Here I am again, lying on the ground with hands over my ears, making a feeble attempt to stifle out the sounds of the world. Inside my head, a cacophony is waiting for me, complete with babies crying, bombs exploding, lovers crying out for those they’ve lost. It makes me feel even more alone, knowing I’m the only one who feels this way.
Why am I crying this time? Who knows. It’s probably just a compilation of things – the escalation of a depression inside me, building up and overflowing the glass until it’s no longer just half empty, but empty all the way through.
My eyes are already swollen, squishing my lids together until my vision is only slits. The icy cold tears tangle my eyelashes in a sticky mess, and my eyeliner has to be completely ruined. But what does it matter anymore? I’ve been through this routine so many times in the past few days that I’m used to it by now. Even the pounding headache has been pushed to the back of my mind; the snot oozing out of my nose is a secondary concern. All I want is the way it used to be, but I have a feeling that’s the one thing I will never hold again.
Now, the world of my head has quieted, just like the noise of my sobs. I’m welcomed there – they know me far better than the real people ever could. Memories open up before me, and I unfurl the leaves one by one, surrendering to the beauty within the pain, embracing the contradiction my life has become.
He left me. It’s a simple sentence, but one to leave me gasping for breath every time I think of it. After all, this more than just a simple exit, a silent curtain closing on a peaceful performance – it’s a knife in my side, a slap to my face, adding insult to injury. He left me bleeding, panting on the floor, scarred from the verbal beating he ended it with. I wouldn’t describe that as a break-up. I’d describe it as murder.
Because that’s what he’s done. He’s killed every chance I have of going on, leaving no room for exceptions. I know it’s over-dramatic for a high school kid, but it certainly feels like dying to me. This wounded body can fight no more. I’m a victim of this pain, a slave to the longing for something I should no longer want. He’s destroyed our relationship, and he can never bring it back.
But that doesn’t stop me from wanting it more and more, allowing the wound to fester and burn without a bandage, crippling me with my own inability to choose. I go on for as long as I can until collapsing like this, vulnerable and utterly helpless, like a blind kitten mewling for her dead mother. He can’t come back – that much I know. But somehow, I keep wishing it had never ended in the first place.
I feel a resistance in my veins, a scraping at the edge of my awareness, bringing me back to the world I’ve been trying to escape. My mother’s face fills my limited vision, scornful and disbelieving. I don’t let her see the frequency of these attacks; most are hidden, disguised as best I can, so she won’t pull the therapist routine on me. But eventually, she has to see one, and if it’s bad enough, a lecture is sure to come.
So right now, I know exactly what I’m in for. She’ll begin with the yelling, the horrible screaming that makes me feel like Benedict Arnold after George Washington found out he’d turned traitor. Then, she’ll go for the “I’m so disappointed in you” part that leaves me begging for forgiveness, scarred once again by the pain I must be causing her with my own. After that, she’ll shake her head as a single tear widens the canyon between us, leaving both wondering why the other can’t understand.
I flinch, curling into a ball on the floor, waiting for the attack to commence, for her to get it over with. But no such thing occurs. I look up in confusion, wondering if she’s going for the surprise attack this time. But what I find in her crystal blue eyes – the ones she passed on to me, just like the rest of her features – is something very unusual.
Sympathy is not a common emotion in that face, but here it is now, so transparently real that she’s impossible to doubt. Though my mother is a talented actress, this is no act; she actually does feel sorry for me. The face of the mother she’s supposed to be strikes into my brain, and I recall the fantasies I’ve had of a parent who’s responsible, caring, and understanding. My mother has never been any of those things, so my mother fetish has grown and bloomed until it developed into an obsession. But now? She looks awfully like the mother I’ve been waiting for.
Neither of us speaks a word, and nothing needs to be said. A connection pulls gently at the corners of my mind, and I take hold of the end, making my amends to her in the best, most silent way I can. I feel her hands gripping the other side, and I know she feels the same.
The seconds float by, her eyes taking their time on my face, lingering on my smeared makeup and the circles of sleepless nights the black marks conceal. She’s finally realized how pathetic I am, but it doesn’t seem to be making her angry. Only sadness is portrayed, and I find myself perversely glad to see it there. For once, my mother is paying attention to me.
I know I should say something, but the appropriate words won’t come out. Maybe it’s okay to leave things like this for now. I’ll take this moment into the center of my heart, and bury it deep with my favorite memories of her, so I can bring it back once we start fighting again. As if on cue, as if she’s read my mind, she nods quietly, squeezing my small hand once to forgive me. I’ve finally achieved what I’ve always wished for.
With that, she stands and exits, her dress wrinkled with contact from the ground. I know she hates that, clothes-obsessed as she is, and seeing her risk the dress to comfort me is enough to bring tears to my eyes. But these are different than before – these tears are for my mother, and everything she’s been from the start, and everything I’ve never seen in her till now.
I’m not so hopeless after all.
*
