Page 11 of Teddy Bear

Girls like me don't cry; they just stay completely calm while their whole world comes crashing down.

I crossed Teddy's arms over his padded, plush tummy and covered the box with the sparkly, pink lid. This was the final goodbye.

I wrote on the lid with a black marker:

“MY FATHER’S RESTS HERE”

As I lowered the box to the ground, I heard a shout coming from inside the house, a sickening, almost cracked, strangled voice of my mother begging and threatening, and a cold, distant voice of my father, who was no longer able to hear her.

Whatever, I thought.

The birds chirped merrily in the cherry tree to which my old, children's swing was attached. A little sun began to break through the dense clouds in the gray sky; the air was fresh and good, the weather was just right for a funeral.

I began shoveling dirt over the box, covering the pink surface that glowed in the sun bit by bit, fainter and fainter, until the black peat covered it completely.

When I finished, my hands were already completely bruised, the fragile skin cracked in several places, my cheeks were flushed, and my forehead was covered in cold sweat.

It was early spring, and the rush of fresh wind over my wet and bizarrely excited body made me shiver with chills.

There was something magical and liberating about this at the same time.

I picked a rose from my mother's rose garden - although she has always grown exotic and mysterious species, with colorful flowers, intoxicating fragrance, the most unusual colors and shapes of petals, I decided on the most ordinary one - a domestic red rose that grew in the yard of our villa, long before it became ours.

A plain red rose was perfect.

I laid it over the freshly buried grave, and next to it I lit a small scented candle from the dragstore. I sat down on the wet ground, further soiling my already completely muddy, torn blue jeans, and hugged my knees.

Their screams - I say screams because, really, during the argument, the voices my parents uttered were not worthy of human beings, they still broke through the slightly ajar windows.

Outside, in my little private cemetery, it was quiet, and apart from the chirping of birds and the rustle of the wind, there were no other sounds.

The flickering of the candle was magical, hypnotizing, and I watched its flame, mesmerized, until it was completely extinguished under the clear starlight of the night sky.

I entered the house when it was already dark, muddy, hungry, and as free as I could be. Every remaining illusion was crushed and turned to dust - a rot that would eat away and destroy Teddy's soft body over the years, just like any remaining feeling of love inside my brain.

That was good.

My father was locked inside his room; I bypassed the awful smell of cigarette smoke that spread under the varnished, wooden door, and my mother fell asleep, overdosed on a huge amount of sedatives, which made it possible for her to be ready for another fight with my father tomorrow.

No one even noticed that I was gone for such a long time.

✦ 🧸 ✦

At the age of eighteen, I was the leader of a local dance group and was preparing the choreography for our first big performance abroad. We were supposed to represent our country at a festival in Europe, where groups from all over the world competed, and I was more than ready and up to the task of leading our group to a gold medal.

At the age of eighteen, I boldly dyed my long hair and nails black, and I carried my thin body with barely accentuated curves with a confidence worthy of a goddess herself.

At eighteen, all the boys wanted to get inside my lacy, black panties, and there were rumors that a few of them had tattooed my initials in a very delicate place.

At the age of eighteen, I smoked three joints in a row and then danced half naked, surrounded by my best friends in front of a group of guys who roared with ecstasy, madness, and beastly desire for our young, lecherous bodies.

At eighteen, I was a star, a leader; I was something big - I was the dream of an entire city that groaned at every step of my sinful foot.

I was Lizzie D - the most desirable "saint" in town.

At eighteen, I captivated strangers with the twitches of my hips, the leaps of my legs, my white fingers that curled like magic, my black eyes that were, now long since, frozen dead.

At the age of eighteen, I was one of the most promising dancers, and everyone predicted a bright future for me in the world of show business.