Ruby Red

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© Amber Kalkes 2014

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Picture of Ruby----} 

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I couldn’t sleep.

I never really could. It was symptom of the condition I had suffered with since I was a child. Mom said it was the reason they kept me at home. Why I couldn’t be around the other kids. Fainting spells happened often. So did the insomnia.

Sleep would have been to easy an escape. It seemed fate had other ideas about me keeping my sanity. So instead I was in the library of our large home reading a collection of Sylvia Plath poems.

‘I am terrified by this dark thing

That sleeps in me.

All day I feel it’s soft,

Feathery turnings,

It’s malignity.’

Yeah, that makes two of us.

I shut the book and toss onto the table beside me. My eyes sting as I close them, a sure sign that I need a nap at least. I’ve only been able to settle my restless mind long enough for eight hours of sleep over the last three days. It doesn’t help the tiredness or fatigue.

All I do is lay around, wide-awake, staring at blank walls. It makes me feel like a lunatic in an asylum. Like I should be in a padded room instead of the perfectly designed one mom and dad had recently redone for me as a seventeenth birthday gift. They had said I was almost a grown woman now and the room needed to be decorated as such. Honestly, I didn’t care.

All I cared about was sleep and not feeling so ill all the time.

A cough ripped through my chest, a new symptom. It burned my lungs and throat as it rocked my body. Painful was the perfect word for it. I look into the hand I coughed into and let out a sob. Blood. I have blood in my hand.

As if I needed to lose anymore.

I get up and walk out of the library into the hallway. A guest bathroom is down the hall so I tip toe my way in there knowing that if anyone saw the blood all hell would break loose. I’m the number one patient in this asylum and everyone wants to know how I’m doing.

I hate it.

I turn on the light and flinch at the bright whiteness of the room. Mom decided this bathroom would be based on a pearl. I didn’t see the logic in it but who was I to stifle imagination? I turned on the running water on the faucet at the sink. I stuck my hands under the chilly liquid and watched in fascination as my blood melded into it as it circled into the drain.

Once my hands are clean I splash some of the icy water onto my face and spread it onto the back of my neck. My face is flushed from the strain of coughing and my body feels very warm. The water helps but I feel a dizzy spell coming on which makes me sway at my feet.

I grip the counter so tightly my knuckles are the same color of the white marble countertop. I glance up at my reflection and study it hoping it’ll get the dots to go away from my vision. Maybe if I just focus on something other then falling onto the floor I’ll avoid the whole thing. Counting my breaths I look at myself.

My dirty blonde hair falls to my waist limp and lifeless. My eyes are no better despite their chocolate color. My skin in pale and my face is gaunt as I focus on counting the beauty marks sprinkles across my face randomly. I look down at my tall lanky body dressed in a pale pink silk nightgown and grimace. I don’t like pink but I don’t get out enough to pick out my clothes. Mom picks out everything.

The dizziness subsides and I let my shoulders sag in relief.

Still a bit unsteady I let go of the bathroom counter and back away from the mirror. I notice how sunken my eyes look on my face. The dark purple circles under my eyes really just highlighting how pale and tired I am. I turn away from the mirror and opened the bathroom door. There I am met with my worried looking mom.

“Ruby, are you okay, love?” she asks pulling me into her.

I nod. “Just a bit nauseous but I’m fine.”

She let out a shaky breath. “ I didn’t see you in your room. I got worried.”

“I’m fine.”

Mom looks at me with her dark green eyes and sighs bringing me into her embrace again. Her thick dark brown hair tickles my nose but her fragrance is comforting as I hug her back. She’s been a big part of my life since I was an infant. See, I’m not her daughter by blood. Her and my dad adopted me when I was a few months old. My mom had died in a car accident or something, I guess.

She quit her job to take care of me when I started getting sick. Now she uses her talents to decorate the house and slowly as I get older she’s been going back to interior design again. For that I’m thankful. I love her but the woman can suffocate me sometimes.

“You look tired, sweetheart.” She says running a soft hand over my dark circles.

I give her a small teasing smirk. “That’s because I am.”

Her face softens and she smiles a bit. I’m an inch taller then her so she lays her head on my shoulder as we walk back towards the staircase.  Walk up them and she keeps her arm wrapped around me which I know its so if I faint she can catch me. Believe me, it’s happened before.

She leads me to my bedroom and I sit heavily on my bed. I feel like my limbs are made of lead and I can’t find it in myself to pretend I’m not suffering right now. Instead I sigh while curling into a ball on my bed.

“Dr. Twill will be here tomorrow to give your transfusion, love.” She coos from somewhere in my room. “You always feel better after that.”

I nod and curl into myself. I do feel better after the transfusions so it’s good that the good ole doc is showing up. I hope it’ll stop the coughing up blood thing. That one is a bit too scary for me.

Mom’s feather like touch is soothing in my hair as she maneuvers herself onto the bed with me. She begins humming, “Once upon a dream” from sleeping beauty and I feel my eyes begin to get heavy as my breathing begins to slow.

I fall asleep and dream of warm liquid cascading down my throat. 

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A/N: WE LIKEY? CAME TO ME IN THE CAR WHILE DRIVING. GO FIGURE, HUH?