When she got back up again, she felt the money in her shoe and that, at least, was something.
Dirty
When Gary hit her that first night, it made her face hurt, but not much else. Leila knew this game. She’d seen her mother play it often enough. She could choose to play it or not.
When he came back and apologised she knew he didn’t mean it. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did. He told her there was something dark in him and then he made her feel something. It was wrong, but it was what she needed.
He used her in every way he could think of and she let him. She felt dirty and scared and something she could almost call love.
He used her and then he let his friends use her, too. They came, one after another and they didn’t make her feel anything. They were here because Gary told them to be here. It was Gary that did this, Gary that made her feel dirty, inside and out, like she could never get clean.
That's why when he almost killed her, she couldn’t hate him. He made her feel. He started her living.