what hurts the most (open) (london)

The woman stood there staring out before her, across the expanse of wavering grass and shook in anger and sadness, barely containing her surpressed sobs. For out in that field, that expansive yard, stood a man and his wife smiling widely and embracing each other as they watched the young three year old toddler stumble over the land. The young child who would walk along, laughing and happily playing with her toys as she was watched by her loving parents. The young child who had never known her true parents or even been held by either of them. The young child who was amazingly healthy given all her biological mother had gone through in her lifetime. The young child who shared both this spying stranger’s hair and eye color and looked so similar to the stranger when she had been the tender age of three. The stranger stood there a distance away, hidden by the shadows of the trees and found herself nearly becoming a neurotic mess as she watched the girl who was her biological daughter, Jami.

This pain hurt with a fury of which Seraphina had never felt the likes of except in moments like these involving Jami. She could feel the stinging of the tears in her eyes and felt it as finally the dam burst, silent tears rolling down her cheeks as she shook in silent fury. They had taken her baby from her, her only child. She had never even held her baby as the nurses and doctors as the hospital had deemed her too ‘unstable’ to be a fit mother. Therefore Sera had lost custody as well as none of her own adoptive family had been able to take Jami in for various reasons. Jami had been put up for adoption against Sera’s will and had been adopted only mere weeks later, sending this woman into a spiraling depression.

She could remember the one and only time she had visited the home in which Jami lived, adopted by two loving people. It almost made it worse knowing they adored and worshipped Jami, as Jami would definitely grow to love them and never even know Sera. The single instance she visited their home was at their invitation however once she was there the couple had acted wary and cautious the entire time, not even allowing Sera to cradle the babe in her arms. They had said she cried when held by strangers to appease Sera but it an obvious cover up. However the bit about being a stranger had also broken her heart further still. After that instance she had never returned to see her daughter again except in secret as Seraphina doubted she could handle another experience of conversing or socializing with those people. They had been ‘nice’ by sending pictures and updated emails about Jami the entire time over the past few years. While these had spurred Sera to focus on her studies and research it also had also made her depressed to see them, knowing she was missing everything in Jami’s life.

Seraphina had taken seven years, one spent coping with her depression and grief, but finally had finished her degrees in both psychiatrics and molecular biology. She had worked as a lower pay-grade researcher in a scientific lab hoping especially to someday, hopefully soon, find a breakthrough with the cause or a more efficient treatment for DID, dissociative identity disorder, commonly referred to as multiple personality disorder. Which Seraphina herself struggled with. Currently however she worked on the vaccine to the virus, and additionally had to hide the fact that she had been mutated from her job and especially her country, the USA, which had become a hunter country, out to get them all. Her disorder had been the reason she could not have kept custody of her own child, her alternate personality, Gwyn, had some rather violent tendencies and the doctors hadn’t even known the half of how deep those tendencies went or how serious they were.

Turning away furiously, Seraphina retreated back within the safety of her sapphire colored car and sped off, back towards the center of the city. Before she knew it she found herself parked before the red brick building of a bar within the city limits, finding comfort in the present fact that she could find the perfect source for aid in her situation, alcohol, within its walls. She wasn’t an alcoholic by any means but it did often help take the pain away in certain situations, like now for instance. Calming her breathing to only slightly haggard breaths she wiped at her face, clearing off the currently unappealing makeup and applying some fresh eyeliner and blush. She climbed out of her vehicle and headed inside, perching her jean clad rear upon a bar stool. She was wearing a deep green v-neck blouse paired with a dark pair of skinny blue jeans and didn’t care what anyone thought of her appearance, especially at the present time.

Eventually the bartender was standing before her and yet it took the man several moments to gain her attention, as she was dazed and lost in her thoughts currently. Blinking up at him a few times she sighed and mumbled out her order for a beer. It wasn’t strong alcohol yet it was something and it was what she was in the mood for. Sitting there she quickly wrapping her hand around the glass of the bottle as the bartender set it before her.

The reason for her trips to the neighborhood where that couple lived were so that Seraphina could potentially catch a few glimpses of her daughter, who was hers in nothing but genetics as of now, much to her extreme dismay. Tossing back a gulp of her drink she ran fingers through her golden hair before spinning upon the bar stool and leaning with her elbows upon the bar top, her hand clasping the glass white knuckled as if she placed it down her life would shatter further. Sighing she had an instinctual feeling that Gwyn might present herself later on that night but for now she was still Seraphina, personality and all. For now… How long had it been since she had last ‘blacked out’? From her estimate it had been around three days, a rather long time for her to not have an episode. The episodes and blacking out were what Sera called it when her alternate personality, Gwyn, emerged and took control. The only reason she even knew half of what happened when Gwyn was on top was because both of her personalities jotted down important things in a journal.