Missing Her ~ Ch: 7 & 8

Chapter 7 - I’m Miserable Because: I Hate

I stare at the wall in my new room, unable to write, unable to think. I feel so many things right now, but I don't know how to put them in words. It's like there's a deep pit inside of me filled to the brim with thoughts and emotions I can't begin to comprehend.

I've been here for a week now and it only confused me more. I miss my home, I miss my parents, my real parents. The ones who took care of me, who loved me. I knew I could ask them anything, but now I can't even talk to them, I can't see them. Even when 'after' I always knew they were there no matter what. Who cares if I couldn't talk to them, or barely saw them. They were still there. But now I'm in this new place, and there's food in the fridge, a comfortable bed to sleep in. I have what I need here, all the necessities. And I'm glad, I'm grateful. So many people don't have this who should, so many people out there who would kill for this and I'm the one who gets it. I'm the one who gets a second chance that I don't even want!

If I had the option to go back, I would.

But what if I didn't, what if I didn't want to go back. What if I sat here with everything I need while they continue to fight and argue. While they try, and fail to put their life together. I get all this because I left them. And I don't regret it. I don't. So why does it feel wrong, why does it feel so bad. I know what I want, I know what I want so badly it hurts but it's something I could never get and everyone around me knows it. I know it. Why do I even think, for a second it might go back to normal, it won't. It was all messes, even before I was born, before she was gone it was messed up. And I don't know how to fix it. I want to fix it, I need to fix it, because if I don't, I don't know what will happen to me.

My feelings and emotions are in a wreck. Everything I want, what I wish for, I also don't at the same time. It hurts my head so much, but more it hurts my heart. Because I want them, I want to be family, I want their love. But I also want all this, I want to be able to live, not just barely scraping by, I want to really live. I want to go places and do things. I want to be able to eat and feel full. I don't want to have to depend on others for things my parents should provide for me. I don't want to feel so…so.so guilty, for needing things. Because they couldn't get them for me, and so I have to ask someone else. I don't want to be that one kid who has to have a teacher, or someone takes them home because their parents didn't come pick them up.

I'm so tired of feeling lonely and responsible for everything. Like everything they didn't do is my fault. Like their fighting and keeping me up that makes me cry in school is my fault. I hate feeling like I'm always doing something wrong, and that I can never be right. I hate the feeling of betrayal I get whenever I think of them, I hate not being able to talk about anything. I hate that I can make jokes about bad parents, when I really just want to cry.

I hate that I can pretend I'm okay so well that sometimes I fool myself.

Chapter 8 - I’m Miserable Because: Of Hospitals

The name of the woman I met on the first day is Bethany. She owns this house, and me too - metaphorically. Not the house though, she actually owns that. The first time she approached me being here, I was in the kitchen. She didn't actually say anything, just glared at me with her icy blue eyes. They might have been pretty had the woman wearing them not been so cold. She laid down a piece of paper, looked at me one more time, - I like to think of that look as the 'asserting her dominance' glare -and then walked away in her six inch heels.

I listened for a while until I could no longer hear the click of her heels on the marble floor. I picked up the paper, wondering what it was, maybe a present, or an address to a new home. In reality it was a list of things I was expected to do. Like, make my own meals, or request them from the cook, -cook?- if I require anything, send an email to her asking for it, otherwise, get it myself. Some pretty basic things.

For the most part, living here is just like living back home, except there's no arguing. There's no sound at all. I might just not be used to it, but the quiet always seems so eerie. Not like somethings hiding behind that corner eerie, more like, frozen, stale.

My home had been the opposite. Lately, I had been feeling suffocated, like there was so much going on I couldn't take it. From the arguing, to the music to drown out the arguing, and then the headaches that just show up all the time. But before it had felt cozy, with the worn down couches, rugs on every floor, and paintings covering the walls. There are paintings covering the walls here too, but they're not the same. The paintings in my home were of sunflowers and bright vibrant colors. The paintings here are - like the walls - mostly white. Pictures of polar bears, and swirling light colors. There's only one thing in this house that I've seen that would belong in a normal home.

The painting was of a little girl and what looked to be her father. The girl's bright blue eyes lit up as she held a small fish in one hand. Her other arm was wrapped around her fathers neck, holding on tight. In return, his arm was wrapped around her waist. They sat on a log together and a vast lake stretched out behind them. The blue of it matched her eyes. So wide and blue, innocent and full of possibility and love. Her fathers eyes were the opposite of hers, instead being a deep brown. The kind you find only in people with wisdom and kindness. Even in the picture I could see the homeliness in his eyes. I could feel it right down deep in a corner of my heart where I keep only my most sacred memories and wishes. Unlike their eyes, their smiles are mirrors of each other. They smile wide and big, the only way to describe it is like summer itself. I swear I could feel a cool breeze gently kiss my face. I could feel the grass under my feet and smell the salt water.She was missing a tooth, I noticed, and still she smiled big.

I don't know how long I stood and stared at it, or when the tears had silently started falling down my face, but I still stared. Then I heard a clicking of heels sound in another part of the house, and finally turned my head away. My feet moved of their own accord, and my hand came up to wipe my face. As I moved, the sound of clicking heels faded and I was left with only my rugged breaths to accompany me.

                                                                 ~~~~

After seeing Bethany I began to wander around, nothing made me more restless than sitting in a room that didn't feel like my own for hours. My feet echo as I make my way down the hallways. A left here, a right there. All the doors are closed, and there are no archways leading into other open areas. It's like the house is closed off, and reserved. I'm at the back of the house, but no windows line the walls. The only light is artificial, coming from light bulbs above, and even they give off a stale glow. As I walk the house creeps around me, watching me, following. When I was younger I used to be afraid of hospitals. The way they reeked of death and loneliness.

I sometimes wonder if that is what I smelled like after Mayline died.

This house is like a hospital, it's full of broken people. I can hear the heart monitor, beeping away. It's unsteady, the pace fast and then slow, until it beeps so fast your ears ring and it's clear the patient is dying. This is the part where a doctor would come, try and revive the patient. Dorathy was my doctor, people often don't like their doctors. But even though the doctor had moved the patient to a better facility, where they should be able to recover, the beeping only steadies for a moment. And then it begins again, faster. And this time there is no doctor to save them. Beep, beep, beep. I look at everything, because I need to focus, so my heart will stop hurting, and my knees will no longer be weak. The smooth ceilings, the colorless walls, the doors that seem to go nowhere, the marble floor that swirls around and around in circles. My head is spinning, and I am falling. Beep, beep, beep. I grab out for the wall, trying to catch myself. I feel my fingers graze the colorless walls for a second, but that second feels like a million years as I reach. And then my finger is no longer grazing the wall, and I feel the cool surface of the marble as my body meets the floor. Beep... beep... beeeeeeeeeeeep.

                                                                        ~~~~

I don't want to open my eyes. I want to sink deeper into the soft sheets that hold me. I lay there, and breathe, in, out, in, out. But it isn't just my breath I hear, it's someone else's. There's someone else in the room with me. I open my eyes slightly, just barely enough to see the shadow of a person in the door frame. All the lights are off, the only thing illuminating the figure, a hallway light outside the room. Even in my woozy state I can tell it's not Bethany. The figure is too broad, their stance too relaxed as they lean against the door frame. As I watch them, I realize they are watching me. Our eyes meet just briefly, and I can see the blue in them even as they're hidden by the shadows. The figure reaches out, into the room, and grabs the handle. I watch the whole time, even as my eyelids begin to close. The click of the door isn't a door closing. Because as I lay there, eyes closing, sinking in the soft sheets, I know I was wrong. Dorathy is not my doctor, because doctors are supposed to know their patient, and save them. Dorathy is not my doctor, she did not save me. But maybe someone else can.