Cam Girl

Last year I was in a bad car accident that left me half paralysed on the left side of my body for six months. I couldn't move my arm or leg, had no strength to clench my fist and couldn't move my neck. It was like I didn't have that part of my body anymore. I struggled to do mundane tasks like washing my hair or putting on make up, couldn't get out of bed without my mum lifting me like the elderly she works with at the home. I lived in leggings and jeggings because unbuttoning my jeans took so much effort and I was terrified I was going to pee myself. My bladder was so sensitive that I had to be in close proximation of the bathroom at all times. I am humiliated as I write this, but I've lost count of the times I almost wet the bed because I couldn't move. I couldn't shower on my own, and my mother had to rig a harness to get me in and out of the bath because I'd fallen over twice already and almost given myself concussion. Even getting into bed at night was a struggle -- I had to find the right position, make sure I didn't have too many pillows in case I rolled over and suffocated myself in my sleep, but at the same time I had to make sure I was comfortable enough that the right side of my body could still function without aches and pains. One time, I was lying on the sofa and fell as I tried to get up. I lay on the floor for eight hours, until my mum got back from work and could help me up. The body has two legs, two arms, two hands for a reason. I'd started wearing through the right side's strength faster than lightning because the left side just. Would. Not. Work.

Before the accident, I was social, outgoing, active. I liked to jog in the mornings (and I live on a beautiful isle in England with views to die for). I had trained as an aquarist and wanted to go into it as a full time job. I was supposed to head to Scotland for an interview that provided the aquarist job of my dreams and a place to live. Scotland has been my lifelong goal ever since I'd been a little girl. I was popular in my group of friends -- they loved me, wanted to see me, came to me for everything. Younger friends called me Mother Bear because I worried and fussed over them and there was always a place for them if they needed me. There was a boy I liked who liked me in return (and it's always something as simple as that, as someone wanting and needing you as much as you want and need them, that breaks you all the more). I was twenty years old and happy, finally, that things were coming together for me. That even if I had given up on my dream of going to university and getting a degree, I was doing something BETTER. That even if life had handed me nothing but shitcakes, I was finally showing it I was so much better than it. Worth so much more.

But then a woman in a van decided responding to a text was more important than watching the road. We were going round the roundabout at the time -- the van drove straight into the passenger side where I was sat. I don't remember much about the accident -- a lot of glass, a lot of screaming, and no cars stopping to check on us. Just a lot of honking from angry businessmen and women who had somewhere else to be. I remember, though, that I was late for an appointment. I can't remember what the appointment was for, though. All I know is that it was important enough for me to crawl out of the wreckage and race down the road. It wasn't until after, when the adrenaline disappeared, that I realised something wasn't right. I called my friend to come pick me up. The next thing I know, I was in A&E.

At the hospital, they sent me home with a diagnoses and a leaflet -- I had whiplash. The next morning, I tried to get out of bed and fell over, smacking my head on the bedside table. Mum raced me to the hospital, where more tests showed I had spinal damage -- mostly the nerves alongside it, and the vertebrae that had sprung out of place and snapped back. They told me I should've been fully paralysed, at least. Dead, at the most. They told me I was lucky.

But I didn't feel lucky. In the months following my accident, I lost my life -- I lost my friends, who didn't want to make the trek up to the isle every day to come see me, considering I was housebound and couldn't trek the mile and a half it would take us to get to the nearest coffee shop. I lost the aquarist job, because I didn't know when (IF) I would ever walk again, let alone swim in a tank full of sharks. I put on a shitload of weight because, again, I couldn't exercise. I couldn't find work, because where I live, it's all seasonal -- and seasonal is mostly standing up, walking around, being active, which I couldn't do. I couldn't go to the cove, my favourite beach, and just sit because there are 42 steps down and it would've killed me. I couldn't go to the pirate cemetery with my little brother and sibling and tell them ghost stories to freak them out. I began relying on my mum to help me pay back my overdraft, and it made me sick, because we never have money to begin with. I began to wallow. I began to hate myself. I started what-ifing every single moment of my life.

I had a lot of physiotherapy, but even then, she couldn't touch my back. It's so sensitive -- I'd had no idea. Even leaning on it funny could've caused a lot more damage. So she worked my leg, my arm, but didn't touch my neck. I slowly, slowly started regaining the feeling in my fingers, in my toes, but I'll never be quite whole again. I can't walk long distances without my leg giving out. I can't grab a heavy plate from the kitchen without my arm, my fingers, failing. I can't fill the kettle up completely because it's too heavy. I can't stand up for long periods of time without falling over. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I'll wake up sweat-soaked and terrified because I can't feel the left side of my body, and then I'll convince myself it's just a nightmare... even though I can't get out of bed. Even though rolling over to my right side is the only thing I can do.
I work at a taxi rank now. It pays well, but it's not a nice job. I work the night shift (which I don't mind) but the walk to the bus stop every morning is sometimes too much. The chairs are broken and lean to the side, which means I'm in constant pain when I leave because my spine is curved all night. My sleeping and eating habits are all over the place and I look at all these young people getting shitfaced and think, "You have it so good. You don't even realise." And I KNOW that that is not how I should be thinking, that I should be grateful because I'm alive, because it could have ended so much worse.

But is it bad that I'm not? Because the cons outweigh the pros? Because yes, I'm alive, but I'm stuck in a dead-end job, with no money, no prospects, too terrified to even contemplate a driving licence because roundabouts make me want to puke? Because I only ever feel safe on a bus? Because even sitting in the passenger side when my mum is driving, I freak out at the slightest thing? Yes, I'm alive, but I lost so much and in a place like this, rebuilding is so hard. And this is horrible, but I am so angry that I wasn't fully compensated for it. That the insurance company didn't deem my injuries worrying enough to fully pay out for. That they chipped away at my self-esteem little by little with stupid comments like that and fully compensated the woman whose van drove into us because it was a business car.

It's so stupid. It's little things like someone finding me attractive enough to want to take out on a date -- it doesn't happen anymore. Guys flirting with me. Girls wanting to be my friend. And me wanting to be near people. I can't even hold a conversation with an actual human being in the real world that isn't my family without having a panic attack. It's why I work the night shift -- it's quiet. Not many people come in whilst I'm on shift. It's ridiculous, and I'm trying so hard to fix it, but it's so so so difficult.

So I completely understand Vada, and it feels weird that I've finally found someone who understands me, and that person is fictional. That I can't sit down with her and tell her how I'm feeling and she'll understand me. That she won't commiserate with me because she's not REAL. But at the same time, I'm so completely and utterly grateful that you, Leah, seem to have understood what it feels like to lose something so huge, to have it taken away from you in a heartbeat and the struggle that comes with rebuilding and starting again.
I may never be completely whole again, but I am rebuilding. Slowly, but surely. And maybe one day I will be okay again.

"You know what I learned in all these months? That I built my whole fucking life around you. My entire adult life. Five years. I'm totally lost on my own. You know how terrifying it is, to be that dependent on someone?"

"Onlookers see the finished result, polished and pretti

"You know what I learned in all these months? That I built my whole fucking life around you. My entire adult life. Five years. I'm totally lost on my own. You know how terrifying it is, to be that dependent on someone?"

"Onlookers see the finished result, polished and prettified, but all the artist remembers is the labor. The grueling, gloriously bloody becoming."

"Your best friend is your partner, right? The person you've lived with going on five years. Shared your life with. Shared everything with. Matching tattoos, an encyclopedia full of inside jokes, a scrapbook stuffed with memories. The person whose heart you know better than your own."

"Frankie, with her master's degree and scalpel blade of a brain, who took no shame cashing in on her looks till she could do what she really loved: run her own business.

If she didn't feel embarrassed, why should I?"

It was easier, picking a side. Not fighting to be recognized as a fluid, nuanced individual, but simply accepting a premade label, a prefab identity.

"Azúl," I said, kneeling behind her. "Azúl infinito."

"My love is savage and rapacious. It isn’t content to touch. It wants to be inside, crawl into the marrow, caress each vein until the cells are all mixed up and there is no you and me anymore, no secrets or shadows sliding between our skin. Only this endless devouring of each other."