Chapter 2
2104 Words
The floor squeaks under my feet as I shuffle down corridors, winding my way back to my mother. Images of her broken body consuming my mind, smashing every other thought that flickers into my mind. Except…. The kiss.
The kiss.
Maybe I should feel guilty. My mother is dying and, where am I? Kissing random boys? Joking about death and storytelling?
I don’t, if you’re wondering – feel guilty, that is, this whole year has been a mess and I’ve got nothing out of it.
I’ve been alone.
Crap!
What have I done?
I don’t even know this guy’s last name or where he’s from or how old he is. I told him everything about this past year… well… maybe not everything but the important stuff and Oh My God what if he’s a murderer? What if he’s going to hunt me down and kill me?
I’m just scaring myself now. Wait is this my subconscious telling me to feel guilty because if it is it’s working.
NO!
I liked it.
I’ve got nothing to be ashamed….
Dad...
He stands alone in the darkened corridor, pacing. Back and forth. Back and forth.
I didn’t think he’d come.
My hair bows over my face as I walk towards him, arching behind my neck and plummeting down my back.
His eyes, big and brown look into me, fear seeping out.
“Dad…” barely a whisper moved between my lips before his arms consume me, suffocating me, drowning me in his tears.
A reunion muffled by sorrow.
“Has she… Has mum… Is there any news?” I stifle, pulling away from his comforting hold.
His eyes. His eyes holding mine. Bowing his head and whimpering a though a child. Trembles erupting from his body and shaking the ground beneath him.
My whole world is collapsing.
There’s nothing I can do.
“Dad?” My voice lost in the stampede of thoughts and noise that overruns my body.
“Mr Schanke?” A single pitch broken away from the rest “Mr Schanke I have some news on your wife.”
Mum.
The confusion of marriage a minor flaw in the statement, my father rushes forward thrusting his face in front of the doctor’s, afraid he may not hear the news if he became further than a few feet away.
“Please… Please be alright…” He murmurs under his breathe, desperation taking a hold of him.
I rush up beside them eager to hear news. Any news. But the blood pumping in my ears deafens me. Singular words only catching within my ear.
“major…damage…surgery…coma…suicide…”
Coma.
One word that would deafen me permanently. Not life or death but trapped somewhat in the middle. An endless sleep.
Mum.
What have you done?
Mum, what have you done?
The world spins around me as my father’s hardened hands guide me away from the harsh fluorescent lighting out into the darkness.
Air. All around me. Air.
I gasp, breathing the freshness inside of me, drawing me in a fantasy, far, far away.
I hope to never return.
Unless…
Unless, Zak….
Will he even care?
I have nothing. And while all I know about the boy I met today is that he is dying, at this moment in time I can believe he has everything.
Everything I’ve ever wanted.
Is he even real?
This perfect man with a head like the moon and eyes like shining stars.
He can give me everything.
My head melts into the softness of familiarity.
My Pillow.
My bed.
My home.
No.
I don’t have a home anymore.
My dad’s home.
With Joanne.
Her name rouses me, a fighting beast within.
She does not belong here.
“mum!” I sit up in bed, streetlight floods the room creating an orangey glow.
“I’m here sweetie. I’m here” A soothing voice.
A voice I know.
A voice I love.
But it's not my mum.
Will it ever be her again?
Drifting back down, I fall.
A continuous struggle through the night.
Tossing and turning.
I am lost.
My mum didn’t just try to kill herself when she drove into that wall, she tried to snuff the light of her family out as well.
Unimportant as we are.
Dawn breaks and the shadows of the night disperse.
Leaving me. Alone. Again.
Climbing out of bed is a momentous task taking up to 10 minutes as I finally drag myself away from the comfort of the covers.
A cold breeze blows over me, casting a map of Goosebumps across my body. The floorboards creak under my weight as I stumble down the corridor and into the bright and bubbly scene of the kitchen.
Joanne stands, frying bacon on the stove, the smell of dead animals creeping towards me.
“Darling you're up” her falsehood sickening “would you like some bacon? I made it specially.”
“I’m a vegetarian” I state bluntly, turning away and reaching into the cupboard for some cereal.
Coco pops.
Great.
My dad forgot that I’m not six anymore.
I pour a handful into a freshly washed bowl and sit it down in front the window seat.
“Aren’t you going to join your dad and me at the table this morning?” Joanne chirps as she sets the bacon into a bowl and carries it towards the table “I thought it would be nice to have a family breakfast.”
“you’re not my family” I whisper under my breathe and taking a seat looking out onto the world below.
People pass, their own lives painted in a multitude of colours, trailing behind them and masking the day ahead.
What will their day hold?
I spoon dry coco pops into my mouth, concealing the permanent taste of blood that lives within my mouth.
There’s a woman with a fancy hat.
And a man walking his dogs.
Children running up the street.
Playing.
Unaware of the tragedy life holds.
I wonder what I would be doing right now if mum hadn’t have done what she did.
Sleeping in my own real bed?
Watching a movie in the early hours?
Looking up topics I will be studying this year, ready to get ahead?
I know for certain that I definitely wouldn’t be sitting here thinking these thoughts.
Heavy footsteps enter the room, snapping me out of my haze.
“Not having bacon sweetie?”
“I’m a vegetarian… remember!” I snap turning to face their stunned faces.
“That’s just a faze you’ll get over it…” my father hastily remarks.
“A faze! A faze! Because I don’t agree with the stereotypical norm that it’s okay to eat animals because they are not human, they can’t talk, they can’t feel…. Etc. Etc. etc. I am in a faze!” I scream into their faces. “Why is everyone trying to control me? To confine me? To smother me? I don’t agree with you people! I barely know who you are anymore” tears streaming down my face I collapse in heap, curling myself away as though an armadillo would. Shielding myself from the world.
"I don’t think the problem is with you being vegetarian…” my dad timidly states “Honey, I know it’s a hard time for you, as it is for all of us, but we are going to get through this.”
“Will mum?” I look up from body cage burning the question into his mind.
“I really don’t know baby but whatever the outcome is remember that I am here for you. Always.” An afterthought perhaps but still spilled out into the wreckage of words and promises that lie ahead of me.
Reminds me of yesterday.
A day that appears so distance in the past that it is barely an inkling.
The boy who heard my story.
Where is he now?
What is he thinking?
Does he know I’m thinking about him?
Is he thinking about me?
I have to see him.
I have to see my mother.
“I want to see her.” The words crawl out, displaying themselves to the world.
Silence drifts in and out of the three bodies stood, motionless, in a flat’s kitchen, time ticks by before the only male within the collection bows his head and whispers “we’ll go when you’re ready”.
Swiftly I slide off the window seat’s ledge and onto the floor, making my way across the room I drop my now empty bowl off at the sink and scuttle from the room. Careful to avoid the two pairs of eyes pinned to my body.
Sliding into the bathroom I close the door behind me. A slight bump quivers through the flat. Then silence as I strip, voices appear, murmuring through the door. Too quiet to hear what was being spoken but too loud to ignore.
I stand.
Solitary.
A mirror reflecting the curves and graces of my body.
My scars.
Maybe other people can’t see them but I know they are there.
Cutting straight to the bone.
All the suffering I have condemned.
Voices raising.
Louder.
Louder.
Switching on the shower I climb straight in.
Eager to drown out the noise.
Icy water burns my skin as I stand.
Silently screaming into the water.
Alone.
I am all alone.
My name is surrounding me. Creeping into every inch of air. Suffocating me. Burdening me with the life.
Life.
And death.
I’ve nowhere left to hide.
I’ve nowhere left to run.
I’ve nowhere…
I’m no-one.
As the water heats it tingles over my skin.
Red dots spreading down my body.
The shower pressure bruising me.
Marking me.
Claiming me.
Clambering out of the shower I separate myself from the deadly thoughts that belong there, flushing them down the plug-hole and into oblivion.
I can’t be my mother.
I can’t do that to the people around me.
Wrapping a towel around me I seep into its warm and comforting grasp. The arms of a mother.
The mirror is misted.
My view clouded.
Using the corner of the towel I draw a clear star in front of my face.
Now.
I am a star.
I laugh.
The gurgling splutter that regurgitates from my mouth causes concern from outside the room.
Muffles turn to shouts and soon banging as their desperation increases.
“Vienna? Are you alright, Vienna?” questions burst through the door knocking me down.
“I’m… great” I gasp, thinking back to Zak “I’m not dying” causing a great bough of extend from within me.
“I think you should come outside…” my father suggests, great worry woven into his voice.
I open the door gasping at the sudden draught of cold air and pushing past the two frozen figures, faces disfigured in confusion.
I stagger towards my room.
Pausing only once to turn back and disclaim “I’ll be ready in five minutes” before sauntering into the clasps of safety.
Away from the hounding questions of my father.
My room reeks of childhood joy.
Something that will never belong with me again.
My childhood poisoned by an act committed by my mother.
Breaking every good memory with my mother into a distant dream.
Something to fight towards.
Yet it will never return.
I don’t know who I am anymore.
Who I want to be.
Where I want to go.
How can I continue…
Like I am fine?
Like everything is normal?
Nothing is ‘alright’. Nothing is ‘fine’. Nothing is ‘good’.
My mother tried to kill herself and probably because of
Me.
It’s all my fault.
And I will never forget it.
- Writer
