THE PAST IS A NIGHTMARE

THE PAST IS A NIGHTMARE
Viviana

That day many years ago is unforgettable to me. Unforgettable.
I was just returning from school like every other usual child, eager to come home and meet my father.  I did meet my father but he was tied to a chair, his mouth gagged, with bleeding cuts at different parts of him.
“Dad!” I called as I ran to him, abandoning my school bag and walking all over the rug with my shoes. Something I never did no matter how in a haste I was. It was just unusual to walk inside the house with shoes from the outside and dad always commended me for the way I used to think even though that was normal. That day I got to know the ugly story of my existence. 
As I tried to ease my dad’s hands from the ropes, despite my dad’s muffled shouts- I think he was trying to tell me to get away, to leave the house because someone dangerous was in - a woman entered into the living room.
Immediately I saw her, I immediately knew who she was. My dad had shown me her picture numerous times (because I had asked about her numerous times). She was my mother and the only relation that she had to that word was the fact that she carried me within her for complete nine months- a feat I do not debase at all. But if she didn’t want me as terribly as she claimed, she could have just aborted me, killed me while I was still a zygote, ensured I didn’t form at all.
But she had carried me, nursed me within her, for only one purpose. To ensure that she ends my life with her own hands.
The person who I called father for years wasn’t my actual father. And my actual mother didn’t want me. All she wanted from me was to come to this life to kill the scum that was my existence. That was exactly what she said immediately she set her eyes on me. 
“I knew the scum still lives.”
She had been raped when she was fifteen. She had no idea who her rapist was and the knowledge and inability of bringing him to justice ate at her insides, it did a great damage to her mentally and physiologically. And then she began to harbor thoughts that the only way to get him to pay for causing such pain to her, ‘for ruining her life’, was by having the one thing she still had of him- which was me, and killing me with her own hands. 
The man I call father was her brother. He was angered by what happened to her and had tried to find out the culprit, but he was never found. And when he had found out what she wanted to do to me, he had made a plan. Shortly after I came to this earth, he had injected her with something that made her fall asleep for a long time and then he had taken me away. His plan had been to take me to an orphanage where those who needed children could have liked the idea of caring for a little, small child. But in his words,”when I held you and looked into your eyes, you smiled when you looked into mine. Smiled Viviana. You had only been crying, shouting and screaming since the moment of your birth and from that moment, a level of responsibility had been placed on my shoulders. I knew I could not do what I wanted. I knew without a measure of doubt that I could not have dropped you off at an orphanage and for once in my life, someone needed me and didn’t see me as the loser others saw me as. It didn’t matter that you were a child and didn’t know what you were doing. 
I took you away, from that place, from a mother who brought you to life to kill you because of a man that ended her dreams and ambitions in life. I took you to another country with all I had left, gave you a name and you gave me a life. You became my purpose.”
I had cried heavily the day he had told me.
Not because I had not been wanted but because I couldn’t believe he wasn’t my biological father. All these years he had fathered me with the love of a father and that of a mother, the devotion of both parents, he had crowned me with. There was no way to believe he wasn’t my father. 
And somehow his sister - my mother - had woken up and she had found out his trickery, his deceit. And so looking for us and ending what she wanted became her soul mission in life. Only God knows what she did during those moments when we were away. But unfortunately and successfully, she tracked us down. My dad had been frantic, too frantic too get out of the ropes she had bound him with. As she drew closer to me, asking me questions that made me shiver because I knew she was going to make good use of the weapon in her hands, my father managed to get himself lose. He came right in front of me, at the moment when her finger loosened the trigger, aiming for my head. It hit him in a vital point and even when he went down and his sitter saw him do so, she still tried for another shot. 
Again, he shielded me with his body. 
Police had been patrolling at that moment, heard the first gunshot and had swiftly made it towards the house. I had been saved, but my father had been shot at vital parts of his body and his survival was tentative. He had survived but he had lost a good part of his memories. Somehow everything that had to relate to the moment my mother was pregnant and how she planned to kill me, was gone from his mind. Despite his age, he thought himself to be twenty six again, the man who wanted the simple things of life, who didn’t know he would end up with a daughter. One who would change his entire life. 
And so despite how little some might consider Massimo’s brave act, it contained traces of stupidity to me.  Because if something had happened to him, I don’t know how well I would have been able to live knowing that once again someone’s life could potentially and entirely change because of my existence.
So if anything bad or horrible is to happen to me, let it just happen. No one should try to play the hero and try to save me. I do not ask for it, I would never burden anyone with such a right. Never.

I tried to jerk up to a sitting position but Rosalia’s sleeping weight by my side prevented me. That nightmare had returned again surely and it was going to lead to a very restless day. looked over to Rosalia and wondered what she was doing sharing the same small bed as I. She could be so scared for me at times that it was almost concerning . She told me she had gotten an hotel to spend the night and I believe her because she looks different and she is wearing different clothes. But why didn’t she have to leave the comfort of her hotel and come back here?
I am blessed to have someone like her as a friend. Despite the cruelty and unwanted- ness life has shown me, I cannot doubt that I have been blessed with a good best friend. Though one of my hands, the one she was partially leaning on was hurting and simultaneously aching me but I’d rather it continues, than have to tell her to lay somewhere else.