"There she is! My favorite youngest daughter. How was your trip? Did you take the bus?" My mom wrapped me up in her arms as soon as the door opened.
I breathed in the familiar scent, a sweetness from her hairspray. "It was fine Mom. I took a cab." She shook her head. "I could have picked you up if you'd just asked."
A pang of guilt filled my chest as my heart fluttered. "I know. It was fine though, a really quick ride."
Her gaze softened. "I'm just glad you made it here safely. There are so many stories on the news lately about crazy drivers. I'm your mom, I worry about you."
I could feel her concern as her eyes trailed every part of me. Checking for a reason to worry. "I know, mom, I promise I was careful."
She gave me a tender smile. "I believe you, sweetheart, but that won't stop the worrying." She kissed my forehead, and I could feel her lip gloss stick to my skin.
As my mom's embrace enveloped me once more, warmth washed over me. "Rachael's going to be coming up tomorrow with Sam. They couldn't find a cat sitter for today, and you know how much they love that cat."
I swallowed, my hand struggling to pull my arm out of the tight coat sleeve. My mother continued talking, oblivious to my shaking frame. It would be easy enough to blame it on lingering rain.
"Drew is just out with your father right now. Are you alright with the guest room? I have it all set up for you."
I nodded, making my way to the coat closet. I move in a sort of trance. This isn't the home I grew up in, but I've been here enough times to follow the layout with my eyes closed.
I hear her voice from the kitchen. "Are you hungry? There's some leftover pasta in the fridge. I just put it away, but you can just reheat it in the microwave."
"I'm fine. I ate before I left." She nods, turning on the hallway light. "Do you want a glass of wine? I have a white in the fridge, I picked it up at the store today for you."
There was a part of myself that wanted to say no. To avoid the possibility of allowing myself to loosen my lips. But I'm weak. I'm weak and I say yes before I even realize it has passed through my lips. It's in my hand before I can change my mind. I'm tasting it before I can even try to stop myself.
It's bittersweet. A burn that finds me in the same fashion as darkness does. An old friend. Only this one takes hold of my throat from the inside rather than outwardly.
My mom smiles, a glass she holds out in her hand. "Cheers!" Her smile is bright. It always has been.
Returning my mother's smile, I clinked my glass against hers.
The sound of their meeting reverberated softly around the kitchen.
I wordlessly followed her to the couch, sitting next to her as she muted the television. An old movie silently flashed across the screen.
I pulled my legs up beside me, my frame quickly shrinking beside her. A reminder of the tiny human she created.
"So, how's work?" I subtly looked away from her, praying she wouldn't read the lie as it flashed across my face. "It's good."
"Have you talked to your manager about that promotion? Four years is a long time to not move up in a company."
My eyes still avoided hers. "Yeah, he said he'd talk to the higher-ups. See if I can be next in line when something opens up."
I don't remember when the lying started. Or when it became so simple. As though everything I spoke would eventually make its way into honesty.
When I realized how easily it was to be believed once trust was built. How no one second-guesses somebody they love.
Love doesn't lie. Why should it? It is unconditional. If it can never break, why would you ever fear ending up in pieces?
She smiles, the brightness becoming a taunt. "I'm so proud of you." She squeezes my arm, and I can feel her long nails against my skin.
"Thank you, mom." Her hand flattens, rubbing up and down against my skin. "Your father and I both are."
I nod, my eyes tracing the slight movement of the wine inside the glass. "I know." I lie through my teeth.
The words taste more bittersweet than the drink ever could. The burn it brings up as it spills from my throat.
Her hand removes itself as she reaches for her wine glass. She takes a sip before speaking. "How are you for money?"
The absence of her hand against my skin leaves behind an echo of longing.
"I'm doing fine." She nods before taking another drink. "And how have you been feeling? I got worried when you stopped answering my calls."
The lines are easy to read between. The words unsaid are in bold. Hard to miss when you have the story memorized.
I nod, pausing to fill my mouth with wine. I quickly swallow it down. Holding back a wince. "Yeah, I've just been busy."
I look at her, her eyes tracing every part of my face. "I'm sorry," I add, my mouth forcing itself upwards.
Her gaze probes me, searching my face for signs of the truth that I physically cannot speak. In her eyes, I see a flash of disappointment.
It disappears quickly. Hidden behind the squint of a smile. "I'm just glad you pitched this. It's been too long since we all got together like this."
I take down more of the cool drink. The liquid refused to quench my never-ending thirst. "Yeah, I missed you guys."
It's a partial lie. I never realized until this moment how much I had truly missed the woman in front of me. A reflection of my physical being.
The reflection breaks the illusion, stroking my hair. "We missed you too." Her eyes are full of adoration. An unearned reward for coming here tonight.
Everything she's given me is unearned. Privileges I'm never able to discard from my mind. A feeling of filth where there should be gratefulness.
"Are you sure you're doing alright? You know I've been looking at therapists near you, your dad and I would pay of course. So you don't have to worry about money."
I wish it was about money. I wish that one of the many therapists I've visited on this earth had made some monumental breakthrough for me. But I've had years to realize what it is to be realistic. To sit on the third office couch, and learn how to lie to someone outside my family for the first time.
"I swear I'm doing fine. I promise I'll let you know if I need to go back to therapy." I don't need to go back. I'll never go back.
As she looked into my eyes I prayed she couldn't see past them. Couldn't see the endless thoughts that passed behind them.
"Alright, I trust you. Just know that we're always here if you need us." Her hand rubbed along my back like it's done throughout my life.
Her touch, familiar, grounded me.
It scared me. The thought that it was keeping me tethered to a place I wanted to escape from so badly.
I finished my glass, pushing myself up from the couch. Her hand slid off of my shirt, landing on the couch.
"I think the rain stopped. I'm going to go get some air. Maybe see if I can catch up with Dad and Drew."
I made my way to the door before she could stop me. Opened it before her words could register. I was halfway down the street before I realized I had no coat.
The chill was jarring but necessary. A reminder that there was safety in pain. As long as I was the only one getting hurt.
I found the car in a school parking lot a couple of streets down. A light was illuminating Andrew as he sat in the front seat reading.
I opened the door and he didn't even look up. He just stared at one singular part of the page as I sat in the passenger seat.
"That was fast. The visit isn't going well?" He slipped a receipt in between the pages, shutting the book carefully.
I took a deep breath, the taste of wine still on my tongue. "It's just a lot. Moms are a lot. She just keeps walking in circles with her questions. I'm so glad I never wanted kids, it seems like hell to never stop worrying about this being that you've created and spent eighteen years trying not to fuck up."
He leans back, placing the book in the backseat. "I think my mom just had a kid because she thought she had to."
With a heavy sigh, he leaned against the seat. "As though her life wouldn't have meaning if she wasn't a mom. But she's still not a mom, a mom is someone who loves you, she's just someone who had kids." He looks over at me, his cheek pressed against the seat. "You have a mom. I just have a woman who gave me life."
As the car sat still in the lot, Andrew's words hung heavy inside it. He turned, his eyes staring at the ceiling. I joined him, my eyes tracing the unmarked interior. It's as though we're stargazing without stars.
I made imaginary patterns up in my mind, my gaze following every twist and turn. The sound of his breathing is all I can hear.
The sound is gentle, the rhythm falling into time with my heartbeat. White noises in the expanse of black.
I heard him press the button before I watched as the light disappeared from inside the car. His hands lay atop his stomach as he relaxed into his seat.
I find myself mirroring him. My back finds the seat, my hands intertwining on my stomach. We're not reclined, just both sitting up.
The quiet is not lonely with him. I don't hear the voices right now. We're just sitting in intimate silence.
I try to find his mother's face in the ceiling. I wonder if she had his eyes. If he sees them every time he looks in a mirror. Have I ever seen him look in a mirror?
Did her hands shake like his? Was the first cigarette he ever smoked stolen from her? Does he smell her every time he lights one?
I traced his silhouette with my eyes, trying to find a part of him I hadn't memorized. A piece of him I don't know yet.
Every moment that passed I searched. Yearning to find a newness in him. Proof I could say I don't truly recognize every molecule of his being.
It was in vain. The memory of his hair underneath my hands. Every single piece making its way between my fingers.
If I had the time I would count them. I would drive myself deeper into insanity to know that I had a number for every single strand that passed through my hold.
"Are you sure you're going to be fine here tonight?" My fingers wrap tightly around each other. I can hear him laugh as my gaze returns to the blank ceiling.
"I can't say I wouldn't love to wake up with the family. See how the nuclear side lives. Watch you make your tea."
That comment makes me turn again, and I find his eyes on me. "Why would you want to watch me make tea?"
"Because I want to see how you make your tea. You always make it when I go out for a cigarette." With a faint smile on his lips, he continues. "I want to see what kind of mug you reach for, how much milk you add, sugar, how long you leave the bag in, the order you make it in."
His finger taps against the back of his hand, as he breaks my gaze. Returning to the safety of the blankness.
"I've noticed on your really bad days, you don't make tea. I want to know exactly how you like your tea."
His eyes come back home to me. "So if you're having a bad day, and can't leave the bed. You'll still get your tea."
His words sound like a vow. A promise that he'll only have to keep temporarily. But my heart falters like it'll last a lifetime for him.
A silent prayer makes its way out of my mind. Begging anything that hears to break this curse I've somehow put over him.
I repeat it like an incantation. The words never change. The silence never gives way to the scream I want to release.
The words are kept prisoner within me. Too afraid to release them, lest they come true. And he finds a way to leave me.
I cling to our invisible threads, praying he won't realize I've had scissors the entire time. That our tethers were never meant to be permanent.
They aren't made of steel, they are tied poorly around our wrists. He could slip out if he just angled himself correctly.
"Please try with them." His words break through the screaming silence. "I'm just asking you to try. It's my item, I feel like I have a right to ask how you complete it."
I hesitantly nodded as he continued. "I want you to try to learn to live again with them. You don't have to love every moment of it. That's not what this is about."
I met his eyes, sinking into their depth. "Just try to live through all the bad. And love through all the good."
I absorbed his words and was startled when they continued. "It's okay to be fearful. It's what makes us alive. If we don't experience the bad, we'll never know how good the good can get." His hand reached over the center console, finding mine on the other side. "It can get pretty good if you just wait for it."
I found myself squeezing his hand as I felt it shake above mine. The movement stopped with the pressure.
The connection was fleeting as I removed myself from him. I reached for the door, pausing as I gripped the handle.
I prepared myself to face the cold once more, the shiver already making a home in my bones. The frigidity reached my spine.
I took a deep breath, the smell of cigarettes a welcome guest in my body. The smokey taste of him a memory burned in my mind.
I couldn't see the smoke, but I could feel it. I could taste it as though it still lingered on my lips. It wrapped itself around my very being. Refusing to leave.
I stepped into the darkness, the chill replacing the warmth of him. My fingers absentmindedly traced my hand, as though I could wipe away the feeling of him on my skin.
As I traveled further into the darkness, the cold night air seeped through my clothing. With each step, I felt Andrew dissipate more and more.
He was the smoke. Disappearing with the wind, but lingering on every piece of myself. No matter how I scrubbed, he would always linger.
His very presence would haunt me like an addiction. An addiction to the taste. To the way he makes me forget. To the way he makes me want to remember.
I realized quickly, as my steps faltered, that there was now an illumination to my journey. His headlights shone my way through the darkness.
The light also illuminates a man, hunched over in sidewalk grass. He was murmuring something to himself, his words having no discernment to them.
I froze, my hands flexing beside me. His face was sunken in, his eyes moving rapidly from nothing to nothing to me.
As his eyes fell on me, they were wide. His mouth continuously moves through words that shouldn't go together.
He speaks of death. Of the government. Of a flaming bird that trails him. Most words I can't catch.
He's so out of place among the residential homes. His pants were torn and muddy, his lips cracked and his skin pale beneath the aggressive headlights.
I hear two quick honks behind me, and I find myself back in the car. The lock pressed down as I watched the man from the windshield. His eyes were unblinking.
"Oh my gosh." "What? Are you okay?" Andrew asks, his eyes rapidly trailing me as he carefully moves the car forward.
I shake my head, my eyes refusing to find the man in the night. His image refuses to leave my mind. He has replaced the smoke.
"No. I'm a horrible person." Andrew nods slowly, his eyes trailing in the night. "Okay. Why?" "I just looked at him like he was a monster, I can't believe I did that."
"What? Did you know him?" My head shakes once more. "No. But I could've been him." "You know that's not-"
I cut him off. My words are quick. "No, it is. I always feel like I'm one wrong move from becoming that person."
As the car slowly rolled forward, the encounter with the man haunted my mind like a ghost. Andrew's concerned gaze attempted to break down the walls, but they refused to fall.
"I'm one episode away from it. And I just treated him like he was the enemy. We're on the same fucking side. We're fighting the same war, he's just some POW or something, being tortured for just trying to protect himself." "You're not a bad person for being scared of him. People are scary when they're like that."
We're stopped in the middle of the road now, the world frozen around us. "No. Being sick doesn't make us predators, it makes us prey."
I spoke into the stillness of the night. "Easy to pick off. To get lost without anyone even noticing we're gone."
My voice broke, and I struggled to repair it. "Curing the world of yet another sick individual. Committing some form of sick justice."
I found acceptance in Andrew's eyes. He didn't argue with me. He didn't say anything more. Just nodded his head and continued driving.
I swallowed my emotions down, wiping my eyes with my hand. My heart is regaining its regular beat.
My breaths stopped feeling like a struggle, instead allowing my chest to rise and fall without much thought.
It was easy to fall into that hole I had made my way into. The thought that a hundred years ago my home would be an asylum, and it still could be.
The idea that if my mother knew my thoughts, she'd be dialing that number once more. I would be taken away into the night.
If I stayed, I could see myself falling into insanity. Sleepless nights letting in the voices once more.
My heartbeat will begin to sound like knocking beneath a floorboard. I'll contemplate how someone could make their way into my home, and sleep with a knife below my pillow once more. It's not a distant enough memory to give me comfort. It trails in my rearview mirror permanently.
Security would become an unknown occurrence. Sleep would become a terrifying idea. I can't protect myself when I'm sleeping. They come when I'm sleeping.
Andrew wouldn't stay for the insanity. He wouldn't stay for the evil that comes out of me when I live like that.
I wouldn't want him to stay. To find out exactly how intrusive my thoughts can become. How there's always the fear that I'll hurt those closest to myself if the delusions return.
How it seems every bad person in history had something wrong with their brain. How thin the tether seems to always be.
I'm not sane but I'm not mad either. I'm somewhere in the purgatory in between. Constantly floating between the two.
Andrew's voice breaks through the ether. "You can get out whenever you're ready." We have stopped a couple of houses away, enough of a distance to pretend he never existed.
I take a tentative step out, my foot freezing on the pavement below. "It's not you, you know." "I know."
I sigh, shutting the door behind me. I make my way to the door, feeling his eyes on me the entire time.
My breaths are deep, attempting to take in all the oxygen I can before giving in to the suffocation.
There's nothing for me to reach for as I sink into myself. As I became lost inside the small girl I thought I'd never see again.
The darkness wraps itself around my wrists, taunting the scars it finds there. Digging itself into the once-broken skin.
Its hold tightens the more I struggle against it. It's easier to give in. To remember how lovely its words can sound when sung so melodiously.
I surrender to it, allowing the numbness to seep into me. The feeling was more loving than the fear ever could be.
I sink deeper into it, my eyes adjusting to the darkness. Finding beneath everything there is always nothing.
The journey is aimless as I travel through the endlessness. There is no edge to this. No risk of falling deeper than I already have.
There is no such thing as time when I am here. No past to recall and no future to dream of. Only the nonexistent now.
It's a peaceful drowning. That moment of having your oxygen cut off and feeling only deliriousness.
I can't see the land from where I'm sinking. No light breaks through the depth. It's only me and the darkness.
It's a solitary existence when I'm like this. But it's easy. It's easier to drown when nobody is attempting to throw you a ring.
The void embraces me in a way no one else could. Its hold on me is tight and unrelenting. Refusing to let go no matter how I used to struggle against it.
I reach for the doorknob, the numbness having a full hold over me now. All feelings are gone from my mind.
My movements were mechanical, the twisting of the doorknob barely registering in my brain. Everything felt subdued.
I was detached. The darkness does not allow anything to fully register. It was as though my brain was moving in slow motion.
I felt exhausted. But I knew sleep wouldn't greet me for long tonight. It would just be me and the darkness keeping each other company for hours.
I braced myself for what awaited me on the other side of the door. The fallout I would cause as I brought the darkness into my parents' home.
My heart felt heavy in my chest. I couldn't even feel it beating anymore. The weight is the only reminder that it still exists.
I stepped into the bright home, my mother's eyes losing their shine as she saw me. She could feel it. She loathed the darkness as much as I loved it.
The darkness was proof I was sick. Its constant returns are proof that I'll never get better. My embrace of it is proof I'm not sure I ever will want to.
I've accepted it as a part of myself. I can't kill it without killing the entirety of myself. You can't love me, without loving every part of me.
When she grieves me, she'll be grieving the darkness. And if the darkness survives, it will make a home inside her.
"How are you feeling?" Her words are careful, cautious atop the glass shards. All she receives in response is a shrug.
I can't talk when I'm like this. It's as though the darkness is suffocating me from the inside. Threatening to let itself out onto others if I open my mouth too wide.
I make it halfway up the stairs before she speaks again. "Your brother's here, do you want to say hi?"
I hesitate, my hand gripping the railing. Eventually, my head shakes, my eyes refusing the stop looking ahead.
I let out a slow breath. My chest tightened as I reached the top of the stairs. I stood in the dimly lit hallway for a moment, until, with trembling hands, I pushed open the door to the guest bedroom.
It greeted me with a soft glow from the bedside lamp. It felt strange to be in this familiar unfamiliar space. I lowered myself onto the edge of the neatly made bed.
As I sat there, the room seemed to pulse as an ache made a home in my head. The faint scent of detergent mixed with the mustiness of disuse. I ran my hand over the soft duvet.
The room was still, the faint sound of a television turned up way too loudly traveling from downstairs. Proof life existed outside of it.
A mirror on the back of the door reflected me in it. I avoided her eyes. They were so hollow and dark.
Instead, I allowed my eyes to travel across the room. I had slept here before, but it did not feel like a home for me.
I longed for my room. Numbness feels much better when you're alone. When the guilt of it didn't eat me alive.
When I'm alone, I can sink into the numbness. When I'm here, I have to pretend as though I'm trying to keep my head above it.
The quiet solitude of the room is nice, but I'm forever on edge. Waiting for my mother to check on me. To hear how small her voice can get.
Bracing myself for the inevitable. Refusing everything she offers me. My stomach will pain, but I don't hunger for anything other than to be alone.
When I hear the floorboards I will pretend to sleep because it's easier. It's easier to deal with the silence than to face how I hurt her.
I would lay there until I heard the door click. My breaths come out even and deep. Lying to her without even speaking.
I would lay in the darkness, hearing her slow steps. Listening to her as she paused to watch me. Swearing I could hear her breaths continuously catch in her throat.
Praying she didn't touch me. Her delicate hands always managed to burn my skin. To leave me wanting to melt off the portions that would always feel her.
My phone buzzes through the memories, an unknown number popping up on the screen. I clicked on it.
Unknown: How's it going? Singing Kumbaya yet?
It's clear immediately who it's from. I always expected him to be more of a phone call type, but I'm grateful to not have to use real words.
Eaven: Getting real close to bolting.
Andrew: You don't want to be happy, do you? You're not actively trying to be happy.
Eaven: If you were told that you were prone to falling. Like you had bad balance or some shit. Would you ever climb a mountain?
Andrew: Language.
Eaven: Would the view ever be worth it, if you knew there was a chance you could fall from that height? Or would you stay on the ground?
My finger flew across the keyboard, the screen was bright in my eyes. I don't wait for a response, I just keep typing.
Eaven: Where if you fall, you'll get bruised, but you'll get back up.
Andrew: What if, when you fall, you grab onto the ledge? You don't have to let yourself fall. You just need to hang on long enough for someone to pull you up.
I wait. Sure he's not done, and knowing I don't have a response for what he sent. Just waiting for the next vibration.
Andrew: Trust me, the view's worth the risk.
My fingers fly once more. Furious at his toxic positivity. Attempting to do all he can to avoid keeping his promise.
Eaven: You don't have to pull me up. I am not going to shrink myself for you to carry. I will never be a puddle, I will always be an ocean that will eventually drown you.
The letters are bright white. Stark against the black of my screen. Letters constantly becoming words.
Eaven: I am not pretty, I am not nice. I will destroy you. And I won't even mean to. But I'm not going to stop myself either.
I've warned him in person, and been ignored. Maybe words are how he'll learn. Words he can repeat to himself as he gets ready to sleep alone tonight.
Eaven: It will be your fault. Because you chose to stay. I don't want to watch you leave. But you have to go.
My phone buzzes multiple times. A call coming through. I decline, my heart continuing its beating in my chest.
Andrew: Answer the phone.
It continues its buzzing once more. The feeling threatens to burrow itself underneath my skin. To make a home in my veins.
I accept the call, my phone finding its way to my ear. The numbness is still threatening to keep me silent.
I hear his voice. No greeting. "If I leave you won't heal. You'll just die with another wound." I hang up.
I quickly type out a response, my throat threatening to cut off oxygen completely if I speak. I can't let him hear the broken in my voice.
Eaven: If you stay the wound will get bigger. I'll bleed out before you come to your senses.
The phone rings once more. I decline again. Praying he'll take the hint I'm throwing into his face. Another buzz.
Andrew: You don't have to speak, just listen.
Another phone call. My thumb hovers over the decline, before finally landing on the accept. His voice filled my ear immediately.
"I'll stay with you until then. I didn't have a favorite color until I met you, but now I'm thinking it's blood red."
He speaks quickly, fearing the hangup. Wanting me to hear everything before I give into the night.
"Because as long as I'm seeing that color, I know you're still alive. Or maybe it's the blue of your veins that I love."
His voice is shaky. I can hear his breath as he breathes in smoke. "The pink of your lips. The nude of your skin."
Another breath in. "The brown of your eyes. I just love the colors of you. And I will hold you above the cliff until all of them fade. And only then will I let go."
And then the line goes dead.
And the darkness envelops me as I sit alone. The colors he described, the promise he made, echoed through my thoughts. It was at that moment, the realization made a home in me. Despite my struggles, despite the ever present threat of consumption, there was someone who still saw beauty in me. Someone who was willing to stand by me.
And I would make it the rest of my life's mission to leave him standing when I'm gone.
That's how I'll end my list.