Nerissa's Journal

Journal Entry Three: The only good thing about winter on the island, is no tourists. They won’t be back until the sun and warm weather can join them. Like herded sheep they flock, year after year…searching for their salvation in some island-made magic potion, pill, or concoction. They’ll never understand how lucky they are to be here. They take it for granted, along with everything else. They are rich, spoiled, and ungrateful. I'm so happy I don’t have to deal with them until next Season. But it'll be here before I know it, and then it’ll be back to serving them, and their every need. Your wish is my command . At least we get a reprieve from that while the island is cold and stormy. But it doesn’t give us a rest from our other duty—a duty I can’t breathe a word of. If we don’t give our keepers what they want, we are in direct breach of a legal “co-operative.” It’s a joke. Here it is in a nutshell: Do as we say, or die. One day, they’ll pay for what they’ve done t...

Journal Entry Two: It’s storming today. The wind is whipping off the water, up the hillside with near-hurricane force. Everything is gray…and honestly, I like it. It matches my mood. In fact, I wish my turquoise room wasn’t so bright and cheery right now. I’m thinking back over the last few years, and about how much my life has changed.  Do you ever wish you could just push a reset button? Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, and I think I must still be dreaming, all the time. How did my life go from how it was, to how it is? I know…nobody ever said life is fair, right? Blah, blah, blah…that’s the understatement of the year—of the century. I know everybody has to wear their “masks”. Nobody is one hundred percent themselves, one hundred percent of the time. But for me? For us? The people who control me and my family never let us show who we really are…ever. And if they knew I was writing this, well… they just can't. Ever.  

I can’t believe I’m finally writing this—but it’s time to get it off my chest. I was almost raped, nearly three years ago, when I was fourteen. I’ve been carrying that around with me all this time, like a ball and chain, weighing me down, pulling me under. Drowning me. I’ve never taken the time to talk about it, or to really heal. In fact, not even my own mother took the time to help me heal. She just said how lucky I am I wasn’t killed, or worse. There’s only been one thing that’s ever brought me solace. That scumbag, Tom, and his friends, didn’t realize who I am, and what I’m capable of. It was him or me, and I had to make a choice. He won’t be bothering anyone else…ever again. And even though I’m NOT sorry I did what I had to do, my own self-defense changed everything…it ruined everything. When I woke up the next morning with my head in my mother’s lap, I honestly thought I was dead. I can’t really remember much after the “kiss” with my would-be rapist. I was so...