Porcelian Lies

Trying to be Happy

    A string of curses slipped through Vanessa’s lips as she slid the cigarette out of her mouth. She rolled the burnt stump between her slender fingers, her eyes focused on the embers trickling down to the concrete; with a sigh, she flicked the rest of it to the ground, without a second thought, before opening her car door. She quickly threw her purse and the rest of her belongings into the passenger side, pretending she didn’t put a giant scratch into the ceiling with her keys as she did it. She threw herself into her car next, with barely any more care than she did with her purse. The car door was quickly slammed behind her, and the key was thrown in half hazardly. This day isn’t going my way, is it?

    Vanessa sat there for a moment as if she was unsure as to what she supposed to do next; it would be to drive home and continue out with her day. But something seemed to be holding her frozen in the spot, hands on the wheel, yet still sitting in park. Her eyes fluttered closed as her vision had grown blurry and she was met with the soft stinging of dry eyes. She glanced down at her arms, marred with the scars of the past, it's already that day again, huh? 

    Six years. Six whole years. Vanessa’s knuckles grew white as her hands tightened around the steering wheel, nails digging into the leather just enough that there would still be small crescent marks there tomorrow. Her eyes watched as the scarred skin struggled to stretch around the fragile flesh and bone. Her hands began to tremble as she swore she could almost hear the crack of the windows and the shrieks of pain once more. Vanessa swore, even to her therapist, that if she closed her eyes, she could still feel the fire licking away at her arms, feel the heat on her face, and the heaviness of her body as she was dragged away.

    A sigh fell from her lips as that same old emptiness filled her once again; where her eyes held nothing as did her heart. The only thing that she felt was the emptiness, mostly in her stomach. It felt as if her heart was continuously falling into her stomach, with no end. This feeling first began gnawing away at her when she found out that it wasn’t just any old person in the car that night. But Michael. The chills that scratched their way into her bones when it was realized that she was the last person he ever spoke to before he threw his car into a guardrail going over a hundred miles an hour., and they have yet to leave.

    It took her months to be able to close her eyes without hearing the screams or seeing the flames eating away at her. It took even longer for her to be able to sleep without the guilt circling her mind; it was the realization that she could have saved him. She ran through their last conversation over and over again, if she had just seen what he was asking for, what he was all but begging her to realize. He had opened out his hand, hoping that a single person, just one, would be able to see the pain he was in. How he wanted to get away from it all, and all she did was tell him he was alone. She knew he was pleading for something, and if she had realized it, or even gave it more thought, maybe even reached out to him afterward… maybe he would still be there.

    Vanessa was trapped inside of the hospital for a while, making sure that no infection would set into her hands or arms. The fire had ripped away most, if not all, of her skin; the doctors must have been miracle workers for the way she was able to look now. But it had taken her even longer to go back to school once she was released by the hospital. After being discharged, it took over two weeks for her to step through those doors again; it wasn’t until her best friend, Natalie, had finally forced her to go. Since she threw herself into the fire that day, everyone had treated her differently. It was like they no longer viewed her as a person, but more of a spector. They were scared to say something that would upset her, or make her angry; some truly didn’t know how to have a conversation with someone who had third-degree burns over her arms, ones that she kept covered by long sleeves and gloves. So, everyone had simply stopped talking to her. All the friends she thought she had simply melted away leaving her with only Natalie by her side. It seemed like she was cursed to live the life that Michael had left behind. 

    During those first couples of months, she hated him. Her hate grew with every friend she lost, with every grade that dropped, and every stare watching her walk down the hallway. She couldn’t believe he had been so selfish to throw all his pain onto her; at that time, she could even hear him laughing at her, telling her to enjoy the painful life that he chose to leave behind. That he was the one that scarred her body because she wanted to save him but far acted far too late. He didn’t want to be saved anymore. She was so angry for such a long time. It turned her bitter, not only towards people but towards life in general. She stopped trying to make friends when she moved onto college, stopped trying to date, and stopped trying to help others. As if trying to help him live that night, cursed her for the rest of her own.

    Six years ago, and her eyes were still damp from the words that he spoke to her that day. She has long since forgiven him, and herself for what happened that day, but that did not mean that she has forgotten about what he said. Though that was really the only time they had spoken, he had been more honest and open with her than he had with anyone else. No one was ever that honest with her; he spoke to her softer than anyone ever had. Once all the hate and bitterness towards him, and herself, melted away, those words kept her moving on. She needed to keep living, not just for herself but for his memory. She needed to be happy, happy enough for the life that he had chosen to leave behind.

    Stay Happy stained deep into her flesh, constantly reminding her to carry on. She got the tattoo on her left wrist four years ago. It was more painful than any other tattoo since she had gotten since it was right on top of the scar tissue. The scars became a permanent reminder to her and everyone else of her ‘heroic’ act. Those scars never saw the light of day for many months; close to a year had passed before Vanessa was able to feel comfortable with her burn scars showing in public. It took her a long time to not only get used to the stares and wondering questions that came along with the scars but it took her even longer to be comfortable with them on her skin, and even more, time passed before she felt confident and beautiful once again.

    She knew that many people were confused about how she let a boy, one that she barely knew hurt her so badly. Some people even thought that she was faking everything and that she was just looking for attention. The last thing she wanted after the incident was more attention. She wanted everyone’s eyes off of her; the news sat in front of her house for a week hoping to get an interview. She looked at Michael as everything that could have been, she could have saved him many different times, but she ignored the signs or acted too slow. She could have saved him if she just talked to him more, made him see that while this life wasn’t easy, it had its moments. That if she had listened to his words more instead of throwing them to the wind, or even just catching up with him later in the day, then maybe he would be alive. She was the last person he spoke to and she didn’t even realize it. She didn’t know a lot about him before that day, but she knew that he was in pain and reaching out. That she turned her back on him. 

    Once she saw through the end of the tunnel and allowed herself to be happy again that is when she finally got the tattoo and since then, every time she has broken down and fallen to her knees, those words ring in her head. A sad smile crept on her face as she allowed her finger to dance over the black ink; tracing each cursive twist, every dip, and every bend of the exquisite penmanship that after time and time again, she has never been able to recreate to the exact perfection in which it lives in her memory. 

    Vanessa let out a deep sigh and let her head fall back against the headrest; reaching over to grab her own guilty pleasure out of the pack that was sitting in the center console, her eyes fluttered shut as the cigarette was placed between her lips. A smile crept its way onto her lips when she felt her thumb race down the spark wheel, igniting a small flame that would allow her to finally breathe in the smoke. It was something else she picked up from the boy who ran away, one that she has never tried to stop. She began craving that burn that twisted down her throat and the way it spilled out of her lips like all the words she wished she could have said.

    Within six years, everything had changed for her. She no longer was living with her parents back in that small hometown where everyone knew their story, as it was now twisted together in the small cross by that guardrail, but in the city of Boston. The slightly grimy yet beautiful city that she had run to leaving everything in her past was slowly becoming her home, the only thing that remained was her name and the woman who seemed to stick by her side through everything. Once that graduation cap was placed on her head and the diploma was in hand, she was gone. Natalie agreed and with a quick goodbye to her parents and they were off to a two-bedroom apartment in downtown Boston.

    Natalie had very quickly agreed and a part of Vanessa felt guilty for dragging her across the country to a new city. Natalie always felt a need to help protect Vanessa after the whole event; whenever people would start talking about her or ignoring her, Natalie would always step up and push them back down. She would squash the rumors and the whispering, or at least she tried to when Vanessa was around. So when Vanessa asked her to move away with her, she didn’t want to guilt Natalie into coming and Natalie swore that she always wanted to go to college together, but there is would always be 

    Guilted to or not, the two moved within a month of graduating and Vanessa blanketed the reasoning behind a four-year college. Although everyone knew she was trying to escape the guilt and whispers that always crawled up her back. She quickly threw herself into her school work and any job that she could find. For the first couple of years, she worked on her campus in the library. She wrapped herself up in her accounting classes and her books. Once and a while she let Natalie drag her out of the apartment but it never stuck. Most nights you would find Vanessa in her room, reading or writing, or sometimes on a rare occasion, she’d be watching tv. But with class, most of the time she was just doing homework.

    Soon undergraduate was over yet Vanessa still refused to go home, she hid and that small guilt in Boston until now. She enrolled in a forensic accounting master and has once again thrown herself into anything, just trying to make herself happy. It wasn’t like she was miserable or unhappy…she just wasn’t happy. There was no spark in life, nothing that really kept her going. She was just going, to go. Because she felt like she had to for Michael. She was moving through the motions, and it wasn’t like she wasn’t trying to be happy…she was trying her hardest to be happy. She enjoyed what she was studying and found it incredibly interesting but under all of that, she knew she was just hiding away from home and the accident. 

    Her master’s program was almost over and she still hadn’t decided what she was going to do, which isn’t completely uncommon for people at this point in their lives. But most people don’t dread it when their mom asks them to come home for the weekend. She was dabbling around with some job offers, maybe she’d take a part-time as a professor, or just throwing herself into a doctorate in forensic accounting. Ya know, hide away from home a little more. Maybe until she could find a job out here, just so she really doesn’t have a reason to move back home. Although, right now she was trying to get past midterms coming up in a couple of weeks. 

    All she knew about the future, for sure, was that tonight was one of those nights were she let Natalie drag her out of the house. Natalie ‘invited’ or forced, Vanessa to come with her out to dinner along with her and her boyfriend Court. While this would be awkward being the third wheel, Vanessa was pretty used to it by this point; the pair had been dating for the past two years or so. But this time she wasn’t supposed to be the third wheel, it was suggested that Vanessa bring her own date, like a double date. That made it a night out for her, which she only agreed to do three times a month, and that was exactly why she was strolling into this double date without a date.

     The smoke left the car in jagged spirals as she pushed the smoke out of the corner of her ruby red lips. She flicked the dead butt out of the window, at some point she had started driving, but it seemed as if her body was on auto-pilot tonight. She wasn’t happy to be going on this date in the first place, but this night was definitely not her night, and it just seemed to be getting worse by the minute. Her professor was fourteen minutes late to the class with a pop quiz in his hands, and since he was late and no one seemed prepared for the exam, according to him, that meant that they had to stay an extra forty-five minutes. On top of it, she had worked before class so she smelt like straight stale coffee.

    Her right hand reached into the center console hoping to quickly grab a new cigarette. She hummed in annoyance when her fingers were met with an empty carton; the desire to look over and check was gnawing at her, her addiction clearly showing its ugly head. Her foot slowly pressed down on the break as she grew closer to the red light; as soon as the vehicle was stopped her head whipped to the side only to see that she was correct, she had finished the package. Her mouth hung slightly open, but no noise came out, she simply stared at the empty container with the right corner of her lip beginning to twitch in anger. 

    “That’s just great.” Vanessa sighed as she harshly pressed on the gas pedal once the green glare filled her vision. She let out a strangled aggravated groan as she punched the steering wheel; her speed was increasing with each second she allowed the anger to consume her. Her pedal pressed up against the floor of the car she sped down the highway with no remorse. Her speed reached way over the limit, one could even say she probably hit three digits. A headlight on the side of the road caught her eye and she slammed down on the break. Making her entire car lurch forward, her body all but smacking the steering wheel.

    “f**k” She hissed as she went by the cop, at the correct speed limit but the damage might have already been too late. She had just been drag racing herself down the highway late at night. She watched in her rearview mirror counting the very milliseconds waiting for those cop lights to turn on. Yet, she continued cruising along at the speed limit without any interruptions much to her surprise. 

    Vanessa closed her eyes for a second as she took a deep breath to calm down and when she opened her eyes she saw a sign for the exit for Boston up ahead. A small smile tugged at her lips. She would just call and tell Natalie that she couldn’t find a date, she wasn’t feeling good, and she’d meet her back at the apartment later. Take a nice hot shower and maybe watch a movie, find a good book. Yeah, that sounds lovely. 

    But all nice thoughts vanished in the blink of an eye when her car thumped down into a large pothole, followed by a familiar thumping noise began to come from outside of the car. This night really couldn’t get any worse; she put her right blinker on and slowly pulled over on the shoulder taking deep breaths trying not to explode. It was probably just the tire, she’d fix it, and she would be on her way. She closed her eyes, and took a deep breath, she put on her hazards before bending down to pull the lever that popped the truck, turned off her car, and harshly threw open the door. 

    Her heels instantly slipped on the wet pavement as soon as her feet hit the ground. Her feet had slipped out from underneath her and she smacked the wet pavement very ungracefully. Her head flung back and hit the door of the car. She rubbed her head as she sat there for a moment, sprawled out like an i***t leaning against her car. Vanessa’s head screamed in pain and she slowly picked herself off of the pavement, holding on to the door for dear life.

    “f*****g heels,” Vanessa grumbled as she reached down to take off her heels; once the annoying fashion statements were off her aching feet, she flung the heels into the passenger seat, lucky she didn’t break the window as they hit it with a bang. It came a little close for comfort to shatter her window, but logic was so far out the door right now. She slammed the car door shut, “f*****g dress,” she mumbled as she straightened out her dress that had gotta bunched up and muddy in the fall.

    Vanessa has had enough flat tires in her life to know what it sounds like when she gets one, she bent over to check the first tire, but to her surprise and relief, the tire was perfectly in shape. She turned her head to glance at the back tire, hoping that her ears were wrong, but lo and behold, her back left tire was flat. She must have hit the pothole pretty hard in order to f**k up her tire that bad. She took a deep breath and then slowly made her way over to the tire, praying that it was just the angle that made the tire look flat. Bending down, she confirmed all of her fears. 

    “Are you f*****g kidding me?” Vanessa groaned kicking the deflating tire with the bottom of her foot. A sharp pain followed by a deep throb filled the pads of her feet. Vanessa let out another frustrated scream as she flung her arms into the starry night sky without care. 

    Grumbling to herself, Vanessa stormed over the backside of her car to get the jack out of the trunk. She quickly lifted the hood of the trunk and raised up the carpeted flooring to reach the spare tire. Her father made sure that she knew how to take care of herself, and she knew that she’d be back on the road in about fifteen minutes or less. But life just seemed to have a blast making her a joke as instead of the jack and spare that she thought she was going to see, there was nothing. Just an empty space where the tire should have been, but there was nothing. She stood there for a moment holding onto the trunk staring at the empty space, completely flabbergasted.

    “Where is my tire?” She asked herself, her eyes glaring a hole into her trunk. She let out a soft snarl as she tried to remember when the last time she needed to use her spare was. “Where’s my hitch?”

    Vanessa’s eyes went wide in rage as she began focusing on the trees in the distance trying to calm herself down enough to try and think logically about this. It took a couple of minutes to get through the blind rage, but she finally remembered that she had given her spare to Natalie when she got herself stuck out on route sixty-six a couple of months ago. She had forgotten a spare so Vanessa just drove out and used her since they had similar cars. 

    “f**k her.” Vanessa sneered as she slammed down the truck door, her body clench at the sound. Vanessa let out a harsh chuckle, as she couldn’t help but imagine how pitiful she looked standing out there in the rain, kicking and yelling at her car. She rubbed her temples as a headache began to fester as the throbbing in the back of her head only seemed to get worse.

    She slowly made her way back over to the front of the car; she needed to get back in the car and out of the rain.  She needed to call Nat, it may ruin date night but there was not a drop of remorse in Vanessa’s body, there was no way she would sit out here while Nat got to go eat dinner. Her hand gripped around the handle and quickly snapped it, but it didn’t budge. Her eyes went wide as she tried to yank on it once more, but to no avail; she grabbed the handle with both hands and yanked one more time. Still nothing.

    “This can’t be happening,” Vanessa whispered softly as she rested her head and both hands against the window peering inside. For a moment, Vanessa’s entire body froze, and all she could hear was her heartbeat thumping in her head. There were her keys, sitting on the passenger seat along with her heels. She must have accidentally thrown the keys when she threw the heels in rage. A soft blinking light in the console dragged her eyes away from her keys and she watched as her phone vibrated in the cupholder. Nat’s face lit up her phone, yet all she could do was sit there and listen to the vibrations against the plastic. 

    She just stood there, her forehead pressed up against the window of the car, for longer than she cared to admit. She just couldn’t find the energy inside to do anything but wallow in her self-pity for a little longer. This night had gone from bad to worse and then even worse after that. If she hadn’t been so angry when her tire popped, she never would have thrown her keys in the car, she really needed to work on that. Sighing, Vanessa finally pushed herself off the car and walked back to the truck. In a normal situation, she could have climbed into the trunk and pushed her back seats down, but she, once again, was so angry that she didn’t think of anything besides that rage. With another sigh, she propped herself up so she was sitting on the trunk looking up at the stars.

    “Well, at least things couldn’t get any worse,” Vanessa mumbled just begging for karma to smack her in the face, just begging for a murderer to walk out of the woods at this moment.

    She just had to hope that Natalie would notice that she was extremely late and come looking for her or at least get help. There was nothing else that even made a little bit of sense, since walking down a major highway this late at night without a flashlight or a weapon was just begging for trouble. She let her eyes flutter shut as she was able to lean back against her car, but it was cut short when the mist of the rain began to fall harder. Her eyes shot open as that one small bead of water rapidly turned to thousands.

    The overwhelming feeling of defeat seemed to overcome her. Each inhale, a frost seemed to overtake each vein in her body; it was as if she could trace every single vein starting from her lungs out to her very fingertips. Her throat burned as the cold air invaded her body. She opened her lips as if she was going to say something, but sad laughter filled up her lungs and slowly trickled out of her lips as she could feel the rain smearing her makeup like they were tears. Her lips began to tremble as she kept telling herself it was the rain pulling her knees into her chest. The rain danced off of her as if she was just another something in the dead of night that broke down and couldn’t find the energy to run away.

    The sharp piercing sound of sirens caused Vanessa to jump; her head shot up seeing a cop car pulling up in front of her. “Great, now I’m gonna get arrested.” She rolled her eyes as she pushed herself off of the trunk.

    She slowly made her way over to the car, at this point she was just giving up, her entire body shivering; she hadn’t realized the rain that soaked through all of her clothes. Her arms quickly found themselves wrapped around her torso desperately trying to keep warm. Maybe he would quickly arrest her and throw her in the back of his car. At least it would be warm, so she hoped. The tires finally came to a halt, after a moment the siren stopped, and the lights no longer flashed, yet the headlights were still trained on her. The gravel crunched as a large older man slowly made his way out of the driver’s side door. It took her a moment to realize that he had something fairly large in his arms; her feet halted as the man made his way towards her. She no longer believed she was shaking from the rain.