There was a feeling of pure torture in my heart. It ached so loudly that my head started to deflate from the screech. Running with pounding lungs and a throbbing head never felt like such idiocy. But no matter what my body told me to do, I continued to run. I arrived home at a time before school would end and when I entered my house, my parents were sitting at the kitchen table talking.
“Excuse me, what are you doing home?” My mom asked firmly, standing up from her seat. My dad placed his hand over hers to settle her nerves but she stood furiously staring at me.
“I decided that French wasn’t worth the effort today.” I mumbled. Turning to walk past them both, they stood in my way.
“Mademoiselle, you better sit down and listen.” My mother spoke. I looked for my dad for help but he nodded in agreement. I could still feel my heart racing as I took a seat on the opposite side of the table.
“Kiersten you’re taking a bad turn.” My mom said with her hands folded. My eyes were set on my thumbs which twiddled with each other. Ignoring both of them wasn’t easy, especially my dad.
“Doing things without our consent? Skipping school? This isn’t you Kiersten.” He implied from my presence. This isn’t you started to chase my other thoughts away and reverberated in my ears. I sat in silence while they looked at themselves, devastated by my reaction. My eyes lifted from the table and gazed at their faces. They appeared disappointed in the one thing they expected so much out of; me.
“I don’t need anyone’s consent. And you know what?” I laughed, rising from my seat. “This isn’t me. I’m not your only daughter. I’m not Kiersten Liner. I’m just some figment of your imagination.” I yelled across the table.
“Don’t use that tone with your mother!” My dad slammed his fists against the table, but nothing stopped my rant.
“I’m sorry I’m not perfect. Would you rather me dead? I can make that happen! Just like Jasey did.” I threw my arms in the air, being as intolerant as I could be.
“You’re going to therapy tomorrow, instead of school.” My mother calmly applied to the conversation, squeezing her eyes shut. My lungs gave out standing in front of them. I always thought that therapy was for crazy people and I refused to put that on myself.
“You can’t make me.” I insisted, staring my mother down. Her eyes bulged in despair as I removed myself from the kitchen. I ran upstairs and threw myself onto my bed and dug my head into my pillow. I knew I would receive company soon, so I left the door open. The door shut, giving me the hint that my dad had arrived.
“I don’t need somebody to tell me I’m delirious Dad.” I expressed loudly into my pillow.
“Well you do need somebody to tell you to clean up your act.” He said, irritated. I arose from my pillow and sat Indian style on my bed looking at him. His arms were crossed and he leaned against the wall, not making eye contact with me.
“This isn’t an act. This is you, actually hating your own daughter.” I explained, using my hands for more emphasize. Confusion filled the expression in his face as he turned and looked at me.
“Hate? Kiersten, we don’t hate you.” He assured, walking towards me.
“I’m a freak. And now, you want to send me to therapy. A place for freaks.” I spoke angrily towards him. He gently sat down on the edge of my bed inspecting the ground. His eyes roamed around the room until they surfaced to my face.
“You aren’t a freak. And therapy isn’t a place for freaks.” He started, patting my foot. “You need to see things, Kiersten. You’re letting everything blind you and you are becoming oblivious to the most important things in life. I’ve let you go for a while now; I have let you try to redeem what you lost. Unfortunately, scars don’t heal as fast as we hope, and, even worse, they don’t disappear for a long, long time. I want you to brighten up, Kiersten. I love you. We love you, me and your mother. We’re only doing what’s best for you.”
“You don’t know what’s best for me.” I disagreed.
“Well, I’m afraid you don’t know what’s best for yourself either.” He objected, narrowing his eyes at me. I leaned back against my bed so I couldn’t see his movements, but I felt him get up.
“Don’t make me go, Dad” I softly said as he opened the door. He closed it and came back to hover over me.
“Promise me you’ll never leave me.” He whispered to me. I got up and looked at him thoroughly. His serious expression put a lot of guilt on my body.
“I won’t, ever.” I promised as he hugged my head close to his heart.
“I don’t want to lose my baby girl.” He admitted through his fear. When he let go and left I lay back down and closed my eyes. My body tingled before relaxing its muscles and rested against the mattress.
I fell asleep that evening and didn’t wake up until two o’clock in the morning. Once I woke up, I went back to sleep. My parents let me skip school as well as therapy that day too, so all I did was sleep. Whenever I woke up, I would just stare at the ceiling until boredom cast me to sleep again.
After sleeping so much within two days, I had completely forgotten about Jasey. My memory of her washed right out of my hair like shampoo. Nothing reminded me of her, no voices sounded. It was just me for once. So when I got up one final time, I remembered my encounter with Bryce and decided it was time to revisit him.
The night of the day my parents let me skip school, I snuck out the window again to go back to town. I tried to retrace my footsteps back to the bonfire but I ended up leading myself to playgrounds and random stores. I wandered the streets looking for a familiar face, but nothing appeared to my memory. It started getting close to midnight, and I was about to give up.
“So, you decided to come back?” Bryce depicted as I walked paced the bench he was sitting on.
“So, you decided to stay sober tonight?” I snapped at him, turning around to face him. A smile bloomed across his face as he got up to face me.
“You’re a quick one, aren’t you?” He chaffed with his two lip rings danced along his lip. I smiled at his admiration of my witty remarks and sat down on the bench. He invited himself to sit alongside of me.
“What are you doing out here?” He asked, examining me like he had several nights before.
“Same thing you’re doing out here,” I smirked at him. “Looking for a good time,”
My body had lost control of itself. It hadn’t even been a five minute conversation, yet I began to intertwine myself with Bryce. His aggressive pushing made me feel controlled, like I had been most of my life. On a bench in the middle of town, we pressed up against each other for all to see. Though, there weren’t many people around at quarter past twelve. He bit my lips harshly to started groping around until our affair was crashed.
“What are you doing, Bryce?” Ian questioned from in front of the bench. Bryce pulled away from me and stood up stiffly in front of Ian.
“Am I not allowed to have sober fun? Or, are you going to be my mother again?” Bryce mocked, hoping that I’d join on his side. I gazed at Ian, only remembering that I had a fight with him earlier in the week.
“She doesn’t like you, you’re using her.” He hinted, pointing towards me to support his statement. I lifted myself from the bench angrily and looped my arm with Bryce’s.
“He isn’t using anyone,” I snorted at his approach. “I like Bryce, and I’ll do whatever I want with him.” I smiled wryly towards him.
“Go home.” Ian’s tone stayed flat as he gave Bryce the innuendo to leave.
“I’m not going anywhere!” I yelled, stomping my foot against the sidewalk. In frustration, I turned towards Bryce and pulled him to my lips to give Ian a show. Our encore went on for a few minutes, for Ian was at a loss for words.
“Don’t make me call the cops, Bryce.” Ian laughed a bit with his authoritative remark. Bryce pushed me off of himself and stared solemnly at Ian.
“How old are you, babe?” He asked me cautiously.
“I’m sixteen…” I let my voice trail off in confusion. Bryce shook his head in anger towards Ian and walked away from me. “Hey! Where are you going!?” I called after him, but he wouldn’t turn around. Ian turned the opposite way that Bryce did and started to takes steps home himself.
“What was that for?” I gripped his shoulder and turned him around forcefully. Ian’s eyes were stone cold, and his cheeks were red from the cold. My anger penetrated right through him.
“I’m sorry, who are you?” He inquired. When I didn’t know how to answer him, he turned around and walked away. I stood solely on the sidewalk until I worked up the courage to walk home alone.
Distorted thoughts lead to external thinking. Whatever my heart urged to do, that’s what I would do. Many people used to tell me to listen to my heart; frequently many people still do. The only catch to listening to the heart is the fact that it can play tricks on oneself. Sometimes a person could be so attached to something that whether or not the head is saying no, the heart will say yes. It’s contradicting. An example would be an abused wife. Her heart says to stay, and that she loves this man who is beating her. All this time, her head is saying to leave, find a better life, and call the cops! But the heart tends to control our minds.
When I reached my room, I grabbed a small old soccer bag and started to fill it up. I put one pair of clothes, my razor blades, and my wallet in the bag. Remembering I had almost no money left, I snuck back downstairs and rummaged through my mom and dad’s wallets. I stole over three hundred dollars from them that they had saved up to pay for my therapy.
My parents wouldn’t be getting up until I after the time that I’d have gone to school. In precise calligraphy, I wrote a note stating that I had gone to school taking the bus. I knew it’d be believable at first, but once they’d see there empty wallets they’d have another idea.
The morning I wrote that letter, I left it on the kitchen counter and walked outside and started to the school bus stop. Once I reached the school bus stop, I walked right past it and into town. As I approached the inside of town I saw the city bus transportation area and sat on a bench along with other men and women who needed to get to work. When the bus approached and people started to pile on, I put in my bus fair and took a seat alone to the left side of the bus. Tired from lack of sleep, I would flicker my eyes to keep me awake until I saw the tall buildings of the city area. Taking steps off of the bus, I inhaled the polluted air and looked around my unfamiliar surroundings. My first intention was to find a tattoo parlor, but I didn’t seem to come across one. Instead, I walked into a piercing dedicated shop.
“How can I help you, Miss?” The tattoo covered man asked as I walked into the store. A little shaky, I opened my mouth but no words came out. He laughed and nodded his head to show he knew I was just looking around. I looked at all the piercing pictures on the wall, looking at gauges and rubbing my earlobes to imagine the pain that would put someone through. Continuing to look around, I saw eyebrow piercings and became highly interested.
“So you want your brow?” The man asked, coming up behind me. I nodded my head slowly point to the one that had blue balls on either side of the little horseshoe shape. Quickly before he could turn away I pointed to the piercing below the lower lip.
“And a labret, alright, let’s get you ready.” He took my hand and guided me to a seat. He examined me looking for my age, but decided I looked old enough to be out in the city alone.
“I want a silver spike for the labret.” I explained to him. He nodded his head setting up his piercing equipment and typing into the cash register the prices of both piercings.
“For being the first customer of the day, just give me forty and we’ll call it a deal.” He insisted. I took out two twenty dollar bills and handed them to him. Never being in a piercing store, I wouldn’t have known if that was a rip off or a really good deal. At the time, I didn’t care very much at all. He checked to see if they were real and, after recognizing they were, he approached me with the piercer.
My lip quivered and my eyebrow squirmed in pain when he finished. He brought out a mirror to show me my new facial appearance. I poked the silver spike that punctured underneath my mouth and lightly flicked the blue balls that sat on my brow. Nodding my head satisfactorily, I looked at the man to show appreciation and then left the store.
Walking down the streets of the city I began to think of how many cops were looking for me. It wouldn’t be hard to find me with blue hair, so that’s why I got the piercings. The next step was to find a hat. I walked over some train tracks and a little past the tracks was a mall. In the mall was a store named “Zumiez”. They had beanie hats there, so I bought a light grey one to tuck my short hair into. When I made it so no blue hair was present, I walked out of the store and into the mall bathroom. For some reason, I had the urge to cut myself. So I did.
By this time, my entire left arm, left thigh and right arm was covered in the word love. Staying home from school so often gave me plenty of time to carve. I had recently started into my right thigh; soon I would be finished with that body part as well. Finishing the routine quickly, I left the bathroom and the mall in general. I was back on the streets of the city walking hopelessly confused when I heard someone call at me.
“Hey chick! Come here for a drink why don’t cha?” A heavy waited man about the age of twenty seven waved a beer bottle from a smoking permitted zone. Without any second thoughts, I walked towards him and his group.