"You kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath."
-Taylor Swift

B.I.T.E:

stay away from home

 

 

1. Ice on the Road

I baked myself a premature birthday cake. Sometime in May, I decided that I deserved a treat. So I spent all day baking a lava cake, poured everything I had into it— each book, poster, and beloved t shirt. Its outside bright glittery gold, but when you pressed your fork down, the molten black came through like steaming liquid asphalt.

It was beautiful.

It was perfect.

It was temporary.

I ate it up like I eat up anything satisfying: voraciously. I tore it apart with my bare hands and shoveled it into my mouth. I was starving, starving, to move in with these people I met a week previous.

I couldn't stay. So I had to go.

And I wanted to go.

We played a lot of Borderlands. Zariah bought it for me, all 4 (?) of them, so we could play together. I made self deprecating jokes like "oh, thanks for carrying me" and "I'm worse at this game than I am at drawing" and they'd laugh. Encourage me to continue. Encourage my behavior.

It doesn't always take skin to self harm.

Playing Borderlands, sometimes Zeus— Zariah's girlfriend —would be there, too. To my recollection, when they got together, Zariah was 17 and Zeus was… I believe 14 years older. I could be wrong about the exact number, but they got together when Zariah was underage. I know this because they talked about it a lot, like it was a kink to be quirky about. I thought it was a kink to be quirky about.

They were both polyamorous without a polycule, and they flirted. A lot. Maybe it was their natural tone. Maybe I read into things too much. Maybe I used confirmation bias. But I could have swore they wanted me the way I wanted them. I imagined them picking me up and crashing on my mattress, me safe in between them. I think of that now and get nauseous. Not from distaste— from fear. From hate. They are the last thing from safety.

I stared out the window as the roads turned slick, then iced over. Sometimes we'd pass a car, and they'd suddenly swerve off the road. I watched with wide eyes and did not understand.

When I arrived in Illinois, it was nothing like I had pictured. Somehow they became disinterested, disregarding, disturbed. Any little jab I did, any little pebble I tossed them, they chucked back without a glance. I wanted the stepping stones to their hearts. They locked it off.

We eventually moved on to Borderlands 2. It had more multiplayer options I believe so Zeus played with us this time. We got on and I said, "Oh, do I have to be nervous now?" and Zariah scoffed. "For what?"

So put on the spot, I spluttered and neverminded myself out of it. But I still look back. I used to get embarrassed. Now I get a ball of fire where my stomach should be.

Even when I thought we were going to fall in love, they kept me on the most slippery ice track, expecting me to do spins and leaps with no education or training. They shoved me onto the sleet, and got frustrated when I did not understand. No trick of mine made them proud. I made up my own moves, my own maneuvers, and they were angry that I had the gall to think I was better than them. I played on the ice, and they called me selfish for it.

I arrived, April first of 2021. Biggest joke of my life. Zeus said, "I'm going to bed, okay?"

It was just us.

I nodded.

"Um, how light of sleepers are you?"

Her brow furrowed. "What? Why?"

"Could I use the microwave?"

She laughed heartily with no heart to spare. "Yes, you can use the microwave."

She hugged me goodnight for the first time, and the last as well.

I baked another cake— a small round of vanilla-topped chocolate cupcakes like ice on the roads. I kept a few around, in case I needed them— but of course I shared!

They abused me for five months. Graceful figure skating became broken bones and broken ice. I skidded across the blue straight into the arms of someone else, someone better— so they made it worse.

They threatened to assault me.

To break into our home.

To kill my partner's cat.

They harassed me. Going in lovable, going out hated. Just because I decided to leave, I deserved to have my worse traumas stuffed down my throat like peanut butter in middle school.

Through a series of carnage, I drove drunk, hoping to crash into a tree.

No such tree appeared.

The cupcakes I had leftover disintegrated before I could even touch them.

---

2. Drizzle to Storm

They called themselves the Council. Zeus and Zariah. Sally F. Bede, and I all just let it happen. We were the subordinates, the assistants, the servants. Each cake I baked they let sit and mold over like mildew on the shower curtain.

They liked when I agreed with them. If I didn't, it was a problem. An eye roll. An "Allllright, if you think so." How did I not see it? The past is the past, and it should make you stronger, but it only makes me angrier. Angry that I let them put themselves between me and my family, I let them separate me from potential new friends, I let them call me stupid. I let them call me stupid. I just sat there. How?

I was very laissez faire about everything, thinking this is what adulthood was. No more light rain with a bit of wind; torrential downpour, trees bending and dandelions blowing. I was constantly soaked, and it weighed me down.

Before I even moved in they told me of a "habit" Zariah had. Sometimes Zeus would wake up in the middle of the night to find Zariah trying to kill her. He wanted her dead because she knew too much. Was too close. And a month after I moved in, Zariah cancelled all therapy appointments, claiming he "didn't need them anymore."

I asked if they were worried Zariah would succeed one day. Zeus just laughed. Condescendingly, the way she always did. As if I was a confused child, watching rain through the window for the first time in my trivial little life.

Sometimes, Zariah would hit Zeus, as a joke. They strung buckets of water to the door and watched the other get drenched. They treated it like a silly competition, like figure skating around each other to see who was better. It was light to them. Air light.

I didn't understand.

I was on an island. I cried myself to sleep at 2pm. I worked at the hotel for three days straight to avoid the downpour. I didn't sing the entire five months. And baked. And baked. And baked. The cakes piled like the mattresses in the Princess and the Pea. Blue velvet, yellow cake, chocolate fudge— take your pick. They all molded over or crumbled to the floor.

Any friend I made, I realize now, was quickly scared off. They ghosted me, they faded away, they left to never return. The Council had fated them unworthy. The drizzle has turned to storm, yet through my frames I saw sun spilling in through the windows, warm and bright.

Towards the end, I began making jokes that shat on Zariah. I was so sick of how I was being treated, but didn't know that myself, that I veiled it in humor. One day, Bede snapped at me to stop making Zariah the villain. I wonder how he feels about that now, being washed out a few months after I left. Should have trusted me, bitch.

He didn't eat my cakes either. Tiered from floor to ceiling, I made a ballroom inside a kitchen. I painted portraits with frosting and wrote poetry into the batter. All for them.

All for them.

And never again.

---

3. Fog

There was one night. One night we were playing D&D when I realized: Zariah only had one right way, and that was his way. If it wasn't his idea, his plan, his solution, it was wrong. Stupid even. Our party came up with a thousand ways to solve the problem in the cavern, yet it wasn't ZARIAH'S idea, so it wasn't the right way to go.

There was one night we were playing D&D, when I made a joke about my character's class. He was a warlock (partly) and he made a stupid joke about his dumb patron. Everyone started freaking out. In character, they were angry. Out of character, they were laughing their asses off.

"He can't possibly be this stupid!"

They weren't calling my character stupid.

They were calling me stupid.

The fog crept in and had me laugh it off, then lapse in self harm. Surely they didn't mean it like that, right? It was my fault. I was the dumb one, I was the cause. Well, the mist has waved goodbye and now I know. Clarity is frightening and relieving at once.

There were many things I failed to do that I later realized I was punished for. Dishes. Litterboxes to cats that weren't mine. Decluttering. I missed therapy sometimes, I wasn't always home from work in time for Dungeons and Dragons. My peripheral was blurry, but staring straight ahead I saw a vision of myself that was nothing but dead weight. They glared back at me until the fog separated us once more.

Although I don't actually believe in dead weight, if I had to put a picture to it, I'd put Bede's. He was intangible, fuzzy. Nothing solid. Nothing that wasn't hazy and translucent. He ate Velveeta mac n cheese and walked outside to check the mail in his underwear with a daycare across the street. I was accused of slut-shaming for gently telling him not to do that. He went to an interview at Pizza Hut or something in an emo outfit. These are the things I remember.

And also him snapping at me to stop calling Zariah evil. Which I never actually did— the most guts I had were insinuating that he was a villain, which, given how Zariah referred to himself, was air light.

I was dogpiled at every corner. Bede was the spy, pretending to befriend me then gathering the intel. Zeus was the trader, listening and telling, punishing when under her command. And Zariah, the head of the cult. The decision-maker. The king. The folly.

Trying to see through despite the thick, heavy fog covering every inch of the house, I tried to avoid ambushes. Bede spied with gloom-proof binocolurs to make sure I fell in line. He befriended me, gathered intel, then went to Zues, the trader, listening and telling, punishing when under her command. By the time she was through with you, you were spun in circles over and over until you vomitted on the floor. Then there was Zariah.

The head of the cult.

The decision-maker.

The folly.

MMy folly was Zariah the entire time. He made me weak. He made me afraid. He made me unsure of myself. If I could have knocked him off his pedestal, maybe I would have made it out alive.

But if I tried, I was spoken to shame. Called mad. I didn't know what to think and I assumed my judgment would never be enough. They told me that I slept too much, so I stayed up at night. They told me I didn't get enough sleep. They told me to hang out with them more, so I watched movies and TV shows. They told me to get a job. I pushed through the opaque air, disoriented with voices calling to me from all directions and not a clue which to follow.

I was still fallen for Zariah and Zeus. I think I was attracted to the way they treated me, or maybe thought I was stuck in some stupid romance novel where the assholes with the hearts of gold took me in under their wings. Or maybe I was just being hopeful.

There was a time I lied: just a mist, something about my feelings. Later that day, I got sick of keeping up the lie. So I said it: "I lied." They made me regret it.

Imagine a relationship so toxic you lied, and wished you never told the truth? How toxic must it be to have to hide, to need to deceive your way through life just to stay safe from being yelled at?

When I baked my first cake in Virginia, this was not what I pictured.

---

4. Smoke & Ash

I lit a match and set fire all around me. Time scares me more than I can describe, yet it burns away everything wrong and keeps the flames from engulfing everything around me. Sometimes I can't remember a last name, or the street we lived on. Then I think too hard and remember it. An as always self fulfilling prophecy. If I'd just stop dousing the fire, maybe I could move on.

I could not predict what would make them approve or disapprove. Like smoke in my eyes, I swung blind until something hit, for better or for worse. I got a job at a school once, and it was a 5 minute drive, 23 minute walk. I was late to D&D every time. I thought they wanted me to get a job, but Zariah said, "We're not waiting on you to start." At the last job, he and Zeus would take turns picking me up and dropping me off. The only embers I have of this is remembering my now lover's smiling face as he took on the responsibility, driving from an hour away.

I tried to bake with my eyes closed. The ash storm raged on outside and I baked. I baked. I baked. I didn't look. I baked.

Cake upon cake upon cake. Each one pitch black.

They always made a big thing about setting boundaries. Important, right? A big ol' slap on the back and a smile. "Good job! What a cute little thing you just did! Can you repeat it? I promise to listen this time!" I asked them a thousand times over not to joke that I was being manipulative.

We had a friend over. I still wonder what he thinks of me now. Let's call him Adaia. He was laughing with us, wearing his wizard hat like a late 30's Will Byers. The roommates started calling me manipulative. Adaia didn't know any better. He laughed and joked with them. I reminded them not to do that. Everyone likes to paint themselves the hero, and I am unfortunately a part of 'everyone.' But I was not the hero when I went into my bedroom, grabbed a sour apple Jack Daniel's, and chugged it in the middle of the living room. Oh, I made a show of it. Showed everyone how fucking miserable I was. I poured gasoline on our entire goddamn house and tossed a lighter. I don't remember the eruption.

My fiance was the one to care. Not even quite a partner yet, he took my face in his hands and made me promise not to drink any more that night. A promise is a promise.

There were often mini-moments of clarity. These mini-moments happened in the middle of metaphorical nowhere. On a walk, listening to music, writing a poem. An "oh my god what the fuck have I done" kind of mini-moment. An "holy shit i fucked up" type of tiny thought. I ignored these, but to be honest? I don't think I had a choice. Blah blah blah, everyone always has a choice: life is complex and you're full of shit. Where would I have gone?

I was stranded. Stranded in a desolate, ash-filled forest, with char on my hands.

I frosted cupcakes. Tediously, one by one, perfectly.

It wasn't just a part of me that died with them. It was everything. I had to raze, then rise. It's taken years to put myself back together. To bring the color back. I was gray, I was suffocating, I was choking.

And they didn't even notice.

---

5. Whirlpool

We moved houses once. We were maybe three months into the five when we moved across town to a bigger, more suitable house for the five of us. The light was spilling like water through the windows into the empty, hardwood floored house. Zeus asked if I wanted to stay in the house and start unpacking or head back with her to grab more boxes. Prime opportunity: I stayed. Alone.

And for the first time since I moved there, I allowed myself to sing.

I kept an eye on the windows. An ear out for cars pulling into the drive. But until they got back, I sang and sang and sang and I swear I could smell buttercream.

Our time living there was nothing short of hell I barely remember. They pushed and pulled me in different directions, spun me and spun me and spun me around and around and around until I didn't know where I was. I needed to work, I needed to spend time with my friends. I needed to find a partner, I needed to whine less, I needed to stop questioning.

Stop questioning.

Any time I professed something, I was attacked from all corners. "How could you say that? That's a bad opinion, what's wrong with you? How stupid are you?" Zariah had me all confused. I truly believed he and Zeus knew more than I do. Than I did. Than I ever would.

How could I make any decisions when they were all wrong? So I let them make decisions for me. They convinced me to quit my job, one that I loved and paid well. They convinced me to move in, for gods' sakes. I like to think myself not so gullible, or at least I used to be, but they got me good. Something red velvet in their texts and strawberries on their tongues. The road to Illinois was made of candy. They lured me in like you'd lure in a child— promising anything I wanted, if I just did this one thing for them that turned into a thousand things and no real reward.

They spun me in a whirlpool until I believed my feelings were selfish, that I acted and thought selfishly and made no sense when I tried to explain myself. They talked me in circles. They chimed in to distract me. They let the topic wander when I strapped an anchor to it.

I needed a landmark, a lighthouse, a life raft. Anything. But any chance I had, they ripped away. My head pounded each and every day. My eyes were blurry, body numb alongside the thrumming throbbing in my joints. One time I was in so much pain from stress, Sally F. offered me a muscle relaxer. That was a month into living there.

With every day I lived there I grew a bit more confused. A bit more powerless, helpless. And by the time I moved out? It wasn't just 'there was a shell of me left' it was more than that, I left every part of myself in that house. I swam upwards a whirlpool and it washed away everything I once knew. I died, then came back with a cough-up of water and a gasp of air. I didn't come back a new person. I came back nobody at all, a blank canvas. A doll for me to dress up however I wished.

I began to self-express a bit. Learned more about myself. Found the parts the cult locked away, incidentally keeping them with me when I drowned and lost all else. I found not who I was meant to be, who I wanted to be.

Swimming up a whirlpool, finding them stomping my lovingly-made cakes like teenagers on sand candles, barging through the front door and sprinting into the night. These were all parts of my escape.

And now, looking back?

It was the best risk I'd ever taken.

---

6. Snowy Ground

I baked myself a premature birthday cake.

It was messy.

Novice-made.

It could barely be defined as a lava cake, in fact. It was closer to mush with some liquidy insides.

But it was mine.

The road ahead was slick and frozen, but after the fog and the ash and the vortex, it was soft snow, decorating the pavement like breadcrumbs down a wooded path. I followed the current. I took the road less traveled. I made the same mistake and it ended up being the best thing to ever happen to me.

One September 29th, I believe the date was, I tried something serious. My phone had blown up in my sleep with dozens of notifications, the cult once again dogpiling me, only this time, I had no idea why. And when I called my partner, crying, he was upset, too.

Everyone was upset. I had upset everyone. I'd later learn that it was a shitty attempt at keeping me in my place, separating me and my now lover, Val. My attempt thankfully failed, but I was driven to the E.R (Val and I only got to see each other for five minutes, and we both cried), then landed myself in a psychiatric hospital.

And came out the other side.

I walked through the newly fallen snow, trudging through the inches gloriously. I was headed to my new home, my new new home, one that would take good care of me for another four years before me and Val moved on to our current home.

I still think about the roommates— nearly every day. But every second forward is another step away from their toxic, noxious air. Another day I nearly forget a last name, turning to a day where the name will not ring a bell.

These essays were hard to write. It was often difficult to drag up old memories I had repressed, and it scares me to not remember it in full, or at all. I know what I went through was real, but how do I prove it was real if I can't even give an example? I'm sure by reading you can tell what a bad example-giver I am.

But I don't need to prove it to anyone. And neither do you.

Any abuse you've endured, any cult you may have 'belonged' to, are meant to be left behind. Not indoctrinated into your personality, your identity, or your life. I have spent five long years allowing them to rule me all the while looking the other way and bragging the opposite.

There is no more bragging.

No more begging.

No more manipulation.

Just the ding of an oven.