The New American Dream

Part One: Before | Chapter Three

The next week I spent mostly in my room, locking myself away from everyone and only emerging for meal time or if I had to use the bathroom. Once more I cursed that I didn't have my own bathroom and had to encounter the rest of my family if I needed to use it. Subsequently I kept my bathroom uses to an absolute minimum.

The positive thing was that I always felt numb for several days after I had harmed myself, so I was at least not sad or any other emotional pain. Unfortunately this numbness also meant that I had no desire to do anything and by that I really mean anything. A lot of time was spent simply staring into nothingness and being physically aware of the numbness in my body, I was unable to do anything else. It's not like I didn't want to do anything else, it was just that nothing felt right to me. As soon as I started something I already wanted to stop again and after a while I didn't even bother wasting my time starting to do anything. Back to sitting around and intently staring at the pattern on my walls and ceiling.

If anything then I listened to music. Mom might have taken away my CD's and CD player, but I still had my Spotify subscription and a good pair of headphones. Rarely had I ever been more thankful for music, though I'll admit, I was pretty grateful for it on a daily basis. It stopped me from having a complete mental breakdown and that was enough for me.

I didn't even take a shower for several days until on day five I felt so gross that I dragged myself into the bathtub and scrubbed at my skin and scalp until my skin was red and I felt better. It took me a good ten minutes to untangle to mob of curly hair on my head that I hadn't brushed once since the beginning of this I was also painfully aware of the roots growing out; something that looked even worse when your natural hair was lighter than the color you dyed it to. A look into the mirror also told me that I had dark circles, even darker than usual, under my eyes and that somehow the green was shining less than usual.

My energy wasn't enough to also shave so I left that for another time and just pulled on sweatpants and a hoodie, there wasn't really anything else in my wardrobe that I wanted to wear anyway. All my band shirts were gone, leaving me with little room to work with and I was certainly not going to wear Lousia's clothes again.

Unfortunately the hot water also washed away my numbness so now I was left with a whole lot of anger again and that I didn't know what to do with. I decided to call Nate.

"Allie?" he asked when he picked up, concern filling his voice.

"Hi Nate," I said quietly, it was good to just hear his voice again.

"Allie are you alright? I didn't hear from you since Monday,"

"I'm... fine. Now anyway. Sort of..." I rambled. I felt a sting of guilt for not even having checked in with him after what had happened on Monday. I could have at least texted him and asked him how he was doing, surely he had gotten some sort of punishment from his parents.

"Did you get bad again?" he asked and I could almost see his eyebrows furrow in concern as if he was standing right in front of me. I would have liked for him to hug me but that sadly wasn't an option at the moment and would have to wait until the next Monday.

"You could say so..." I whispered, "Mom took everything. My jewelry, my merch, my CD's, my laptop..."

"What?" Nate asked outraged.

"Yeah, I was able to keep her from taking my phone and my art stuff but... I was too depressed to paint or draw anything," I admitted.

"What did you do then?"

"Sat on my armchair. Lay on my bed. Stared at my wall for hours. The usual."

A sigh came from the other end. "Paint something. Or draw I'm not picky. For me, yeah?"