CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

     CHARLES DARWIN, the father of evolution theorized that all animals evolve through adaptation. As time continues, animals, plants; all living organisms adopt characteristics that allow them to survive in changing climates. Whether the adaptation is in order to attract a mate or to remain unseen by predators, it is something humans have adopted. Survival of the fittest. Each day is a competition in a fierce society made of broken dreams, fueled with hopes and dreams, and driven by childlike minds. Each day one breathes, each day one dies. It all comes down to the survival of the fittest.

Who will survive? Who will live on to see the next day? Sink or swim, there is no definite answer for it all. Everything relies on the willpower of the living organism. Adapt or die. Flourish or wither. It does not affect anyone, but oneself.

"You have to believe h-he touched me."

"Kate, it's normal. It just means he thinks you're hot!"

"He did more than touch me."

Kate looked out the window, her eyes reflected the light of the moon. Steady breaths slipped past her lips as she calmed her nerves. Her body had stopped shaking moments ago once it had gotten used to the damp clothes. She was far too tired to change her clothes, even finding it more comforting than to be wrapped in a false sense of warmth. Kate would rather embrace the cold truth than being engulfed in a warm lie. Although, her eyes, like always betrayed her emotionless demeanor and tears created patterns on her dry cheeks as they flowed down. 

In the past twenty-four hours, her life had taken a turn for the worst. All she had done was witness the death of her enemy. All she had done was take a sigh of relief before Venus Wilson began to haunt her from her grave. Kate's fingers unknowingly twisted and turned before her nails dug into the flesh around her nail, the feeling of liquid against her skin did not alarm her. Nor did the thunder that roared outside. Did anything?

She couldn't help but remember the night everything had changed for the worst. Had just the nudes leaked it wouldn't have driven her to the brink of death caused by her own hands. No, there was always more to a story. A story that was untold, pushed aside in order to show her tan body littered with stretch marks and a defining birthmark on her left hipbone.

"Oh wow, it's really dark in here. Are you sure Tyler said to meet here?"

It is true, that the strongest survive, however that does not mean that they come out without a single scar. Life is a battle, sink or swim, fight or flight. Every day is a battle. Every day must be conquered individually, sometimes one loses, other times one wins. And those lost battles leave a mark on one, a mark sometimes too deep, sometimes too evident. There is a price when it comes to surviving and Kate Rodriguez had paid it.

"You know, I always wondered what it looked like in real life."

"What are you talking about?"

"But, that birthmark, I knew it was familiar."

"W-what?"

Kate's hand instinctively withdrew from the hangnail she picked at and to her left hipbone. It would be the first time it did not sting when she applied pressure. Although the emotional scars related to the damned birthmark that set her apart from others was the same one that banished her to an eternal hell on earth. A hell she could not escape, a hell brought forth by Venus Wilson. She still remembered the day vividly, in fact, she remembered every day since her private pictures had been leaked. It was hard to forget when wandering eyes would find its nude body on someone's phone.

"Come on, Kate let's have some fun tonight."

A gasp left her lips as she squeezed the fabric over her stomach. The voice had managed to send chills down her spine despite being a figment of her memory now. A memory she desperately wanted to forget, a voice she never wanted to hear again. Kate didn't know what hurt more, what she endured that night and all the nights that followed or the torture she was put through when no one believed her. Not even her own mother.

"Fuck." Kate breathed out as the tears stung the back of her eyes.

Her voice sounded unfamiliar in her room, a room that hadn't heard her voice in days, weeks, months. A house that hadn't received any smiles by the oldest daughter. A mother who had lost her daughter the day her innocence was stolen. A father who disowned his daughter because her birthmark damned her.

Kate Rodgriuez no longer belonged to anyone.

"No! Stop please!"

"Come on Kate, let me see that birthmark baby-girl!"

It's true. Cry as much as you want, kick and scream but a man is not done with you until he is done with you.

She didn't know how many nights she had spent, eyes wide, thoughts running through her mind at the speed of light, and an endless supply of tears. All because her mind scrapped together any form of coherent thought that could possibly turn back time. Turn it all the way back to before Venus was even born. For the world would be better with the devil underground and not roaming this world.

Perhaps that was why she did not cry, not a single tear when she watched the life leave Venus' eyes that night. Perhaps that was why when her funeral was over the imaginary anchor that sunk her to the ground and held her in the dark abyss of trauma and nightmares had been unshackled. Perhaps in order for Kate Rodgriuez to be free Venus Wilson had to die.

It was hard to believe that once upon a time ago the two were conjoined at the hips. Is that why Kate felt as if she were the one buried six feet under along with Venus? Was that why every breath she took followed a thought of Venus? Where was the freedom she was promised? Day and night in her prayers she had only asked God for one thing, the death of her enemies. Every night the prayers went unanswered until that fateful night.

Sink or swim.

Every day is a battle, one must live to see the next day or drown in the past.

Venus Wilson did not live, she sank. Kate survived, although she did not want to. Funny how things played out, where one who wished for their breaths to cease live to see another day yet those who have every reason to live pass unexpectedly.

Momentarily, Kate thought she had a purpose in life and then she was back in her life of constant whispers. Stares, gasps, whispers. Stares, gasps, whispers, rumors. Stares, gasps, whispers, rape.

It was the same night Venus' autopsy had leaked online, broadcasted on every news channel that Kate admitted what had happened to her the night of Valentine's day party. What she had suppressed with sleeping pills, drugs, aging scars on her body was back and it was too big to remain a nightmare. It was bigger than her now, she had created a monster, a monster that had taken over her life. A monster that had strapped her to a chair and forced her to remember each and every moment of that night. The scent of his cologne, the raspy moans that were breathed into her ears, the slaps, the shoves, the pain.

"Please stop." Kate whimpered out. Her hands instinctively wrapped around her small head, cupping her ears so the moans could not echo into the room for her mother to hear. Is this what it felt like to be crazy?

Why couldn't they believe her?

Why did she have to survive?

Questions rained into the ocean of dark thoughts in her mind as she slid off the window sill in order to regain a sense of stability. Her eyes darted from one corner to the other, the room was almost as dark as the storm that brewed inside her. And then her eyes finally rested on her reflection in the mirror. The moonlight was angled in such a way that she seemed to be an angel or ghost in the reflection. The craters under her eyes were darker than the rest of her face. Kate couldn't help but wonder why he chose her, she wasn't even that pretty. Her fingers slid down from her left eye to her lips. The only word she could use to describe herself was plain.

"Come on Kate, let me see that birthmark baby-girl!"

Her hand dropped to the waistband of her pajamas. Even in the dark, it was evident how much she was shaking as if afraid of her own skin. Skin that had been exposed to one too many people in her lives. Despite that, she felt numb inside, there was nothing but a constant buzzing that she had gotten used to. Her fingers curled around the waistband and pulled it the slightest bit to reveal her left hipbone. Instead of her infamous birthmark, there was a scar. She couldn't be the woman in those pictures if she didn't have a birthmark. She wouldn't have been there that night at the Valentine's party if it weren't for her birthmark. Removing it should have erased it all, right? Or were the scars too deep for her to let go, for her to move on?

Perhaps what happened that night was something Venus was destined for. To pay for her sins she had to die and for Kate to pay for her sins she had to witness her death and get caught in the spiderweb of Venus' lies. This was all a punishment, the only difference was that Kate was in hell on earth and Venus was six feet under, tortured by her sins and misdeeds. But there was someone who hadn't received his punishment, someone who seemed to have remained untouched by what happened that night. What a perfect target she was, where if she even cried and screamed no one would believe her.

It's true. Cry as much as you want, kick and scream but a man is not done with you until he is done with you.