"PHOENIX" by Sarah Ryniker

PAGE LAST UPDATED ON 22/03/2002

Phoenix Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Epilogue

CHAPTER ONE

It wasn't that I had no physical family. Oh, that was far from the truth. I had four younger siblings and my parents were still very married. Unfortunately, we were more like a pack of wolves circling each other and fighting over the most asinine things.
    No, I'm not saying there that life was completely miserable. We had our fun times. Going to the beach, to an amusement park of some sort, and to visit family in southern California and in Las Vegas. Yes, those were happier times. They were just too rare, and even on vacations there was arguing. My parents usually started it, which put them in a bad mood, affecting the mood of the five of us sitting in the back.
    My father often ruined good times all by himself. We'd go out but if we said anything that was even slightly close to yelling, he would grab whatever body part was closest to him, whether it be an arm, nose or ear, and grit his teeth and whisper viciously to us. He often made us feel as if going anywhere fun would inevitably turn bad. We always walked on eggshells around him. Afraid to make him angry. Afraid of his wrath, which could be so harsh that his spankings weren't needed to make us cry.
    Mama was much different than that. There was no discipline where she was concerned. I always wanted to be like her when I was a little girl. Always wanting her pretty soft golden red hair and those strangely light green eyes sparkled with specks of violet and blue, rather than the near black eyes and dark hair I had inherited from him; though, I did think I got my red highlights from her. She was model perfect. I always modelled myself after her, even though I looked nothing like her. I liked the same things she liked. It all changed as I got older. In fact, a lot of things changed when I got to the age of about fourteen. Drastic changes were made. We made a very large move to Wisconsin and then back all in one year. That was the year that changed my life forever, really. Yes, life was always pretty uncomfortable and hard, but it became worse and worse after that. My trust in my mother became so absolutely slight that it made it unbearable for me to even look at her, anymore. And during it all, I didn't have anyone to turn to. I was completely, utterly alone in the world. Lost in the prison of my own mind and torturing thoughts.
    I'm going just a little bit too far. So, let me just start during my childhood. When things were bad, not horrible.
    My parents have always fought, it seems. For as long as I can remember, they argued. He never hit her in front of us but there were times, so she's said, that he had hit her. I remember a fight in every apartment and house we've ever lived in.
    I always defended my mother. Whenever I felt my father was in the wrong, as I almost always did, I was unable to just stay out of it. Why was he always right and nobody else was? It made me so angry!
    Then came the year when I was ten years old, almost eleven, and he went out truck driving. He thought that over the road truck driving would make us more money. So, he left, and everyone got the freedom they needed.
    And Mama loved her freedom. My siblings were far too young to understand what was going on, my baby brother, Andrew, just two years old. They didn't understand why Mama was going out so often. More often than not, she would disappear at around seven p.m. and not come back until three a.m. My younger sisters and brother became used to seeing her gone and not seeing her until morning.
    My younger sister, Celeste, was just a year younger than I was, so she did understand to a good extent. She just didn't care. At nine, almost ten, years old she was a pretty, outgoing and very carefree child.
    I was always so different from her. I was a worrywart at a very young age, with very few friends. I was always the good girl. I never did anything bad. Not really. The worst thing I ever did was shoot off my mouth.
    And, boy, was I good at that! Any time I felt myself to be in the right, I just couldn't shut up. Even if I knew it would be a good idea to just shut my trap and get less of an emotional, or even physical, beating. I was just not good at doing it. I would always fight for what I believed in. It wasn't like me to just sit back and let someone walk all over me.
    Mama was different without Dad around in more ways than one. We went more places, but usually it was just to her friends' homes. I remember one time when she loaded us all up in the truck, Andrew and Katie in car seats because they were still just two and three years old; and Celeste, Lila, who was five at the time, and I sat in the camper shell of the truck. She took us to a friend's house out in the middle of nowhere. The house sat in a huge field, the roof partially caved in and a metal fence surrounded it. Celeste and Lila were happy to get out of the truck and bounced happily up to the doorway. Katie and Andrew were let out of their car seats and they waddled their way after the other two. I walked up slowly, not trusting the house or the people in it.
    Mama didn't bother knocking; she just went on in. I followed behind everyone reluctantly. I looked around at the worn-out looking sofa with some springs popping out between the cushions. Two men and two women sat on the couch making out, all with beers or joints in their hands. The music and laughter was deafening. I had gone there barefoot, as I went most everywhere barefoot, and while I looked around, my stomach already nauseous from what I was seeing, I felt something furry crawl across my foot. I let out a sharp cry of surprise and looked down to see a rat scurry across the floor and under the one sofa. I could see roaches everywhere, crawling over the large fish tank and all over the VCR and TV that sat just opposite of the sofa. I felt as if I was going to throw up.
    "Somethin' wrong, kid?" I heard a man with a rather thick southern accent say to me. I looked at him and he smiled. His smile revealed a mouth full, or should I say a mouth not so full, of teeth. His beer belly hung out over the top of his too tight pants and out of the too tight dark blue tee shirt he wore. He took a puff of his joint and then held it out to me. "Want some?" he offered.
    I wrinkled my nose in pure disgust. I gave him a haughty look and pulled my shoulders back as I stuck my nose up in the air. "I'd rather jump off the Golden Gate Bridge than do any kind of drug! Especially one that you've touched," I snapped.
    He laughed as Mama came around the corner from the kitchen. She leaned across the doorframe and looked down at the man.
    "What the hell is so funny, Eddie?" she asked with a smile.
    "That's some witty and stuck up brat ya got yerself there, Karen," he laughed, pointing his joint at me.
    Mama laughed with him and took his joint away to take a puff off it. I almost burst into tears right there. All of my life I had looked up to her and now she was disappointing me in ways that she'd never understand! I ran out of the house as if Satan himself were at my heels.
    When I got out there I sat cross-legged on the roof of the truck, my arms wrapped around myself, the tears running non-stop down my cheeks. I just couldn't understand what had come over the mother I had looked up to my entire life. The woman I had defended against my mean and controlling father. I didn't know this woman who made promises so freely and broke them just as easily as she made them, making up some sort of excuse for doing so.
    I felt as if someone had taken my heart out of my chest and was smashing it with a hammer. I was losing faith in the only person that I had ever looked up to. The only person I could ever call a role model. The only person that made me feel as if I had something worth living for.
    Eventually I did get into the car and turn on the radio, and then I crawled back up to the roof and into the position I had been in before. Just as I got settled, I heard the loud laughter coming from the house. My head shot up and I saw my mother in the front yard with Eddie who was pouring beer all over her. She giggled and laughed and ran away from him in an obvious flirting game of cat and mouse. It made my stomach do flip-flops. I knew it should be none of my business what my mother did. That I shouldn't want to control the things she did just because I thought they were wrong. But I wanted the mother I thought I knew back. I didn't want this strange, flirtatious, party animal to be my mother. That wasn't my mother at all! My emotions were so torn! I didn't want to be controlling like my father! I didn't want to be mean and nasty like him! I wanted to be a good, nice girl! But I didn't want my mother to act the way she was acting. I didn't know what to do.     So I sat up there and cried and when I noticed her and my siblings making their way back to the truck, I turned away and wiped at my eyes, pretending they were watering from my allergies.
    Which I had badly enough, to add to the problems. I was always sick. As a severe asthmatic, the stress my mother was putting me through had me in the hospital more times than I can count during those months my father was gone. And we didn't have any insurance at all to pay for the hospital stays. Of course, Mama worried about me more than hospital bills. She was my mother and she did love me. All of my life Mama was always there to take care of me when I became sick or had a bad asthma attack in the middle of the night and had to be rushed out to the emergency room. I knew well enough that it wasn't just stress that put me in the hospital. It was my need to have the mother I had always known back for just a short while. I wanted that caring touch. I needed her. Though, I always had a nagging feeling, my conscience, telling me that I was being very selfish. The hospital visits soon became less frequent because of it.
    Eventually, my birthday rolled around. I had only a very small group of friends from school. Not anyone I actually cared enough about to share with them the secret tortures of my heart, but enough to have a small Halloween birthday party with them. My birthday was a good ten days from Halloween and my mother always had Halloween parties for me. When I was little, they were much bigger. That year it was absolutely tiny - a small group of five girls and about a million of my mother's drunk and disgusting party friends. I was so angry about them being there and I made sure my mother knew it.
    "Getting drunk and high the night before my party wasn't enough, Mother? You had to go invite these... these... Oh I can't even call them people!" I cried out angrily in the hallway, just outside my bedroom door, not really caring if any of her friends heard me or not.
    "I did not get drunk or high last night, Phoenix Parish!" she said in a loud, whining whisper. "And I want you to take that back, this minute! I will not have you insulting my friends!"
    "I won't take it back! I mean every word of what I say about these monsters! I hate them all! And I hate what you're turning into!" I ran away from her, crying so hard I thought I might pass out.
    I ignored my friends for the rest of the night and ended up falling asleep in the garage, away from my mother and her drunken "friends". Even in the garage, which was attached to the house, I could smell the alcohol and pot emanating from the house. It filled my nostrils every time I took a breath. I cried myself to sleep on the garage floor.
    Things were like that right up until my father quit his truck-driving job, about two weeks after my birthday party. I was partially relieved by his coming home and partially upset. I didn't like him. He was mean ninety per cent of the time. But this did mean my mother would clean up her act. Unfortunately, my father somehow found out about her partying and the fighting that had gone on between them became worse. Only, I found out later, it wasn't always about partying. It was about how much money she had stolen from him and spent on herself and her friends while he was gone. Funny, I thought, my brother and sisters and I never saw a penny of that money. Sometimes we would have to eat whatever we could find in the cupboards. If there wasn't anything, we just had to go hungry.
    I didn't realise that the fighting would only get worse and worse. I never guessed that it would never get better like I always hoped it would. Then, again, I never actually expected it to get better. I just wanted to live through it until I was able to escape.
    During the years after my father came home, I knew he was just itching to go back over the road. I knew he missed it more than he would ever admit. He loved driving more than he loved anything else in the world. But he was afraid of what my mother would do. He knew she knew too many people around Modesto, California. The place was just so small and she knew everyone that was into the party crowd. I must admit, I didn't like my father but I sure didn't want him to leave again. I feared what his over the road experience would do. Afraid of what Mama would do, again.
    The year I was almost twelve years old, we got our computer. It was exciting and there were a lot of games on it to play. But the biggest, most fun game to my mother was the Internet. Already Mama had talked to people in her family who had it and they convinced her to ask Dad about getting America Online. My father always did have a problem telling her no. Soon enough Mama was signed online a lot.
    Getting online was probably one of the worst choices my father could ever have made. It opened even more doors for Mama. Ones she never even thought of. Soon she was quite popular with many people online. She had pictures to share with everyone and everyone knew her sad and heartbreaking life story; about being stuck with a man she could barely stand. Many gave her sympathy.
    I got online every now and then. At first, it really didn't interest me. I was allowed online for one hour each night. I got on, but I was usually off before that hour was even up. I talked to some people, but nobody interested me.
    But many men were interested in Mama herself. They knew my father and were supposedly friends with him, too. Except one man who wanted my mother so badly he couldn't see straight. He said he wanted to whisk her away from her unhappiness. And he tried to do just that. To this day I don't know exactly what happened between my mother and this man, though I want to believe her story about it. She says she picked him up from the airport and dropped him off at a hotel and never saw him again. But a friend of my father's told him differently. And there was Hell to pay for that!
    It happened the summer I was twelve. We'd already had the Internet almost a year. Celeste had no interest in it and Lila was only seven and was too young to care. Of course, Katie and Andrew were much too young to care. The two were only four and five years old and lost in their own little world.
    The thing I thought most strange about my siblings was the fact that none of them looked like me. Every one of them looked like Mama. Katie and Lila both had dark hair, but other than that, they looked like her. I envied them for that. They were just so beautiful, like her. I just had to look like him. I couldn't understand why I looked so different!
    I didn't have too much trouble getting along with Lila, Katie and Andrew. Sometimes they could be brats, but I could manage. It was Celeste I had such a problem with. By the time she was eleven, she was beyond conceited. Already she had been blessed with the body of a sixteen-year-old. She, like me, had inherited our father's very tall height. We were the same exact height of five foot four inches. Just like Celeste, I too was "overly developed" for my age. I just never flaunted it. I was embarrassed by my fast growth. Celeste had a nice body with a bosom that was neither too big nor too small. While by the time I was twelve, I was almost a size d cup. I hid it with baggy shirts, hating what my mother said was a blessing. I couldn't begin to understand how it was a blessing.
    Celeste was much prettier than I. She was thinner, her hips not as wide. Perfect, in my opinion. Both of us always let our hair grow out long, but hers always seemed softer to me. Or maybe it was just the beautiful pale red colour that made it look shinier and softer. Maybe it was because she looked like a doll, rather than a vampire, that made her prettier. I could never pinpoint it, but she was prettier. Boys certainly thought so. But I didn't trust anyone from the male gender, so it didn't really matter if boys liked me or not.
    Thing is, I never really trusted anyone, whether they be male or female. I just couldn't stand any of them. I was a loner. I didn't need anyone but my solitude and myself. I was an oddball. So odd that Celeste made it clear she didn't want to be my sister.
    "She's not my sister! She couldn't possibly be my sister. We look nothing alike and she's a freak!" Celeste would tell everyone at school this. They would all laugh and nod. I was unbelievably happy when summer hit that year.
    I didn't know what was about to happen. I never expected that summer would not bring the relief I sought at all! No, instead it only brought with it more pain.
    Dad was out renting movies when he ran into a friend of his, who knew a friend of Mama's. They got to talking and somewhere along the way, Dad was told about Mama and the Internet man. He was so angry he called her from the video store. Mama went absolutely crazy! I didn't know how unstable she was until then, but I was about to find out! She began screaming at the top of her lungs. She threw the computer screen across the room. I heard the bang on my bedroom wall and flew out of my bedroom to hers. She glared at me as if I had done something wrong. Then she ran past me and into the kitchen, then ran outside screaming over and over again, "I want to die! I want to die! I hate being alive!"
    "No, Mama!" I screamed at her as I followed her outside. Celeste, Lila, Katie and Andrew followed and huddled around me. A family friend had come over and had Mama pinned down on the front lawn. I watched as she threw her body around, trying to free herself. But, Laura, Mama and Dad's friend, had a tight hold on her.
    "Call 911, Phoenix!" Laura yelled at me as she struggled with my mother in the lawn. Neighbours were coming out of their houses to see what was going on. I ran into the house, away from the scene, to do just as I had been told.
    Just as I picked up the phone, my father came home. He made Laura let Mama go, but only for a second. Soon he had her by the arm and in the house. He threw her on the floor.
    "What the Hell is wrong with you?" he screamed at her.
    "You think I did something I didn't do! You accused me of cheating on you!" she cried.
    "So you go and try to kill yourself? My God, woman, what are you thinking? You're just so damned stupid sometimes. I can't even stand to look at you right now!" He was screaming so loud that the walls seemed to shake. My siblings were crying and holding onto me as if I was their only life raft.
    "It's not my fault he came here, Mike! All I did was take him to his hotel room! I swear on my kids' lives we never did anything!" She was bawling so hard that I thought she might break in half.
    He called her so many names then. I couldn't count how many times he called her a liar. But not once did he touch her. Had he laid a finger on her, he would have been taken to jail when the police showed up only minutes after he arrived.
    My mother was taken to the mental institution that horrible night. Taken away for seven long days and diagnosed with Manic Depression and Bipolar disorders. Soon she stopped trusting anyone around us. The next year, right before my fourteenth birthday, my father went back over the road truck driving and my mother moved us out to Wisconsin where we didn't know anyone. She wanted to start over.
    I didn't take to the change so easily. The others all did. They made friends easily but right from the beginning, I became sick. I couldn't cope with being there. The weather was much too different. For the first three months I was sick. I saw so many doctors while I was there, but not any of them knew how to handle an asthmatic patient. I wasn't taken care of the way I was supposed to be. Eventually my body had to adjust itself, though it didn't do it so well. After that I was sick much more often than I used to be.
    Mama and I did become closer there. That I was happy for. But I also became addicted to the Internet. I had a whole group of friends that I talked to every day. I found out what the words "AOL drama" meant. Mama knew them too, and soon the two of us were caught up in a fantasy world. It became our reality. We had nothing else.
    It started with this girl named Valerie, who I met and introduced to my friend Aaron. She soon introduced me to three of her friends, Marie, Kyle and Josh. Marie and Josh were supposedly an "AOL item". Though Valerie liked Josh. It was so ridiculous, but it was my little world. My getaway from the reality that hurt so much.
    Soon, though, I learned the reality of Valerie's cruelty. For even in a fantasy world you can be awakened by cold, harsh reality. Valerie used people to get what she wanted. Not caring who she hurt. That meant me. One night, while I thought I had friends, Valerie had everyone turn against me. Soon I was being insulted for no reason at all. After that I stopped bothering to get online. I felt no reason to do so.
    I did stay friends with Zack, though. Arrogant, sarcastic, yet sweet in his own way, Zack. I liked him. I would never admit that to anyone but myself, since he was just online. I didn't believe in online relationships. Mama did, though. And I made the mistake of telling Zack about her one night.
    "Want to see a picture of my mother?" I asked him one night as we chatted over the computer. "She looks really young and she's really pretty!" I told him.
    Zack was taken with her at once. And she loved the attention that he gave her. Soon they claimed to be in love with one another and I was well forgotten, nobody ever really noticing me. I was left out. But soon it wouldn't matter. I fell into my own silent little world. I let Mama and Zack be happy and talk to one another while I was, once again, left alone. As always, it seemed. I would always be alone.
    But silence, for me, never lasted long. No matter how upset I was with somebody, I could only give them the silent treatment for so long. Mama and I talked it all out one night as we sat up in her room.
    "Why have you stopped talking to Zack? Why are you giving me the silent treatment?" she asked me as I sat there, singing along with the radio.
    I stopped singing and reached over to turn down the radio. I looked at her. "I see no point in talking to Zack. To him I am only a child. He sees me as no more than a little girl," I insisted; though I did have my other reasons. "And I didn't think that you'd wish to talk to me since you were so caught up in him. I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings," I explained. Which wasn't a complete lie. They certainly didn't need me since they had each other. I leaned over and turned the radio back up and began singing again.
    She wasn't going to have it that way, though. She reached past me and turned the radio back down. I stared up at her. "Why wouldn't I need you, Phoenix? You're not only my daughter, but also one of the only friends I have. Everything miserable I've ever put you through, I'm sorry for. Haven't I shown you that I care?" She was making me feel so guilty! Tears filled my eyes and I looked away from her. My throat closed up on me and I didn't think I could talk without my voice shaking.
    I took a deep breath to steady my words. "I know you care, Mama. I'm sorry for ignoring you. I won't do it anymore. But don't ask me to talk to Zack, because I won't," I said and looked down at the floor as I absent-mindedly twirled a strand of my hair in my fingers, as I often did when something bothered me or I was deep in thought.
    "That's fine. I won't pressure you into talking to him," she said, obviously relieved by my answer. "He will be awfully upset about you not talking to him, though." She went back to writing in the journal she'd been writing in before the conversation.
    I rolled my eyes. "Come on, Mother, I know neither of you honestly care if I talk to him or not. I also know," I continued, making her look up at me, "that you're relieved that I won't be talking to him. I know you see me as some kind of competition."
    She seemed shocked by my words. "Me? I see you as competition?" she asked incredulously. Then she burst into laughter. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, honey, but I don't see you as competition. He wants me and only me." With that she ended the conversation, only to look up at me every now and then to smile as if I'd said the stupidest thing on earth, shake her head, and mutter to herself "Competition."
    I did just as I said I would do; I ignored Zack completely. I didn't want to have anything to do with someone who was so idiotically obsessed with my mother. Though he did try to get me to talk to him when he caught me online.
    One day he instant messaged me saying "Hey, my sexy girl!" as if nothing had happened and we were the best of friends... maybe even more! I was so angry that my, oh-so-comforting silence broke.
    "Don't call me that!" I typed back to him. I wanted to reach through the computer and smack him.
    It took him awhile before he answered back. "Why not?" he asked. I could almost hear the innocence in his voice as he typed that. His question only irritated me more.
    "Don't talk to me either. You know why. Just leave me alone!" I signed off and went outside. The Wisconsin winter air came to hit me in the face. The snow was all around me and as I looked around, I realised just how beautiful it was here.
    Unfortunately, I could only admire its beauty for so long before having problems breathing. I went inside to take a breathing treatment. As soon as I finished, the phone rang. I was the only one in the kitchen and the phone was on the counter right next to me. I groaned, not wanting to answer it. I absolutely despised answering and talking on the phone.
    "Hello?" I answered the phone, trying to keep the annoyance from my voice.
    Unfortunately it was someone for me. Someone I didn't want to talk to, but couldn't seem to hang up the phone. "Hello, Phoenix. Please! Don't hang up!" Zack cried into the receiver as if sensing my irritation.
    I sighed noisily. "What do you want?" I snapped.
    "I just wanted to talk to you. I haven't in awhile and I can't understand why you've been avoiding me." He sounded almost sad. Suddenly, the feelings I tried so hard to keep hidden came pouring over me like Niagara Falls. I knew I should hang up, but I couldn't help wanting to talk to him. It had been so long since I had talked to him on the phone, since I had heard his voice.
    "You know why I've been avoiding you," I choked out weakly, silently cursing myself for letting my guard down yet again when it concerned Zachary Brackford. "I can't stand to watch my mother make a fool out of herself with you and I can't stand to hear the both of you confess your love to one another. Don't ask why because I don't know why!"
    "Phoenix, I can't help what I feel for your mother. It's there and I can't stop it. I'm sorry."
    "Is that the best you can do?" I asked, trying my best not to cry. "I'm sorry is the best you can do?" I wanted to scream and rip out my hair. Did they not understand the extent of my feelings? Couldn't they see it in spite of how I hid it?
    "What else do you expect me to say?" he demanded. "What else am I suppose to do? Stop talking to her because Queen Phoenix doesn't like it?"
    Now he was treading on dangerous grounds. My blood began to boil. "Oh, trust me, Zack, I wouldn't dare want to ruin your perfect little 'happy' world of love. Oh no! That would just be devastating! I'm so terribly sorry for being oh-so-whiny and rude to the two lovebirds!" I spit out sarcastically. "You don't have to be sorry, Zack, because I'm the one who is sorry. I'm sorry I ever met you!" I slammed down the phone, wishing that I could have thrown it at him instead.
    I was angry that my mother and Zack could be so asinine that they couldn't see how badly I was hurting. I was even angrier that they could be so caught up in each other that they were blind to the reason why I was hurting. I was also annoyed by their moronic "I love you's". So annoyed, in fact, that I had this urge to just kick both of them. Of course, I didn't kick them, no matter how much I wanted to do so.
    If there was one thing that could cheer me up or comfort me when I was down, it was music. It seemed that if I sang my heart out, the misery would follow and soon the pain would go away for a little while. It got rid of my thoughts of loneliness for a few minutes.
    Mama said I had a gift for singing, but I certainly didn't believe her. Every time I would think that maybe what she said was true, I would record myself and be disgusted by my own voice. Of course, I could carry a tune and I wasn't horrible, I just didn't like the sound of my own voice. But it didn't really matter if I could sing or not, it brought me the freedom that I wanted and needed. It was something nobody could take away from me. So, whether or not I thought I sounded good, I continued to sing my misery away.
    I never did let Zack hear me sing. It was almost as if I was afraid of his judgment; afraid he would laugh at me. Not that I ever admitted to anyone such fears. I acted as if I didn't care what others thought of me. I made myself look as if their laughter and harsh, teasing words didn't matter. I pretended to lock myself up in a world where nobody could hurt me.
    But deep down I hurt badly. I just couldn't show anyone my vulnerability. I didn't want everyone to think me to be weak. I was always known as someone with strength, and that is how it would stay. Never would anyone see me break down and be weak. I couldn't afford for people to see that side of me. What would happen? I didn't even want to think of the possibilities. Showing weakness was for other people, not me.
    That is what made my mother think me heartless. My "I don't care" attitude made her, and most everyone else we knew, think me to be cold-hearted. I guess hiding your hurt and acting as if you're stronger than you actually are could make you seem stuck up. Pretty soon I was hiding most of my feelings from people, all of them, that is, except my anger. I was so opinionated that I couldn't hide it when I felt strongly about something. Especially when that something made me angry.
    I didn't hide my emotions all of the time, of course. I still cried when I was miserable, I still hugged my mother or siblings when they felt bad. I did care and I did show it. But I hid from them at the same time. I hid from them what I was really thinking. I didn't share my secrets with anyone. I acted as if the world could fall apart the next day and I wouldn't care. But I wanted so much more than what I told anyone. I really did want people to care about me.
    I guess showing affection was another thing I had a major problem with. For some reason any kind of affection, especially from the opposite sex, bothered me. I just didn't feel comfortable being hugged or kissed. I felt awkward, almost as if it were wrong. I couldn't understand what was wrong with me. Maybe it had something to do with the lack of affection I had been given growing up, especially from my father.
    Whatever it was, it drove me insane. It made me wonder if I were normal. It made me wonder how I was ever going to have a boyfriend or husband. How could I ever make any man happy if I was afraid of affection? Those thoughts scared me so much I felt like screaming.
    That was one of the things I hid from everyone, especially my mother. I made everyone believe that I wasn't truly interested in having a boyfriend; that all I cared about was getting through school and making a good career for myself. Oh, how far away from the truth that was! I wanted nothing more than to have someone love me and hold me when the misery and depression took me down into their pits of Hell. I wanted someone to take care of me when I became sick. I wanted someone who I could trust with everything I felt!
    But I kept those thoughts to myself. Nobody needed to know that. It was my own, personal problem. I'd have to get over it eventually. But not yet. I would deal with it when I had to. I couldn't think about dealing with it at that moment, there were so many other things going on in my life.
    I tried my best not to think of how lonely I was. I tried so hard to pretend that I was an independent female and I didn't need anyone. Yet, there was always that nagging, lonely feeling. That horrible feeling of isolation. I couldn't help but wonder if anyone could actually save me. What bothered me more was wondering if I would actually let anyone save me.

Phoenix Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Epilogue

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