I was my mother’s best kept secret. Unfortunately that meant that when she passed away, my origin story passed away with her. I’ll never get to hear about my beginnings from the source. What I know of my birth story is only what I’ve gleaned from my adoption file. 

⺣⺣⺣

8:00 PM CST / 9:00 PM EST, Me (27F): How’re the Cubs doing tonight?

⺣⺣⺣

Maybe it was due to me being born a secret that I became so good at hiding the real me. Beneath the surface of the happy, bubbly athlete and leader was the truth. Behind the mask of perfection and achievement was the dark, snarling Beast just waiting to be released.

⺣⺣⺣

9:00 PM CST / 10:00 PM EST, Me (27F): It must be a close game

⺣⺣⺣

Most babies are born into a room full of joyful people. A doctor guides the child safely from the womb into the bright light. An exhausted mother cries tears of joy upon seeing her child. She happily hugs the baby to her chest, feeling the heart that beat inside her for so long finally beating outside of her body. A father smiles down at both of them, beaming with pride at his whole world, lying there in front of him.

I was born into an empty room.

⺣⺣⺣

9:10 PM CST / 10:10 PM EST: Something familiar stirs deep within me and I try to maintain control. I exit the messaging app and navigate to Google. Cubs vs Cardinals score, I type.

4-2 Cubs, bottom of the 8th. 

The game will be over soon. 

⺣⺣⺣

When I was born, there was no doctor to catch me, no one to make sure I arrived safely into the bright, cold world. There was no father amazed at the miracle of my birth. There was not even a friend or grandmother there to provide support and care. I was forcefully expelled into the world with no help. It was just my mother and me, alone in her apartment.

⺣⺣⺣

9:20 PM CST / 10:20 PM EST: He doesn’t care about you. A mean, cold voice whispers in my mind. He’s probably fucking someone else right now. If he loved you he would answer. The voice is picking up speed now. I try to reign in the thoughts, but they spread like wildfire across a dry brush. How fucking hard is it to reply to a text message? That takes zero effort. He’s a piece of shit. Fuck him. You should probably just dump him anyway. The more the fire in my mind rages, the harder it is to keep on my mask of perfection. I can only tolerate the pain of this mental burning for so long.

⺣⺣⺣

There was no comforting cuddle session. She did not try to latch me to her breast to be fed. She did not take proud pictures so she could share the news of my birth with her family and friends. Our time together was on a ticking clock from the moment I drew my first breath. 

⺣⺣⺣

9:43 PM CST / 10:43 PM EST: I refresh the page. 

4-2 Cubs, final score.

Updated 12 minutes ago.

⺣⺣⺣

Too soon, my mother gathered me in her car and took me to the hospital, requesting a social worker when she arrived. “Are you sure about this?” the social worker asked. 

⺣⺣⺣

9:44 PM CST / 10:44 PM EST: In an instant, I am no longer in control. The mask is off. The Beast’s fiery red eyes blink open as if awakened from a death-like slumber. 

Hello?? She roars, announcing her return.

⺣⺣⺣

My mother wasn’t sure. “Think it over. I’ll wait to file the paperwork until tomorrow,” the social worker responded knowingly. 

⺣⺣⺣

9:45 PM CST / 10:45 PM EST: The Beast is foaming at the mouth now and time slows down. It has been an eternity since she’d gotten a response and the radio silence  feeds her aggravation as if poking a bear.

⺣⺣⺣

I waited for her to come back. I yearned for her smell, her voice, the warmth of her body. Each minute seemed to stretch on for days. I was all alone here. The one person in my life that was supposed to protect me had left. Surely, I would die here under these fluorescent lights. 

⺣⺣⺣

9:46 PM CST / 10:46 PM EST, The Beast: Wow. You’re just going to ignore me all night? I KNOW the game is over. What are you even doing that you can’t even respond? 

⺣⺣⺣

I waited for two full days. It might as well have been an eternity. She never returned. At first I cried, shouting and protesting my abandonment. If I screamed enough, surely she would hear me and come back to me. Why was she ignoring my pleas for her?

⺣⺣⺣

9:47 PM CST / 10:47 PM EST, The Beast: Fuck this and fuck you. You don’t even care about me. Adrenaline pulses through The Beast’s body and she feels almost giddy. It feels good to be free. She relishes the satisfaction and comfort of her righteous anger. Who the fuck does he think he is? The Beast will not be ignored. She will not be left here to die alone. She tears through all of his social media accounts, and his friends’, too. Surely she will find a clue as to his whereabouts. 

⺣⺣⺣

When I realized she wasn’t coming back, something inside of me broke. I grew quiet. What was the point of crying out? There was no one to hear me. Was I not worth sticking around for? Was I not good enough?  

Questions that I couldn’t verbalize molded themselves up into a tiny egg-like ball of anger, pain, and rage. It nestled itself deep within me and lay dormant within my body, waiting for its moment to hatch. 

⺣⺣⺣

9:54 PM CST / 10:54 PM EST: He’s not going to respond. It’s over.

9:55 PM CST / 10:55 PM EST: The Beast grows quiet. She has done her thing, pleaded to be noticed, and still no response. She is gone as quickly as she arrived, returning to the deep place in my body until she’s released again. 

With her retreat, the adrenaline drains from my body and in its place, shame quickly spreads through my bloodstream, reaching my every cell. 

How could I have been so impulsive?

I don’t deserve to have a boyfriend, anyway.

I am nothing.

Surely, this will be the time that he leaves me.

I lay in my bed, staring at the wall, feeling desolate and depressed. Sleep will elude me until I hear back from him. 

10:10 PM CST / 11:10 PM EST: Finally, my phone rings on my nightstand. 

“Hello?” I say, resigned to the fact that after this conversation, I’ll be alone. 

“Hey. Are you okay? You texted me like 20 times.”

My voice falters as I try to think of an explanation for my behavior. “I … I was just scared,” I say in a mouselike voice.

⺣⺣⺣

The Beast lay dormant until the summer after I turned 17. I sat on my boyfriend’s bed sobbing as I broke things off with him, not because I didn’t love him but because I was convinced he didn’t love me.

“I just feel like you’re mad all the time,” he said. Words that would remain etched in my mind for the rest of my lifetime.

I hung my head. I didn’t understand what had been happening the last few months, but I had learned that there was a darkness inside of me, one that spurred white, hot flashes of rage that I couldn’t control. How could anyone love someone with an ugliness like that inside of them?

⺣⺣⺣

“Scared of what? What are you panicking about? Like where is the fire?”

The question is humiliating. In the aftermath I know how crazy I’d seemed. I know how much I’d jumped to conclusions. I know I had failed. I had lost control. I tried so hard to keep The Beast hidden, but yet again, she had shown her fierce, ugly fangs. 

She’s gone now and in her wake is left a small girl, waiting for her punishment. This is the moment I’ll be left, because I can’t be good. 

Where is the fire? I understand the question and the implied metaphor but I struggle to find the answer. 

I think about how The Beast’s fiery red eyes had blinked open and how I’d been powerless to stop her. I think about how good it had felt to let her out. How do you explain to someone that the fire is within you?