The Insanity of a Wallflower

Deserve- XXVII

I remembered being carried out of a vehicle. I was helped to the ground, stumbling but held firmly against something. I fought when we got to the door, trying to break out of my stupor. I didn't want to be home. Mom was here. I couldn't be here. Please...

But the room smelled different. Familiar. Stale cigarettes and washer detergent; it was the motel room I had paid for. I groggily remembered a voice harassing me to say where to go. I wanted to tell it to shut up and let me sleep longer, but knew that would end with being yelled at. That someone had smacked my thigh again until I grumbled a place.

Sleep strangled my mind again and I was out like a light. Until the movement of being carried out of something and towards another stirred my thoughts again. I was unceremoniously dumped in a bed. I opened my eyes long enough to realize an annoyed man glaring down at me. Aw, yes. Hayden. I smiled softly. He could keep mom away. He could keep them all away.

"Scary bastard." I murmured groggily into my pillow.

I was commanded to fall asleep, but the light had already faded from my eyes. The rawness of my mind finally found peace and quiet instead of the two days of nothingness that blared its echoes into my skull. I scooted closer towards the warmth that had settled in beside me and let a sputtered sigh take me away.

The last thing I felt was a soft pressure on my cheek. A warm breath stirred afterwards.

The fear of that letter seemed so far away.

.

.

.

I stood silently, fingers outstretched and pressed in to the cool stone. My eyes were closed firmly, yet I was still more than aware of what was around me. My feet had waded into a river of obstacles containing paint buckets, spray cans, and hundreds of brush sets. I had removed my shoes for this reason and had tiptoed over the mediums around. But now I stood still as I pressed the tips of my fingers a little harder into the wall; locking the joints further. The tremor still remained.

He was coming home...

He was coming home...

Harder I pressed my fingers against the wall before me, harder the joints strained. Finally I collapsed forward, pushing my forehead against the chilled surface. "You're okay." I whispered forcefully. Right? I knew I was well rested, and it helped, but yet this new day only brought clarity; crystal clear memories, of all that had happened. And all that was going to happen.

Remember Alys, Doctor Hathaway's words always seemed to guide me, forged into the back of my skull to remain when all else was lost, Don't let it take over. Don't keep the chaos inside of you. You have to let something out, you have to breathe or else no sanity will remain.

Tears swarmed my eyes as I reached down and grabbed a spray-can. I slammed my other palm into the stone again, fighting my own mind as I ground my teeth tightly. My eyes rose, red and raw, and scoured the stone pane above me.

I could see it there, so easily, so wretchedly. The faces of those around me, the echoes of the nightmares that would never cease. I could see all their faces; all the bastards that destroyed the one peace, the one friend, I found since the accident. I could see it all; the truth, the unfathomable simplicity that eluded the rest of the world. But I would catch it. And I would make it come alive.

The base colors left my hand in a frenzy of orchestrated movements. The tick within my fingers jolted with joy as I squeezed the can tighter. I paced the bottom of the mural, bending high and low, straining my shoulder blades and arching my back as I traced colored lines into incoherent blueprints.