I chose to die in the bathroom because it's the only room in the house I can lock. Besides, water calms me, and I have to be calm to pull the plug on my life. Nothing would irritate my father more than finding the fully clothed corpse of his sixteen-year-old daughter on the morning of her birthday, floating in his beloved antique, carved-marble tub—a ridiculous Bright family relic. Each of its corners is held up by one of four sirens, their mouths open in lethal song, their hands turned up in worship to the Siren of Canosa, a bronze faucet figurine. How fitting. Ailen Bright, the deceased, guided into the afterlife by a tap. Do you hear me, Papa? This is my morbid joke.
Six years ago today, on a rainy September morning, my mother jumped off the Aurora Bridge. Something terrible must have happened, because she was afraid of heights. I'd heard Papa scream at her, heard her run out of their bedroom and slam the front door. I hadn't seen much of my mom during my childhood, but after that day, I'd lost her forever. For this, and for all of the pain he's caused me, I want to hurt my father the only way I can—by sending him a message as twisted as his soul. By ending my life in the very place he delivered me, on a rainy September morning in 1993.
In some perverted sense, as far back as I can remember, the four marble sirens and the bronze one gave me more comfort than my parents. They were the five sisters I never had. While normal girls spent their free time playing outside, I was locked in our bathroom for punishment, talking to inanimate creatures for hours. Having memorized entire passages from Homer's The Odyssey, I was able to call each siren by her proper name. Homer would turn in his grave if he'd heard me. His story mentions only three sirens. I didn't like their names, so I gave them names I liked from other books.
Pisinoe, the one with the persuasive mind, is the youngest of the five. We both want a pet, so I like her best for that. Teles is the perfect one; her cute, yet slightly chubby, face makes me like mine so much better, thank you. Raidne symbolizes improvement. With hair that's long and curly, it's the envy of my life; my hair resembles a spaghetti factory explosion on best days, and on worst, it's dubbed "chicken-feathers" by the kids at school. Ligeia is the shrill one, perhaps due to her voice. Her perfect breasts were the source of my secret admiration until the day I understood that being called flat-chested was my fate. Yeah.
These are my four marble sisters. All of them, except for Canosa, stand about two feet tall. Their bare bodies protrude from four corners of the tub, their knees on the floor, their arms spread wide as if they're the wings of birds getting ready to fly.
The tub is a central feature in our large bathroom; its plumbing was hidden beneath the floor, and its lack of a shower curtain adds to its authenticity. At the head of the tub, with long hair covering her body and legs dangling from the rim, sits the Siren of Canosa, or Canosa for short. My big bronze sister. Although she stands only one foot tall, she's the boss. Her left hand holds the faucet, and her right arm is raised over her head in a gesture of mourning. She's the main funerary siren whose job as a mythological creature is to lead the souls of the dead into afterlife, heaven, or hell. Three very nice destinations. Pick your favorite while you hold her hand. Right. But I'm forgetting to count.
Eight. Nine. Ten.
Ten seconds since I took the plunge, stepping into the bathtub full of water, wearing faded jeans and my favorite blue hoodie. Big white letters spell Siren Suicides across the front; they're my favorite band, because their music kicks ass.
Blue is my favorite color. Three is my favorite number. It takes three minutes for an average person to drown. Only two minutes and fifty seconds left. I hold my breath.
My clothes balloon in a funny way before getting soaked completely, feeling oddly warm and clingy. I close my eyes because the chlorine in the water burns them. Now my nose starts burning too, water making its way up my nostrils as if wanting to drive a nail through my head. I press my hands into the sides of the tub to keep myself from floating up. I can't do this, I can't. I'm scared. I sit up and gasp, grabbing my head with both hands to prevent it from spinning. No, to prevent the bathroom around me from spinning. Water rushes down my face. Wet cotton sticks to my skin in thick, soggy layers. Smoking a joint wasn't enough. Did I absolutely have to drop a tab of acid on top of it? Stupid coward.
I hear the doorknob as it turns once to the right. Then, after a puzzled pause, it turns to the right several more times.
Click-click-click.
"Ailen, is that you in there?" Papa's voice reaches me as if from some future that I didn't think would ever happen. Distorted and unreal, it strikes my ears like a knife that has a tricky way of cutting deep into my heart, down my abdomen, and then all the way to my toes. My muscles constrict as if freeze-dried. My heart attempts to beat through layers of ribs, jumping on an elevator of fear and exploding in my head with a pounding migraine.
Who else would it be? I want to answer. Another thought pushes it aside. Shit, he shouldn't be up so early. Damn it. And another thought. I should've jumped off the bridge like mom. Why the fuck am I so afraid of heights? Is it genetic? What do I do now? The whole bathroom stinks like weed.
He knocks on the door. I hold onto my knees, watching the early morning light stream through the window, listening to his footsteps. He's probably checking my room to make sure it's not some thief who decided to take a bath after getting tired of robbing our house during the night.
A few minutes and he'll be back.
All at once, the impossibility of facing my father—and the impossibility of ever getting out of this bathroom in one piece—floods me with renewed force. A thousand needles of terror prickle my skin, driving their sharp points deeper, pinning my guts until they reach a pool of doom deep within my soul. The bathroom stops spinning. Reaching a place of calm, a moment of soundless emptiness, I decide to try once more. I don't feel sorry for myself. I've thought of everything there is to think about while smoking away the night. There is no other way out for me except to die.
I hear Papa open the door to my room and shout my name. I ignore him. I can do this. I'll have to think of something to distract myself. Everywhere I look, my mother's face floats up, hanging in the air like an ephemeral vision—the distant memory of her smile, her long brown hair and blue eyes, and a thousand freckles on the bridge of her nose. Like mine. I blink and focus on the towels. There she is again. I look at the sink. Same. I squint my eyes and shake my head hard. That does it.
A memory of Hunter splits the vision of my mother in two. His ever-crooked grin fills the dark space under my eyelids, brightens it with two rows of shiny white teeth, though he claims he's never been to the dentist. There, that's better. Hunter saved the day, as always. He's my best friend, my only friend. Oblivious to everyone shunning me at school, whenever he sees me, he always yells, "Hey, turkey!" or "What's up, brat?" or "Care to wave hello to monkey boy?" and makes obnoxious gorilla noises. It always makes me snort into my fist.
Since hanging out at his house is out of the question because of his mom's illness, whenever Papa leaves on a boat trip, we get stoned in my bathroom. Did I mention it's the only room in the house that can be locked? It also has a fan and a window. I don't know what my father would do if he found out that I smoke weed. Last night, it came close; way too close. We were blowing smoke rings when Hunter pointed at one of the marble sirens, tracing her open mouth with his finger over and over again. By then, we'd shared a couple of joints.
"Have you ever met a real siren?" he asked, his head cocked to the side, his long skinny legs spread out wide on the tile floor, ending in two poorly laced sneakers.
"You call this real?" Too lazy to stand up, I set my joint on a squished soda can and scooted on my butt across the bathroom floor until I came face to face with the stone creature. Ligeia, the shrill one, the one with perfect breasts. The fact that Hunter pointed at her specifically, and not at another siren, made me hate her that much more. He didn't know I talked to them for hours, my imagined sisters. I never told him, out of fear of sounding infantile or outright nuts. When I raised my finger to touch Ligeia's mouth, she winked her marble eye at me. I jerked my finger away, thinking she might bite. I must have been really stoned by then. Hunter didn't notice a thing, puffing perfect smoke circles and watching them dissolve under the ornamental bathroom ceiling.
"You know what I mean. Not the mythical kind. No. I'm talking about a real siren. The girl next door. The killer kind. The one whose gaze never sits still. The way she walks, the way she talks. Every man wants a piece of her. Every man wants to hear her velvety song, the song to die for. Have you ever met one like that?"
"You're stoned," I said.
"No, no, listen." He sucked in on his joint, his slender fingers dancing across it. "Real sirens are among us. They're the girls who come out at night, in the fog, to sing about their pain. Their voice makes you do things. They command you to come close to them, and then they sing your soul out."
"And then what?" I shuffled across the floor back to the wall, gazing at Ligeia, ready to catch her eye move once more.
Hunter passed his free hand through his hair, bunching it up into an uncombed mess, before inhaling noisily. "Then they find you dead in the morning. They can't say what happened. It looks like your heart stopped, so they conclude that you died from sudden cardiac arrest, you know, loss of heart function. What's creepy, though, is that you're smiling. Dead, but smiling. Like you were your happiest just before you died." He snorted and spit, right into the smoldering soda can. It emitted a quiet fizz and a puff of smoke.
"My joint!" I gasp, yet my thoughts are with the sirens, reeling with his idea, trying to grasp its meaning.
"Chill. I'll roll you a new one," he said, unfazed.
"You say it like you've met one."
"Wha..." It took him a second to remember. "Oh, a siren? Maybe I did."
I looked at him. I always liked his grin, with that dimple on his right cheek. His hair looked funny when he brushed it back. Of course, when I asked if he ever combs it, he said he has no need to, because a cow licked him when he was a baby.
"You're such a liar," I said.
He laughed, causing my whole body to vibrate. It vibrates now, in sync with Papa's steps returning from my bedroom.
I grip the sides of the tub.
Three short knocks on the door.
"Ailen? I know you're in there, sweetie. What are you doing in the bathroom so early? Open the door, please."
"Nothing, Papa, just killing myself is all. Because one minute of fantasy is better than nothing," I whisper, looking up at Canosa to get her approval for what I'm about to do. My head starts spinning again and I don't know if I imagine it or not, but she nods her head. It's time.
I dive in, this time face first, pinching my nose with my right hand to avoid the burning chlorine. I float in the tub with my back to the ceiling, thinking about how our bathroom ceiling reminds me of a giant face. Its long, intricate ornaments look like wrinkles, its décor a bad impression of a Roman bath designed for the gods themselves. That white plaster type, a dirty shade of a cleaning lady's absence. For whatever reason, I think I must clean it, but then I remember that I need to count.
One. Two. Three.
No need to press my hands into the sides of the tub, I can float all I want, my face submerged in the water, my legs free-floating, the tips of my naked toes barely touch the back end of the tub. Who in their right mind has an eight-foot marble bathtub at home? That's the Brights' family values for you. Not love, but plenty of beautiful things to admire. I hold my breath until it feels like I can't hold it anymore.
Twenty seconds go by. Papa shakes the door.
I exhale. Bubbles trace my cheeks and speed out of my peripheral vision, rising to the surface.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
"Ailen? Whatever it is you're doing in there, you have one minute to finish. If you don't open the door after that, I'll have to force my way in. Do you hear me? I'm starting the timer." His voice is muffled, yet strangely amplified, by all this water.
Perfect. It's been thirty seconds. Plus one minute of waiting, and surely more than one minute to break down the solid oak door. Thank you, Papa, I don't need to count anymore.
The last of my air wants to come out through my nose, and I let it go, feeling a growing heaviness in my chest and an urge to inhale. Panic rears its ugly head but I slap it across the face to drive it back into its dark corner. There is no other thread of sanity to hold onto except to think back to my last conversation with Hunter. What was it that I stopped on? Ah, yes, his laughter.
He opened his mouth and threw back his head, closing his eyes and giving himself over to an onslaught of stoner glee. Holding onto his stomach, he rocked back and forth. I tried to giggle with him, but the thought of the looming anniversary wouldn't let me. At least his mom was still alive. I pulled myself closer to the tub and propped my feet right over Ligeia's face, to stop her from winking, and to make sure I couldn't see her naked breasts—the ones that reminded me of the whole unfairness of bra sizes.
"Have you ever wanted to kill yourself?" I asked.
He choked on his spit and coughed. "What?"
I tightened my mouth before shedding each word through my teeth, slowly, making sure they came out loud and clear. "I said, have you ever wanted to kill yourself?"
"Are you out of your fucking mind, Ailen? What kind of a question is that?" He raised his eyebrows, momentarily lucid, the stub of his joint dangling from his lower lip.
"God, it's just a simple question. Relax. You're telling me stories about sirens singing out people's souls and I can't ask you a simple question?"
"Of course you can. It's one hell of a loaded question though. Are you all right?" He tapped on his temple, then raised his hands over his face in a protective gesture, as if I was about to hit him. Which I should've.
"Idiot. I'm fine. Just wanted to know is all." I closed my mouth in an attempt to shut up, but my curiosity won, as always. "Ok, let me rephrase it. If you ever wanted to kill yourself, how would you do it?"
He blew out a coil of smoke, and studied the ceiling for a moment, his face lax.
"Don't tell me you've never thought about it; I won't buy it for a second," I said, hoping my question didn't plunge him into one of his hour-long stoner bouts.
To my surprise, after a minute of empty gazing, he answered. "I'd get my hands on the fastest motorcycle out there, hop on a highway, and ride as fast as I can, without stopping for cops."
"And then?"
"Then I'd crash!" He grinned and slowly turned his head to look at me, his eyes full of mischief. I imagined Hunter mounting a bike, gunning its throttle, and whizzing past cars heading up a twisty, mountain road. Riding higher and higher, speeding toward the safety rail on some cliff—beyond which there is only empty air and jagged, mountain rocks all the way to the bottom.
"Wow. That sounds like an awesome way to go. You'd have to get a bike for that though. Do you even know how to ride one?"
"Oh, yeah. I snuck out my dad's Ducati a couple of times. He had an old 748, yellow, nice racing sportbike." He bit his lip as if he'd said too much. Then he pressed his joint into the squished soda can, twisted it, and listened to it hiss.
"Hey, not fair. You never told me your dad had a sportbike." I made myself lie, to appear interested. "I wanna go for a ride. If you ever go again, will you take me with you?" There will be no ever. "Pretty please?" He believed me.
"I don't have access to it anymore, obviously. I snuck it out before...you know...before he left us. Dad's gone, bike's gone, get it?" He tapped on his head again and looked out the window. I nearly slapped myself on the head, cursing my memory and lack of manners. How could I forget? Duh.
My hand's involuntary movement brings me back to the present. I've been underwater for one minute and twenty seconds now, miraculously continuing to count.
I let go of my nose and spread my arms wide, pressing my hands into the tub's marble walls and forming a perfect bridge from one side to the other, trying not to lift my head and inhale air. I have to stay down, I have to, I have to. Circles begin swimming in front of my eyes, and my throat tightens further. Another few seconds and I'll be inhaling water.
"Ailen, your minute is up. Open the door, now." Papa is always impatient. Hearing his terrible voice warbled by water makes me more determined than ever to continue with my task, if only to never hear him yell at me again. Yes, that will be worth it. Except I wish I could see his face when he finally breaks down the door and sees me floating here. I imagine it contorting in surprise, then horror, then regret. Priceless.
One minute, thirty-one. One minute, thirty-two. One minute, thirty-three.
"I said, open the damn door!" My heart pounds in my ears and I begin spinning as if headed down a whirlpool; except, when I look down at the plug, it's not moving.
The door rattles under father's fists. He shouts, "Open the door," again and again, slamming his fists even harder. Each hit echoes in my airless chest, making me think it's my ribs he's hitting. My whole body trembles. Every muscle convulses, shaking like crazy, as if they're ready to explode. A strange calm spreads over me. I let out one last air bubble, staring into the marble beneath me; I notice long, delicate silver lines forming a pattern, something akin to an otherworldly landscape with its own slopes, hills, forests, and mountains. All cold and distant, as if covered with a layer of snow.
I reach out and touch it. It's cool, like the water around me. I hope to feel something for myself, some sort of pity or agony before dying, anything at all. But there is nothing left.
I turn numb, numb like marble, numb like the bathroom door. I hope it proves hard to break. It's the only door in the house that can be clicked shut and locked for longer than one minute, under the pretext of my monthly "girly" problems: stomach cramps, nausea, mood swings, tampons. All of the things Papa doesn't want to hear about because he's not my mother. If only I could see her one more time. I will. I know I will. This is my chance.
One minute and forty seconds underwater. I'm ready to go. The door groans under Papa's repeated hits. I want to yell in response. Do you hear me, Papa? I'm moving out. I'm going to live with my mom and you can eat shit. Unable to suppress the urge to breathe any longer, I open my mouth and inhale.