Pain.

Ayarr stared at her hands as they held the handrails, they trembled with the effort of holding up her body weight. This is her third day of physical rehabilitation, and she was already tired of hearing her trainer shout "you can do it!" "Just a little bit further!!" at her all the time. She was tired, she just wanted to sleep all day but nowadays all she sees when she closes her eyes was that god awful smirk on Matt's face and the mocking jeers of his friends so here, she was struggling to stand on her feet, fighting the weakness in her right leg and embracing the painful session because it helped her keep her mind off the memories. Usually after the session she goes back to her room and feigns acute pain in her legs in order to get painkillers that will knock her out and drag her into a blissful sleep.... Until the dreams come to haunt her waking her up.

"Get out of your head Ayarr!!" Her trainer yelled suddenly, jerking her out of your thoughts. Startled, she let go of the handrails crumbling to the floor landing awkwardly on her right knee. White hot pain seared through her nerves up the knee straight to her brain, she tasted the metallic taste of blood in her mouth that's when she discovered that she had bit her tongue trying tie stifle the scream that bubbled up her throat.

"That hurt like a m...." She started saying breathing heavily through her nose.

"No bad words in my presence!" Her trainer interrupted before she could complete her statement.

Ayarr had liked her physical therapist aka "trainer" the first time she was introduced to Maya... She had a beautiful warm small, her blue eyes twinkling when she smiled at her but now, she couldn't say where that warm woman had disappeared to because immediately, they had started training she transformed into a drill sergeant, pushing her to her limits session and those session lasted 2 agonizing hours.

"pick yourself up from that floor and begin" Maya continued. "Nobody is going to help you walk or do you want to walk with a bad limp for the rest of your life?

Ayarr grunted pulling herself up. She felt like 80 years old woman. All aching joints and pains. The only thing that kept pushing her was the thought of going back to that school limping or worse walking with a walking stick and having to face all those students especially that asshole and his friends. Thirty minutes later she was done with the days session she walked to her room to shower and sleep a little before Nancy came by for her daily visit. Her mother left for a business trip two days ago and won't be back till the weekend.

In the bathroom she turned on the cold shower, it always helped hard numb her sore body after a session, turning to wash her back she saw her reflection in the half length mirror opposite the shower stall, Why a rehabilitation center that has patients with scars had one she would never understand, she looked at herself the scar on her face was fading, the hair that had to shave from the back of her head was growing back but the scars on her shoulder down her arm was still stark dark blue against her fair skin, she looked down to her legs especially her right leg, the bluish green scars were very apparent. Ayarr felt tears build up in her eyes, she has never been great looking before now she has scars and will probably walk with a limp, she may never be able to wear shorts or a short dress again. Hot tears started flowing down her face, she leaned on the tiled wall of the shower, nobody will ever want her she had no confidence, no skills, she was just existing, hell even her own father got tired of her and dipped, maybe if she hadn't been born he would have stayed with her mom and her mom would have not throw herself into her career to avoid loneliness.

***************************************************************************

Ayarr remembered the day she discovered her father wasn't dead. She just turned fourteen years old.

One summer with Nancy away at summer camp and her mom travelled for her work, she got bored and decided to check out the attic hoping to find treasures in old wears or jewelries of her mother. Instead she had seen a box way behind all the junk buried under an old rug, curious, she took it down to her room excited thinking she will find old live letters of her mom or her journals or dairy from when her mother was younger but instead after breaking the lock on the box she found just a few pieces of paper and a 3 pictures.

The document was a marriage certificate between two people, Quinn and Clarice Roberts, she recognized her mother's name but not the man's. Then one of the picture was her mom in a wedding dress and a man in a three piece suit smiling widely, her mother looked so young and happy. The other was a man holding a tiny baby and smiling at the camera. The third picture was of a toddler in diapers with her mom and the same man posing for the camera in a park. Ayarr looked at the face of the toddler she saw the same faces that stared back at her anytime she looked at any of her baby pictures. Heart beating erratically, she reached into the box for one of the pieces of paper, it turned out to be a birth certificate, her birth certificate to be exact, her mother's name but with the surname Roberts instead of North, her name and the same man's name. She spread the documents on the floor in front of her. She kept looking at each of the documents she knew what she was seeing technically but her brain refused to comprehend what she was seeing.

She reached into the box for another paper and pulled out a three page document stapled together, the entire thing was too long to read through but it was clearly a divorcé paper with her mother and the same Quinn signed at the bottom of the last page.

Ayarr sat on the floor, her mouth was dry, she could feel her palms sweating, she tried breathing through her mouth to calm her racing heart. Previously anytime she had brought up the topic her dad while growing up her mother would just say either plainly ignore the question or give a vague response. Their was nobody around she could ask because they moved here when she was five) years old and her mother moved here as a single mom, she couldn't remember where they moved from, there were no pictures of her dad in the house, no clue at all. She couldn't even remember what age she started believing her father was dead and her mom didn't like to talk about him because it caused her pain. After a while she completely stopped asking about him and moved on.

But here she was looking at evidence that her dad didn't die, he and her mother divorced. She couldn't believe her mother had kept him away from her, all those years of her asking for her father and nothing. Her confusion and shock morphed into rage. Why had her mother done something like this, was she so selfish to prioritize her own emotions over her daughter's need for a father?? So what if they divorced that still didn't give her the right to separate them, it was so unfair. She was never around and yet didn't allow her daughter and her father to connect so when she wasn't available atleast she had another parent to look after her.

She had been so angry that day she vowed to find her father and not speak to her mother again, she stopped picking her calls, blocked her on social media and unfortunately the work trip had been a month long. A week after searching intensively on social media she had found her father on Facebook, excited she had sent him a friend request, 3 days later he accepted it. She almost exploded with joy. That day just as she was about to type a message to him introducing herself he had sent her a message saying she should send her phone number he wanted to speak to her. He had probably one through her profile he must have seen pictures of her and her mom posted and connected the dot and was excited to be finally reconnecting with his long lost child she quickly replied, sending him her contact.

She had waited for his call, biting her finger nails ragged 'cause of anxiety for two whole days. On the morning of the third day he called.

" is this Nancy North?" The male voice on the phone asked immediately she picked up not even giving her time to say hello. He sounded curt but she had thought maybe he was nervous also. Breathlessly she had replied "yes I am, I think you know why I contacted you, if you checked my Facebook page you would have se..."

"I know who you are" he interrupted her rudely, "I just wanted to tell you to never contact me again. I gave your mother full custodial rights to you"

Nancy felt her heart cut, she couldn't breathe. "What are you saying?, so you know where I have been all this while, I thought mom kept us apart" she whispered brokenly.

She heard him let out a grunt of disgust before he replied.

"Clarice signed the document to never tell you about me, did she break it and tell you about me? I will sue her!"

Ayarr felt panicked she didn't want any harm or disturbance coming to her mother but she had to know, did her mom do anything to pursue him away from them? What happened?"

" don't ever contact me again. Our lives were going fine till you came into the picture with your neediness" he said then cut the call.

Frantic, she had tried calling him back but it never went through seemed like he blocked her, she ran to Facebook and couldn't find him again, he had blocked her there also. She was broken, tears and snot ran down her face. She couldn't tell her mom what had happened 'cause it will probably bring back bad memories. She had been the reason her love left her, only she hadn't been born her mom will still have her husband. She ruined their lives. Throughout the summer Ayarr slowly became a shadow, she stopped caring about her appearance, she just wanted to not exist. When her mother came back by the summer end she tried all she could to make her better to no avail, Nancy had tried also but nothing worked. She felt like a burden to everyone it was no wonder her mother gave up and pushed her on to a therapist, when she was tired of her

(End of flashback)

Ayarr washed her face and turned off the shower, chilled to her bones and very tired of everything. She wiped her body wore a loose shift and went back to her room to lay down. She just wanted to sleep, she opened her bedside drawer and took the painkillers kept there. Thank God her mom had splurged on an expensive live in rehabilitation center.

Just as she felt the dark embrace of sleep she thought to herself. One thing is she was very grateful to have Nancy back in her life, she has been coming to see her and spend some time with her after school every day. She was certain she would have gone crazy if not for her best friend. Although weirdly enough she has yet to mention Matt or the incidence once. Ayarr guessed she was trying to avoid the awkward conversation or spare her feelings that was why she had kept mute about it, and she was very grateful to her for doing so 'cause she herself is not ready to talk about it. She just wanted to float around in blissful avoidance, she knows it is unhealthy to avoid her feelings like that, but it didn't matter one bit to her right now.

She would focus on herself. Never again would she let herself be vulnerable to any man or anyone else. It was her life and she is going to start taking charge of it. This was the last thought she had before sleep pulled her under.