The Girl who Counted
852 Words
CHAPTER 7
I am seventeen now.
People say time heals things.
I don’t think time heals anything.
I think it just teaches you how to carry the pain better.
The shelter has been my home for three years. The building is the same—cream walls, narrow hallways, the faint smell of detergent—but I am different.
Or maybe I am just older.
Mrs. Grant says I’ve grown stronger.
My counselor says I’ve “made progress.”
I nod when they say those things.
But strength feels different on the inside.
Strength feels like learning how to breathe when panic sits on your chest.
Strength feels like sleeping with the lights on and pretending it’s normal.
Strength feels like pretending loud noises don’t make your heart race.
Sometimes I think the old house never really let me go.
The first time I realized the fear was still living inside me was at school.
A boy raised his voice during an argument in class.
It wasn’t even directed at me.
But the sound of it—sharp, sudden—made something inside me freeze.
My hands started shaking.
My chest tightened.
The classroom felt smaller.
Too small.
I stood up so quickly my chair scraped loudly against the floor.
Everyone looked at me.
“Hazel?” the teacher asked.
“I… I need air.”
My voice didn’t sound like mine.
I walked out of the class before anyone could ask questions.
In the hallway, I leaned against the wall and counted.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
My mum taught me that trick.
Counting helps bring your mind back when the past tries to swallow you.
But sometimes counting doesn’t work.
Sometimes the memories push through anyway.
There are moments when my mind travels back without warning.
Like the night of my mother’s funeral.
Everyone was talking softly around the house. People bringing food. People whispering condolences.
I remember sitting on the staircase, staring at my hands.
A woman bent down and touched my shoulder.
“Be strong for your father,” she said.
I remember wanting to scream.
Be strong for him?
The man who destroyed everything?
But I stayed quiet.
Silence has always been my safest language.
At the shelter, the nights are usually calm.
But calm doesn’t always mean peaceful.
Sometimes I wake up suddenly, heart pounding.
Certain sounds still make my body react before my brain understands them.
A door slamming.
Heavy footsteps.
Someone shouting in the distance.
Once, a thunderstorm woke me in the middle of the night.
The loud c***k of thunder echoed through the building.
For a moment, I was ten again.
Hiding behind my bedroom door.
Listening to my mother cry.
I sat up in bed, breathing fast.
“It’s just thunder,” I whispered to myself.
But my hands were shaking like I didn’t believe it.
Some memories are quieter.
They sneak in when I least expect them.
Like when I see a mother brushing her daughter’s hair.
Or when I hear someone laughing with their father.
Those moments feel like small knives.
Not sharp enough to kill.
Just sharp enough to remind you what you lost.
One afternoon after school, Mrs. Grant found me sitting alone in the backyard.
The sun was setting, turning the sky orange.
“You’re quiet today,” she said gently.
“I’m always quiet.”
She smiled a little.
“That’s not the same thing.”
I didn’t answer.
For a while we just watched the sky.
Then she said something unexpected.
“Your father can’t hurt you anymore, Hazel.”
The words hung in the air.
I knew she meant well.
But fear doesn’t listen to logic.
“I know,” I said softly.
But inside, a small voice whispered something else.
What if the damage is already done?
Sometimes I touch the scar on my wrist.
The small white line left by the broken glass years ago.
It’s faded now.
Barely noticeable.
But I remember exactly how it happened.
I remember the fear.
The blood in the dishwater.
The silence afterward.
Scars are strange things.
They fade on the outside.
But inside they stay sharp.
In a few months, I will turn eighteen.
That means I will leave the shelter.
Mrs. Grant says I can apply for college housing.
She says I have a future waiting for me.
A future.
The word feels both exciting and terrifying.
Because freedom means something different to me.
Freedom doesn’t mean forgetting
Freedom means living with the memories… and surviving them anyway.
And sometimes I wonder if survival is the best kind of freedom someone like me will ever have.
Freedom is not what I imagined it would be.
When I was younger, I thought freedom would feel like joy. Like laughter. Like sunlight pouring through a window after years of darkness.
But freedom, I have learned, is quieter than that.
It is waking up in a small apartment where no one is shouting.
It is walking through a hallway without flinching at every sound.
It is realizing that the door behind you will never suddenly burst open again.
- Writer
