Marrying my husband's greatest rival

On days when I miss mum.

Calliope's P.O.V

Or even when it started again... it was as if I was in this deep state... I could feel my body being jolted wildly for a bit, then nothing. I could hear Sammy's frantic voice begging me to open my eyes or to say something I wanted to, but I couldn't. My eyes are swollen shut, my throat was so dry I couldn't even swallow.

For a moment, I thought I was back in my tent and that everything that happened may have been just one bad nightmare, but my eyes weren't heavy due to sleep. They were beaten shut. With every violent shake Sammy and Carmy gave, it felt like they were splitting my body apart... dreams couldn't do that.

Dreams can't make you feel the pain of a nightmare and still feel them when you're awake... This was real. This really happened, but what I couldn't piece together was how Sammy and Carmy managed to find me. Four days later, I learned that I had been found on the corner those animals took me from.

Close to death, it was Carmy and Sammy that found me and after a huge debate they decided they couldn't help me. I lost too much blood. I was beaten badly, I was raped. They didn't know for sure, but they found me with no clothes, so they assumed that is what must have happened to me.

That was the day Sammy started drinking. He thought he would never see me again. Carmy told me he refused to take me to a hospital. We lived on the streets, so going to a hospital, a place where they would ask too many questions. I had no mother or father. I could have been put in the system and sent to God knows where, leaving my siblings and best friends behind was out of the question but in my case they didn't have a choice.

He told her he would never be able to live with himself if he was the reason my siblings lost the only stable person they had in their life. He blamed himself for what had happened long ago. We made a pact that we would always look out for each other, and he felt like he had failed me.

So after the sixth day, when I felt strong enough, I ran away from the hospital. I didn't want to be put in the system. They wanted me to speak to the police about what happened to me, but they would have only assumed I was a street worker and nothing else would have come from it.

***

I'm soaked, drenched in my own wet, my pillow is wet from my tears. On days when I miss mum, I walk the 10 minutes it takes me to get to the beach... I find myself the perfect spot and soak up the rays of the warm sun. I'm shaken by my dream. Since that night, I have never walked on that same road again. I take the busy road instead.

My siblings have all gone to Mr Pruett for lessons, so an empty tent would have driven me nuts. I sit and watch the smiling couples and wipe a few tears from my face. Sometimes I get so angry because of crying. I enjoy watching the little ones playing and building sand castles. It helps set my mind, calming me.

Another memory that upsets me surfaces... about a year after my ordeal, I sat at this exact same spot watching the kids play. When I decided I wanted to help them build their castle, they were building it too close to the water, so every time the waves came, it knocked their castle down, and they would have to start all over again.

All I wanted to do was help them build their castle, but their mum thought I wanted to kidnap her kids. She yelled at me from the top of her lungs, holding her kids behind her back like I was about to snatch them at any moment, she spat the most hateful foul things at me and since then, I've never tried to help any kid at the beach again.

So I people watch, I daydream, anything to help me rid myself of my past. Sometimes, people watching make me so sad like how will I ever find myself a guy when I look this homeless when I look like I'm going to rob him? I sit and watch a man warming up his body, readying himself for what must be his morning run.

A group of cyclists sits on the sand, bikes beside them as they laugh and lick their ice cream cones and my tummy rumbles. I have had nothing to eat since getting back home last night. I watch a mother being sprayed with a water gun by her children, another mum pushes her baby in a stroller on the cat walk.

It's the stone walk before the shore starts, in case you're wondering. I watch the kids playing in the park. This group of muma meet here every day. They have been meeting here since I was old enough to come here on my own, bringing every child of that year to play together.

They are a lot older now, so I assume this must be their late babies or maybe grandkids. Who knows. They gossip about anything and everything and this used to be my favorite thing to do, to sit here and listen to them... a few years back I knew everything that had been going on in all of their lives just by sitting here watching and listening.

It made me wonder where the gossip took place during winter... I gave them each a name until I learned their real names by listening in on their conversations and sometimes Carmy would accompany me and I would have to fill her in on everything she missed while she was away working with her mum.

I don't speak much about Carmy. She was my best friend, and it hurts to think about her.