Damsel Distressed (26 page)

Tears are streaking my face, and my phone is slipping over my skin.

“And you disagree?”

“Yeah, I do.”

In a wave, I feel the heat of anger and resentment wash over me.

It comes on so quickly that I feel light-headed as my temperature rises.

“Even if you manage to have it for a moment, who says you get to keep it? I mean, the way I see it, I had happiness once. And she was smashed across a highway by a semi-truck. So don't tell me that happy endings come to those who're looking 'cause if anyone deserved a happy ending—if anyone had done everything right—it was her.”

“Imogen, why don't you come in and see me. I can clear my schedule for you. Just come on by.”

“I don't want to see you, George. I don't want to see anyone.”

His voice dwindles to nothing as I pull the phone from my ear and disconnect the call.

I turn my ringer off and shove my phone under my pillow.

I sit on the edge of my bed in the dark for a long time. Hot, fresh tears roll down my cheeks, and my body is trembling again, wracked with great heaving sobs.

Outside, the compassionate sky has dimmed. The white clouds that blocked out the sky all morning hang heavier now. They seem to press down on the space above my head, as if every raindrop they're holding onto is just waiting to fall once my tears run out.

I felt proud for standing up to Carmella with an army behind me.

An army of people who should have known better than to align themselves with someone who doesn't deserve them—someone who has written and thought horrible and senseless things about them in the moments she couldn't control her feelings.

I get up from the bed, and empty candy bar wrappers fall to the floor. I've all but emptied my secret sweet stashes. I've eaten from the stockpiles under my desk, in my sock drawer, in my rarely worn dress shoes, and now, behind the books on my shelf. I reach behind the few paperback novels I keep and grab the last of my treasures. In a few chomps, it's gone.

As I stand in front of my bookcase, a shiver passes over my skin that has nothing to do with a chill. An old itch that I instantly crave to scratch.

All of this anger and sadness. All of these tears. They've been forced on me. I didn't choose them, and I can't contain them. I didn't ask for this life. I didn't ask for a dead mom and a disease I can't control. I shift my eyes to the painted picture frame, and once again I reach up and turn it face down.

Sorry, Mom. You wanted a girl who could do it all and be it all. You wanted beauty and talent and compassion and strength, but you left and you just took it all with you.

How could I ever be those things now?

“Those are the things you were supposed to teach me.”

The sound of my voice in the quiet room seems to trigger the falling rain.

I listen as it falls against my window.

I can't control all of the hurt and rage.

But there is a pain I can control.

My breathing slows, though the tears don't, and I reach up to the top shelf. I pull down the storybook full of fairy tales. She read it to me so many times, I'm sure I could still recite the whole thing.

I collapse on the bed with my book. I hold it to my chest and smell the worn pages. I open it and see the secret hidden there.

On the inside cover, in a neat little square, boxed with bright colors, my mother wrote,

“For My Happily Ever After
,
‘The End' is just
the beginning!”

I run my hand over the script, but her ink is not the secret I seek.

I trace my way down the page and wrap my fingers around the cold, sleek metal.

The single blade I've been hiding gleams in my palm.

Just one cut. I just need one.

I push up my sleeve and run my finger across the six faint ridges.

The metal on my skin is cold, and I press. Press. Press.

Until I'm in.

I can't explain the feeling.

It hurts. Of course it hurts.

But it's
my
hand that's doing the hurting. My pressure, my force, my will.

My teeth are gritted together, but my trembling has stopped. It's not like I wanna die or anything.

But I want control over my pain.

I want to know that the stinging and slicing isn't being inflicted upon me, but is of me…It is me.

The second I stop, shame fills the wound.

I look down and press my hand against my arm. I try to press it back together.

I swore I'd never do this again. But…I also kept a blade.

I pull my sleeve back down.

I slide the steel back between the pages and drop the book on the floor.

I reach under my pillow and retrieve my phone.

Three missed calls and twice as many texts.

I knew it was only a matter of time.

Grant's first text says,
“I'm not happy right now. But I also need to know you're okay. Tell me you're okay.”

His second seems more urgent.
“Gen. Your car is gone, and if you went home, fine, but please let me know.”

And then there's one from Evelyn.
“Honey, are you okay? George just called my cell and told me you were upset. I'm on my way home. It will be okay, honey.”

No.

It's not okay. And I don't want you to come rushing in and throwing out words you don't understand, Evelyn. I'm not your daughter, and this isn't your problem.

I turn off my phone.

I swallow a pill.

I fall back onto the bed, arm pulsing with pain, and it all crashes over me again.

And I let it.

No resistance.

No false strength.

The wave of my grief bears down on me and begins to pull me under.

I don't struggle. I let it pull me down into the deep.

26

M
y consciousness ebbs and flows. I try and ignore the bodies and voices that come in and out of my room. I wake when the rush of fear and anger fills my head, which reminds me to take another dose. I register only broad brushstrokes of feelings before weariness and grief and chemically induced calm come again to claim me.

I know it's Tuesday because I hear the trash truck drive down our street before the daylight has even crept in. Grant came last night, but I didn't respond when he shook me and begged me to wake up and talk. I wanted him to be angry and to hate how broken I am. I wanted him protected and rid of his most toxic relationship. He started out softly. He said soothing things from the edges of my room. I listened as he paced, his voice and demeanor changing with each word I refused. He didn't touch me. He didn't sit beside me.

He only walked, back and forth, until finally, his voice splintered and cracked with anger and hurt.

Maybe, if I push hard enough, I can give you the distance you've always deserved but never been brave enough to take
.

I lay with dead weight on my pillow until he left.

Even as the space between us grew, his steps dwindling into the absence of sound, my whole being wished for him to prop himself in his regular chair and whisper into my darkness. I felt like a magnet, reaching for its match until it's pulled just a millimeter too far and then it reaches for nothing at all.

He didn't stay.

Stupid, worthless bladder.

I open my door without making a sound because, even in the worst of times, a girl's still gotta pee.

I take one silent step before the bathroom door swings open wide, making me jump.

Carmella is ready for bed.

We stare for a moment, but say nothing. As she stands there, I stand here, until I manage to pull my foot back in my room.

“I'll hold it,” I mutter as I slam the door shut.

The next time my eyes open it's dark outside, and the time after that, it's light again.

Wednesday. I peek under my hair to see that Evelyn has cracked my door open. Beside my bed are three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I roll my head the other way and sob into my pillow.

How dare she try and comfort me? Mother me? She'll never be my mother.

I don't have a mom.

I have two women who should be or could be but won't ever be my mom.

Both of them have no idea who I am.

Evelyn has only ever known me as a disturbed, sad, broken thing.

And my mom only knew me as a tiny, mirrored bird. I never had my own song to sing; I only mimicked hers.

She wouldn't recognize me now. She never would've wanted a daughter who hurts herself more than she helps herself. She never would've wanted a daughter who cries more than she smiles.

I wish she were here to comfort me. She might utter sweet shushing sounds and tell me it would be all right.

She'd be lying, but I'd take it.

Because that's what daughters do.

They believe in the hopes and dreams, however false, their mothers have for them.

I hear Evelyn in the hallway. She's talking to my dad on the phone. She's telling him that she's not sure what to do, but that the doctor said a few days wouldn't be out of the ordinary.

She tries to convince him to finish his trip and not to come home.

It sounds like he agrees.

I wish I felt surprised.