Isabela

**Before**



I’ve searched every corner of my room, and nothing. I don’t know if I left it at school. My diary seems to have evaporated after yesterday’s class. Damn it, right when my mind is a mess. I like to write in it to clear my thoughts. It’s a somewhat disorganized notebook, filled with accounts of my days, song lyrics, doodles, collages, and a bit of meaningless words.
I pull everything out of the sock drawer, where I usually hide it, but it’s not here either. My mind wanders away. Nate was acting strange with me in the last class. After what we talked about at the Hideout a few days ago, he seemed very thoughtful. He even kissed me yesterday, but it felt different. He usually grabs me, hugs me, and talks nonsense about how much he wants to sleep with me. But all he gave me was a lame peck, then left me in my family’s private car and said he had things to resolve.
It’s incredible how any distance from him messes with me. We spent two weeks apart because my stepfather saw me smiling while hanging up the phone and got suspicious that I had someone.
Then he hit me so hard, because he didn’t find anything on my phone, that I ended up bedridden and really hurt. Diana even tried to jump in front of me when she saw that her husband was using more violence than usual, but it just got her hit too. I don’t even understand this altruistic side of my mother because she never defended me from anything.
I always delete everything from my phone because I was sure that at some point the bastard would go through it. And it was just for that reason that Marcos didn’t find any trace of my “boyfriend” on the device.
Nate got suspicious of my absence from school for two weeks. Of course, I tried to say I fell down the stairs at home, hit my head, and other crap. But he’s not stupid. He’s driven by here in his car and knows the area is flat. “Your house doesn’t have stairs,” he said. That made me finally decide to tell him almost everything. I knew his suggestion would be to tell Hellen.
I feel horrible for having hit my kitten or bitten him. I acted like a crazy person, yelling that he shouldn’t tell my grandmother anything. And I know Nate is still keeping that idea in his mind.
There’s a horrible regret consuming me for having confided this rotten part of my life to him. I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m practically his girlfriend; how could I expect him to be okay after finding out that I’m being mistreated?
I avoided touching on the worst part of the story, skimming over my stepfather being a pedophile or that his abuse goes beyond beatings. Nate would react differently if I confided that terror. Maybe he would run to Hellen or the police.
There’s something in me, a strange feeling weighing in my stomach, almost telling me that something bad is going to happen.
Marcos is getting more violent every day. He hits me out of nowhere, for no reason. He insists he knows I’m dating someone. Every now and then, he calls me a whore and demands that I confess I have someone, because just like my mother suspected, Marcos already knows I’m in love. Apparently, Diana had the decency not to confirm his suspicions. So she didn’t say she saw me kissing Nate in front of Hellen’s house.
Speaking of her, she’s also being punished by that bastard’s bad mood. She doesn’t get through a day without getting slapped and is even working from home. After all, she’s covered in bruises.
I’ll never understand what goes through her mind. She’s beautiful, smart, financially independent. Why does she submit to this? Does he threaten her too? Damn it! You know what? I don’t have to worry about my mom. Diana could protect me if she wanted to, if she loved me at least a little. So why care about her?
It’s degrading to realize that you’re so worthless that even your mother doesn’t love you...
Does Nate feel this way? I knew his father beat him when he gave him the Hideout, but it never crossed my mind that he suffered in boarding school. In fact, I thought it was a common place, that my kitten hated it because he was forced to go and was away from his sister and family.
Should I be afraid of him for confessing that he set fire to his uncle? How can I judge him? After all, I would condemn Marcos to the same fate if I could. If only I had the chance to not be a coward, enough courage to free myself from this martyrdom, I would do it.
Only those who suffer abuse, who are tortured physically and emotionally, know the weight of it all. All the shit that blooms in our minds, in such a strong way that it’s almost impossible to untie the knots, to kill the seeds planted that lead to irreparable traumas.
I can almost picture little Nate, alone in a strange place, with people speaking another language. I can almost see him crying, missing his sister, with whom he was always attached, trying to adapt... only to be bombarded with more malice.
Am I horrible for thinking it’s good to have one less child abuser in the world? Damn, I have so much, so much hate for people like Marcos who take advantage of others’ innocence and helplessness.
I wish I didn’t feel happy imagining Nate’s uncle burning, but I do. I know, I’m getting closer and closer to hell. In reality, living in purgatory is what makes me more eager to surrender to my rage.
Every time I take a slap from my stepfather, I get furious and want to lunge at him, dying to tear his nose off with my teeth. Maybe he has some sixth sense because since I screamed at my mother that I would kill him if he abused me again, Marcos hasn’t tried anything funny. And I’m ready; I sleep every day with a fucking knife under my pillow. I’m not lying: I will go to the ends of the earth to ensure that the bastard never touches my body again.