Sick And Shameless

[Sawyer]

The body shuts down when it has too much to bear; goes its own way quietly inside,
waiting for a better time,
leaving you numb and half alive.
____________________________________________________________________________

I’m empty inside. I try to tell myself that it’ll be okay, that I’ll overcome this, but I’ve never been good at deceit. It’s what landed me in this situation in the first place. I had it all in the palm of my hand, but I couldn’t hold onto it. I’m a lot like my mother in that aspect. I have everything I need, but I always want more. I don’t really care who I have to break to climb my way to the top, as long as I can feel that high again.

I think I’m getting ahead of myself.

Hello. My name's Sawyer, and I’m seriously fucked up.

Now that you have the basics down, I’ll continue. I wish I could say I wasn’t always like this. I wish I could smile and wave off your concern, but I can’t. You see, I’m exactly like her. I try to tell myself otherwise, but it’s just another ******* lie. I’m just as pathetic, just as dirty, just as worthless. How could I not be? She was the only thing I had to depend on growing up. My father barely had his belt buckled before he was out the door, leaving my lunatic mother to pick up the shattered pieces of her pathetic life. She was only seventeen, barely an adult, and she was left on her own. I used to feel sorry for her, but now I don’t really feel much. I mean, sure, when you’re down on your knees, everything looks larger - but when you have a child growing in you, you should do something.

Anything.

Instead, she buried her head in the sand and hoped for the best. The men came and go, and each one was more screwed than the last. They all became faceless after a while. She could never hold on to one for long. They would think they had landed themselves a real prize when she lured them in, but once her mask fell, they saw who she really was. A greedy, lazy, irresponsible ***** looking for someone to take care of her mistakes. Or, in this case, mistake. Some stuck around when they saw me, I guess out of worry that she would end up killing me - but most ran the second she opened the door. I mean, who would want to be saddled with someone else's baggage? I sure as **** don’t.

It didn’t stop her, though. The men kept coming, each one my new ‘daddy’ for a day - or in some luckier cases, a month. At first, I would grow attached. I would think that she finally landed herself a real man, someone that would stick around and see how wonderful she was. Then they would leave, and I would cry. God, would I ******* cry. I couldn’t understand why someone couldn’t love mommy the way I did. She was trying so hard. ****, did she have me fooled. I would like to say that I snapped out of it real quick, but that would be another lie. No, I stood by her through it all. I had no ******* clue what really lurked beneath the blonde hair and angelic blue eyes. I thought she was perfect.

She was all I had.

Reality, though slow to the show, smacked me in the face one day. I remember it with perfect clarity. I had just opened the front door to our run down little apartment, and heard the moans coming from the bedroom. The living room was still a wreck - her clothes strewn across the couch, a few day old pizza boxes on the table, and beer splattered over the carpet. You know, the usual sight I came home to, because god forbid she did **** for herself. As I went through, picking up her mess, I noticed something. At first, I couldn’t figure out why I was seeing it, but I was. My boyfriend’s favorite t-shirt on the knob of her bedroom door. Here I was, a fifteen year old dropout working two jobs to support her deadbeat mother, and the best way she could repay me was to **** my first boyfriend.

That night was one of our worst fights.

I’d like to say that I left after that, but I didn’t. I couldn’t get her words out of my head, screaming about everything she had ever done for me. How I ruined her life, how I owed her and how she couldn’t live without me. She contradicted herself on so many levels, but it worked. She’d once again spun her trap and snared me. I was her daughter, I couldn’t just up and leave her, no matter what she did to me. God, I wish I had.

If I had, I wouldn’t be where I am now.

I guess that’s the whole point, isn’t it? The past is the past, but it paves the way to your future or some ****. Here I am, five years later, homeless, hungry and craving my next fix. I guess I skipped the best part, didn’t I? Not only did my mother **** my boyfriend, she also got me hooked on her poison. For years, she’d been drugging me - every drink, every bit of food - and I had no idea. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, what other way to keep me under her thumb than to make me exactly like her? When I found out, she said it was only to keep me complacent, that I was too much of a handful. She tried to write it off as a good parenting tool because she would have killed me otherwise.

I wish she ******* had.

Now, I’m a twenty year old addict with no future, no hope. I thought writing the words would make me feel better, would give me some since of direction, but it didn’t. I have no idea what the point of this was, but I can’t seem to stop. I guess I want someone to find this, if something ever happens to me. Find this story of a broken girl from the wrong side of the tracks and know that it wasn’t all my fault. I didn’t have a choice, and by the time I knew better, it was too late. I was already half-alive.

I’m Sawyer Hawkins, and this is my fucked up tale.
I hope you enjoy the ride.

[Sawyer]

We stopped looking for monsters under the bed when we realized that they lived inside of us.
______________________________________________________

I’m not sure when I realized that I wasn’t normal. I mean, I guess I had known from the day I was born I was destined to be fucked up, but when exactly did it hit? I guess if I had to pick an age, I would say I was eight. That was when mom first brought Nicholas home. It was April, and I remember the rain as it fell against the window. It was a soothing sound, despite the fact that it managed to slip through the cracks and dampen my pillow. We hadn’t had much of a house, then. Hell, I don’t even think it could have been called a house. It was a building, a run down, fucked up little shack that should have been condemned by the city. Instead, some old woman that smelled like cigarettes and sweat let us live in it for a hundred dollars a month. As long as we paid her, she left us alone.

Anyways, I remember this day perfectly, because I remember him. I had been staring at the clouds through my broken window when they rolled up in his car. It was a rundown piece of **** that looked in worse condition than our shack, and I couldn’t figure out why she would have chosen him. She always went for the men with the most expensive clothes and the gold watches that cracked her cheeks when they hit her. I was only eight, and already, I knew something was wrong the moment the door opened. He was tall - taller than she usually liked - and he was mean. You know, that type of look that you just know deserves to be locked up somewhere? Yeah, that was Nicholas.

He had scars on his face that disappeared behind the five day beard that darkened his skin, and his eyes were black. Not just black, no, they were soulless. It was if someone had reached into his very being and ripped the life from him, leaving him to be nothing more than a walking shell of a human being. I remember him staring at the shack with those fathomless eyes, his lips twisting into something that was supposed to resemble a smile. All of this should have scared the **** out of me, but I could only think of how out of place my mother looked clinging to his arm. Her shirt was torn, and her skirt was nowhere in sight. She was standing in the middle of the driveway in nothing but heels and a shirt, and she didn’t seem to be the least bit phased. That was when I should have done something.

Instead, I watched.

I watched as he flung her off of him and into the side of the car. I watched as the car rocked from the force, and I watched when he brought the back of his hand down against her face three times. I remember counting the sound of each blow and watching the way her skin cracked and bled. He was screaming something at her, something that I couldn’t quite hear - and I wasn’t sure I wanted to - but whatever it was, he wasn’t happy. He flung his hand toward the shack - towards me - and then I knew. She hadn’t told him about me. She hadn’t told him about our situation. She had met him in the one designer outfit she wore, with her hair and makeup done like one of those movie stars, and she had lied to him. I didn’t understand at the time why he didn’t just crawl back into his car and leave.

If it was such a miserable situation, why the **** did he stay?

When my mother hit her knees in the dirt, he began to take his belt off. It was then that I snapped. I pushed myself from my bed of old towels and one frayed, worn blanket and ran out the door in the rain. My feet slipped in the mud as I threw myself in front of her, my small hands held out in a plea. I expected him to stop. I mean, who the **** would hit a child they didn’t even know, but he didn’t. He got this odd gleam in his eye and brought the belt down. The pain was intense, but I didn’t cry out. Instead, I brought my fingers to the welt on my arm and watched as it began to turn colors. I should have known then, how fucked up I really was, but I couldn’t stop memorizing the ruination of my skin. Everything happened so fast after that. He had moved to strike me again, and then there was this sound, this loud explosion that thundered through our yard. I couldn’t hear anything over the deafening ringing in my ears, but I could see it all. His hand was still lifted, but his fingers had gone slack and he kind of just stood there for a second.

It was then I saw it.

Red had began to blossom across his dirty white t-shirt, and everything began to move in slow motion. It was like I was watching it on the television. The belt was the first to fall, and as it wrapped around my feet in the mud, he followed suit. He collapsed to his knees, his lips parted in what I can only assume to be a silent scream. His adam’s apple bobbed when he tried to make a sound, but when nothing came, he seemed to accept his fate. I felt cold fingers on my arm as my mother yanked me out of his way, and as he planted face first in the mud, I saw the gun in her hand.

No one touches my baby.

That was all she said as she put a heel against his side and rolled him onto his back. ‘Get down here, Sawyer, and get his money and keys. We need to get out of here.’ It was as if she didn’t even care that she had just murdered someone in front of her daughter. There was no remorse in her eyes, and I found myself doing exactly as she asked. Moving made my arm and side hurt, but I paid it no mind. I mean, if my mother could kill someone for me, the least I could do was what she asked, right? So, here I was, eight years old, having just watched someone die, and I was digging through his pockets. He wasn’t even cold yet, and we were robbing the poor ****** blind. It wasn’t as if he didn’t deserve it, but still.

It wasn’t right.
And I didn’t care.

After that, things changed between us. She was still the same horrible mother she had always been, but I found myself doing what I could to make sure she stayed out of trouble. She had killed someone for me, so what else could I do? I felt like I owed her. This woman was my mother, as fucked up as she was. She wasn’t the best, hell, she wouldn’t have ranked on the top five thousand, but she was all I had. It never occurred to me that it had been a ploy all along until I was about sixteen. She had managed to get what she wanted from me - someone to take care of her. It was never about protecting me, it was about furthering her own agenda. Somewhere along the line, it had dawned on her that she had the answer to all of her troubles right in front of her. Instead of ******* all of these men, all she had to do was win me over with a grand scheme and I would be in her debt for life.

From that day on, I was her slave. I tried to go to school, but between the homework and having to work to keep food on the table and feed her addictions, I never got far. So, I dropped out and went to work full time. A few odd and end jobs here and there, until I was hired by Denny. Denny was a nice man, clean cut, pretty eyes. He had taken one look at me and told me I would be perfect. At first, I thought it was for some job like prostitution, but no, it was legit. He hired me to wait tables at his piece of **** diner. The food was disgusting, the company was even worse, but it paid and I didn’t need paperwork. He never asked questions, and I never gave him answers. I came in on time, kept my nose clean, and left when the lights went out. I didn’t make friends, and it was the perfect set up. I was able to take care of my mother, keep myself fed so I wasn’t sick, and have a little left over for my own needs. It was this job that I came home from to find her ******* my boyfriend. It was this job that I lost when I went apeshit and cut him. I guess I should have mentioned this earlier, but my boyfriend? Denny’s son, Patrick. Yeah, I knew it wasn’t the smartest thing to do, dating the boss’s son, but if you saw him you wouldn’t blame me.

The man was perfect.

Tall, built, athletic, with dark hair and piercing blue eyes. He was mouthwatering, and he had been interested in someone like me. I wasn’t going to turn that down, but I should have. I should have also known that what I saw in him, my mother would, too. Looking back on it now, I can’t really blame her, but I do. I blame her for every ******* thing wrong in my life. She molded me into who I am today. Some dark, twisted, fucked up girl. All of this is the result of her artwork, and I hate her for it. If it hadn’t been for her, I would have kept that job and had been able to save up enough to get myself an apartment, maybe go back to school and become a legit person in society. Instead, I’m living on the streets in the middle of winter with no food, no drugs, and no money.

At least **** really can’t get any worse.

If you stuck it out this long, kudos, you're just as fucked up as me.

[Sawyer]

It isn't until you're broken that you know what you're made of.
______________________________________________________

This isn't going to be another entry about my past. I realized that I've told you too much about who I was and not who I am. There really isn't that much of a difference, but when **** happens in my life, I feel like I need to write it down. I know you're probably hoping for more about my mother and how she fucked this guy or killed that guy, but that's not all who I am. There is more to me, more to my story. The past is important, but it's about what broke you down, what ripped your soul apart, that makes for one hell of a future. That is what this entry is about, my every day, fucked up life that no one but me will really care about.

Stick around, you won't be disappointed.

Entry One

How is that I’ve lived in Harper Rock most of my life, and I never ******* noticed how screwed up the people here were? I mean, I’ve seen some strange things in my life, but nothing like what I witnessed a few hours ago. I was in my own world, coming down from a high that left me lifeless, and I accidently ran into a woman. Her hair was a mess, her eyes were dazed, and she looked like she had a better time than I had. I was about to ask her who her dealer was, when this huge *** ****** came running around the corner and snatched her back by her hair. It was almost like he didn’t see me, because one moment, she was standing in front of me, and the next, she was screaming as he buried his teeth into her throat.

Yeah, you read right.

His ******* teeth.

Of course, I didn’t stick around to figure out what the hell I saw. I got my *** out of there, and I’ve been running ever since. I mean, ****, if he was going to rip apart some poor thing like her, there was no telling what he would do to me. It’s taken me this long to figure out how to put my words to the paper, to tell you what I witnessed, because I didn’t believe it myself. I still don’t. I keep trying to figure out what the hell Leo gave me, because there is no way that a man just ripped out the throat of a woman in the middle of the street. Something is telling me to go back, to look for any clue that what I saw was real, but I can’t. What if it was, and I went right back into his trap? Despite all the warnings in my head, I did. I went back to that alley, and I saw the blood stains on the street. The man and his girl were nowhere in sight, but there was another man. He was bald, and his arms were covered in some sick ink. He asked me what I was doing there, and he began to ramble on about vampires and how it wasn’t safe for someone like me in the dark.

They’re all dead, he said. What the **** is going on in this town? I didn’t stick around for a third show. I wasn’t about to die at the hands of some freak, not when things are starting to get interesting.

Entry Two

Before I had met with Leo, I ran into a man. Older, not much to look at but he seemed alright enough. I was starving, and so I did what I do best. I went on the hunt. He looked like he had money, I mean, nothing fancy - but enough to get me a cheeseburger. So, I bumped into him, hand in his jacket pocket, and that ****** snatched me faster than I could blink. I don’t know if something in my eyes stopped him or if he was just as fucked up as me, but he offered me a job. I wanted to turn it down, because who the **** offers a job to someone they don’t even know, but I didn’t. Thoughts of Denny clouded my mind, and while this man was clearly no Denny, he had a certain appeal to him that I couldn’t turn down.

So, now, I have a ******* job.

I still don’t understand all of it, though, to be honest. It isn’t legit, that much I do know. The company is called Snake Eyes, and it’s some sort of back alley casino. When I caught wind of what he wanted me to do, I understand why he had chosen me. He couldn’t find anyone else to fill the role, because everyone else had morals. I guess the starving purple haired girl looking for her next fix was just what he wanted in an employer, because he doesn’t seem disappointed yet, even when I told him not to expect me to show up in the morning. I don’t do mornings. Hell, I don’t do days, either. Maybe nights. We’ll see.

I wonder what mom would think of all of this. I haven’t spoken to her in a few months, I don’t even know if she’s alive. I don’t think I care much, either. The **** she did to me, what she put me through, I can’t forgive any of it. She had one job in this life, and that was to actually take care of her daughter. It’s not like I could have taken care of myself. She never really gave me the chance, either. She left me high and dry, always chasing the next victim, always wanting the next high. She never really grew up, and now, I’m paying the price for it. I know I could pick myself up if I just tried, but what's the fun in that?

This is the city of the dead, and I’m just another victim.

[Sawyer]

Who are you to change this world, silly girl? No one needs to hear your words, let it go.
______________________________________________________

I’m falling apart. I’ve tried to tell myself that I can make it through this, that the ******* shakes aren’t going to kill me, but it’s just a lie. I know how close this is to copying my first entry, but jesus ******* christ, I can’t do this anymore. I just need a hit - I’ll take anything, as long as it ends the pain. I haven’t been this bad in months, but suddenly, it’s all I can think about. It’s consuming me, controlling my every waking thought.

I know that Ephraim knows. I know he can see it in the way I move, in the sweat on my forehead or the twitch in my goddamned fingers. Wait, you don’t even know about him, do you? ****, when was the last time that I told you anything? Okay, let me start from the beginning - damn, this entry is all about repeating history, isn’t it? Don’t worry, I won’t bore you to tears with fucked up tales of my past. Instead, I’ll tell you of the gorgeous mother ****** that ruined my already shattered life.

Ephraim Steele.

Even his name is messed up. Who the **** names their kid that? Someone that wanted to have the next God in their bloodline, I guess. That’s exactly what he is. A paladin that came to Harper Rock on some Holier than Thou mission to wipe the vampire race from existence. That’s how we met, actually. There I was, a complete and utter mess. Greasy, stringy hair, covered in dirt, lice and **** knows what else, looking for my next fix. I was craving hard. I could feel it in my bones, and I didn’t give a damned who I got it from. Which I guess is why I went into that abandoned gas station. I told myself it was under the guise of needing to get cleaned up, but even I can’t lie to myself that well. Unlike her, I can’t hide from the truth. I had gone in to find a dealer.

Instead, I found a vampire.

I can still remember the taste of his blood. It tasted like ****, but it was more than that. There was power, a high that I had never been on before. It took me to the damned moon, I swear. I felt better than I had in years - up until the moment the ****** demanded payment. Long story short, I had nothing to give him, so he decided to try and take my life instead. It was then, that he walked in. I kid you not, he was something straight out of a movie. Blonde hair flowing in the air, eyes the color of steel and as cold as the ground I found myself strewn across.

He moved with a grace that no man of his stature should possess. For just a moment, I thought I had found my new addiction. I mean, if he kept moving like that, I wouldn’t need to get high. Then, of course, I woke up in his apartment. I’ve no morals, I know that. I’ve done whatever I could to get what I needed in life. I certainly won’t be getting an all expense paid trip to the Pearly Gates, but when I woke up in his bed in fresh clothes with my hair washed and my skin smelling of fresh ******* soap, I lost my ****. This insanity was only further irritated by his complete and utter lack of care. I screamed at him, and he just ******* sat there sipping his goddamned tea.

Now, out of all the **** I’ve done in my life, I’ve never killed someone. In that moment, though, I could have. I’m pretty sure I tried, too. I can’t really recall all of what happened. I know there was screaming - mostly from me - broken furniture - again, mostly me - and finally reluctant acceptance. After all, he had food, money, and heat. It had nothing to do with the fact that I was afraid that what he said was true, that vampires roamed the streets at night.

God, it all feels like it was so long ago.

That brings us to now, to this post. The moment I gave in to him, the ****** up and took control of my life. He made sure I bathed, dressed and ate properly. He trained me, read me ******* scripture as a bedtime story - no, really, I’m not kidding - and then he shipped me off to rehab when he was certain I wouldn’t try to run. I did, but I didn’t get far. He was smart enough to not leave me alone. I had made it to the outer gates of the complex, only to run straight into the muscled chest of one of his many goons. The ****** carted me back like I was a sack of potatoes.

Yeah, I didn’t try to leave again.

I don’t remember why I put up so much a fight about it. I was getting somewhere in life with Ephraim. I wasn’t feeling like I was her anymore. I was still an outsider. I knew I didn’t belong with them. Most of them loved God more than their own lives, and I never believed in him. Where was he when I was hurting? Where was he when she let me starve? No ******* where.

Anyways, that’s only the short version of how we got to this point in time. That’s the summary of why I’m sitting in a cold alley with this piece of crap notebook that I found tossed under his bed. I don’t know if he read it. I’m sure he did. I would have. It’d be hard to resist knowing just how fucked up the girl living in the room next to yours really was. If he did, he hasn’t kicked me out yet, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until he realizes that I’m just not worth saving. Especially now, when I can’t feel my feet from the cold as I try to figure out how to get a hit without him knowing. He’s got this entire city tapped. My every movement is monitored. Hell, he probably already knows that I’m here, back where it all began. It won’t be long until he finds me.

For someone that claims to care about me, he loves to watch me suffer. I’m not going to be what he wants me to be. I don’t deserve the praise he gives, or the strength I have from his watch. I’m just as worthless as the ******* monsters that we hunt. I’m just as dark as them. How can he not see that? How can he not see that I’m struggling with every goddamned breath I take?

I’m just as dead as they are.
It’s only a matter of time.