I know I talk a lot about the numbness that I had inside of me, but it truly did become a huge part of who I was. Other than my nan and my gramp, it became a constant in my life. It became an inner and outer protector. A quiet and invisible hero of mine. It saved me from many hurts, and would quietly and invisibly continue to do so.

But there were times, when not even my numbness was invincible. Not even its unseen armour, could save me from some things.

At the height of my puberty, I became a deeply troubled teenager.

I felt deeply.

I thought deeply.

Everything was functioning on a far deeper level, a level that not even I could cope with.

I became a walking contradiction—I wanted to be with people, then wanted to be alone. I wanted to talk, then wanted to be quiet. I wanted fun, yet felt more comfortable being miserable—I was in the grip of my teenage hormones and in the arms of confused angst.

The words I wrote, became darker.

My thoughts, became darker.

My moods, became darker.

I was more confused than ever. I was hurting more than ever. I felt like I was trapped in a maze of teenage life, and was never going to safely find my way back out.

Thinking deeper, opened up a buried box of forbidden memories.

I wasn't ever supposed to have remembered them, but remembering them, I unfortunately so did.

My past, had once again anchored itself to me.

Every moment of every single day, I began seeing flashbacks of Ivan.

Of his old hands. His ragged voice. His beady eyes.

I was seeing it all again like it were only yesterday.

Then I would see Maria and Mario.

The games. The shed. The wardrobe. Under the bed.

I began remembering it all again.

Even what happened with Adrian and I, began to shamefully crawl under my skin and crawl inside every one of my distressed thoughts.

At the age of fifteen, I began loathing who I was. Loathing the world, and all of whom were in that loathsome world.

Beginning to have some level of confused understanding about what had happened to me when I was young, quickly made me become scared and sickened by my past. Putting together every sick and cruel piece, slowly and quietly began to destroy me.

It sickened me.

Embarrassed me.

Upset me.

Diseased me with guilt.

The memories had tainted me.

I had this confused and hurting volatility growing inside of me, and I just didn't know how to weed it all out.

Nan and gramp were always the ones I loved most, so I didn't want to express my thoughts and my feelings to them, for fear of seeing shame and disappointment in their eyes. I was always their pride and joy, how could I tell them that their pride and joy was actually sullied?

And at first, the flashbacks were simply just that...flashbacks.

They hadn't fully formed in my mind. I was constantly just seeing a snapshot of time. Until eventually, the snapshots became one whole memory of something that I remember really happening to me.

It was the remembering that killed me inside.

It was remembering and not knowing what to do about it, that killed me that little more inside.

Confused and contaminated with all that had happened, made the pain soon turn to anger. God, I was so, so angry.

With Ivan.

With Maria and Mario.

With myself.

But more than ever angry with my mum and my dad.

Where were they when this was all happening?

Why didn't they ever protect me from such things happening?

My anger and my resentment towards my parents, became a reckless form of teenage vengeance.

I was angry, and I wanted the world to know that I was angry.

That numbness inside of me, that went into numb overdrive. There would be very few people who didn't feel the wrath of my teenage anger. There were few, who I didn't want to willingly hurt. I became predictably, an unpredictable bitch.

My pain became like a storm; wild and natural.

One day, I remember coming home from school, intent on wanting to make my father's day that little more eventful. He always kept me very separate from his life with his wife, but on this particular day, I was determined to shake things up a little. "I want to speak to my dad." I so boldly announced to my mum.

"Okay, call him at work, then." Mum casually told me. Yes, I could have called him at work. That was what I usually did. What I always did. But not on this day. Nope, on this particular day...I wanted to hurt him and his wife.

"No. I want to call him at his home?"

The look in my reckless and teenage eyes, appealed to my mother's reckless and adult eyes. "You know that your dad won't like this?"

Of course he wouldn't like it. I was about to step into unwelcome territory. Which was exactly, what the angry Mary Rose wanted to do. "He's my dad, so if I want to speak to my dad, I should be allowed to speak to my dad?"

Mum loved drama. She loved being thoughtless, so right away, she found my dad's home telephone number for me. "There you go." Into my hand, she gave me what I needed.

My heart raced, knowing that I was about to create almighty hell. With much impatience, I willed someone to just answer the damn phone. After a few more rings, someone did. "I'd like to speak to my dad, please?"

The woman's momentary silence, was what made me realise that she immediately knew who I was. "I beg your pardon?" Came her defensive reply.

"My dad, I'd like to speak to him, please?"

For what came next, not even my reckless and unpredictable self could have ever been prepared for. "Why you little tart, how dare you call him?! How dare you ring up and ask to speak with him, you little sl*t?! You are nothing but the daughter of that sl*g of a mother of yours! Don't you ever call here again...not ever!" The line, then went shockingly dead.

For all of my recklessness.

For all of my anger.

For all of my loathing...

....that woman's words cut me into tiny little teenage pieces.

Her hatred.

Her anger.

Her loathing.

It was more powerful than my own.

She hated me.

She didn't even know me.

She only knew of my existence....yet she profoundly still hated me.

Dad eventually called me, the following day.

He wanted to check that I was okay. He wanted to check whether the daughter who wasn't ever welcomed into that part of his life, really was okay after the vicious tongue lashing from his wife.

"I'm fine." I had unfeelingly told my father, before hanging up on him.

I wasn't fine.

I don't think I had ever been fine.

I didn't think I would actually ever be fine again.

All I kept thinking about was the reaction to me from my dad's wife.

To her, I was nothing but a low life because I was my mother's daughter. I was a low life, simply by association.

To this woman, I was nothing but a living and breathing problem.

Nothing but a living and breathing inconvenience.

Then I kept thinking about my life so far, and about all of the things that had happened in those fifteen years.

Maybe I was a low life?

Maybe I was a tart?

Maybe I really was all of the other horrible things that she had called me?

After all, I was damaged.

I had a sullied soul.

I only came into this world, because of an affair. Maybe my fate had already been sealed at the reckless time of conception? I was nothing but a tainted embryo, who grew into a befouled foetus, to be born as a blemished baby, to then become a contaminated child.

Maybe that was what Ivan, Mario and Mario all could see...a contaminated child?

Maybe that was why I found it so easy at the age of eight, to fondle Adrian?

I was dirtily different...and they all knew that.

Even dad's wife, she knew that as well.

At the precarious age of fifteen, that is what I came to believe.

I truly did believe that I was different, damaged and dirty.

Different.

Damaged.

Dirty.

That was the real Mary Rose.

That was who I had become.