Page 101 of Under the Waves

Heat blossomed across my cheeks in waves, my pale skin meeting each caress of her palm in an embrace that was anything but gentle. Anything but motherly affection.

Anything butlove.

I was holding onto this life by the skim of my fingertips but as my body grew tired of fighting, I couldn’t help but wonder if it would just be easier tofall.

The chime of the clock striking two in the morning pulled me from my thoughts. My mother had eventually tired herself out and locked herself back in her room with a fresh bottle of Vodka and a new bottle of pills that were most likely stolen. That steel door was closed, and I was once again shut out of her life.

So easily detachable.

So easily removed like a smudge of gravy on a dinner plate.

The house reeked of that coppery tang of fresh blood and nicotine packets. I’d already swept away all the glass shards and taken care in putting away all the remaining utensils and unbroken plates. The electricity cut out halfway through vacuuming, so I finished it off with my hands gripping onto the old, wooden broom. Though, I think I just pushed the dirt around instead of actually cleaning it.

Not that she’d notice whenever she decided to crawl back out into the real world.

As if my thoughts summoned her, my mother appeared in the hallway wearing a dainty pink satin nightgown thathegifted her for valentine’s day a few years ago. It still looked brand new from the day he got it. I didn’t think I’d ever seen her wear it before now.

“Did you forget something?” I asked, nonchalantly, wiping the blood smears across my thighs. Each cut stung but I relished in the pain, hoping it would be enough to get me through the next few hours.

“I don’t know what you expect from me, Poppy,” she sobbed, hands covering her eyes.If only I had her eyes, would it all be different?“I don’t know what you want from me anymore!”

“To love me regardless, mom!” I yelled hoarsely, my throat burning with the truth of that statement. “To love me like a mothershouldlove her daughter.”

That was all I’d ever wanted.

To be loved by her.

To feel loved at all.

Her small, frail body collapsed to the floor in a puddle of tears.

“You are no daughter of mine! You arenothingto me,” she sobbed between screams. Her fingernails clawed at my skin as I dipped my arms around her body, hauling her up from the floor. Hooking an arm around her waist and placing her arm around my neck, I walked us both into her room. She sobbed harder with every step we took.

For one moment—onesmall moment, I wished to be normal. To have a normal life, normal relationships…To. Just. Be. Fucking. Normal. But more than that, I wished for someone to look at all the fractured pieces of me and take care in putting them back together. I was so sick and tired of forcing and nudging them into places they didn’t fit. So damned tired of wishing on stars and hoping my silver knight would come and fix the broken mess my life had become.

That I had become.

“I know, mom,” I mumbled as I tucked her beneath the sheets that were cold beneath the pads of my fingertips. “I know.”

I placed a fresh glass of water on her bedside table and closed the door behind me as I left. Waves of rage crashed over me with every step I took towards my bedroom door. Slamming it shut, my fingers automatically found their way to my hair and pulled on it so hard I thought it’d rip from my skull.

I needed toscream.

To do something other than stay inside this hell hole of a home.

I was going to die within these walls someday.

I was helpless once again.

Whenever I felt like this before, like the world was closing in, I would’ve just snuck out and grabbed my surfboard. The ocean had always been my safe space, the only place in the world that seemed to understand me,listento me. But I’d lost the one thing in the world that brought me comfort. That piece of myself—that final piece of hope—was shattered and lost and unreachable now, and I knew I would never be whole without it.

Maybe I should’ve taken Jasper up on his offer to help me get past this mental block. At this point, I’d do anything if it meant staying out of this house and being able to be out there in the vast blue without plunging into a panic attack orworse.

I wanted that piece of me back—it was the only thing thatmade me who I was before every inch of me bled purple bruises and knew the brutal touch of salty tears caressing an open wound.

It was the only part of me thatmattered. The only part of me that Jasper loved, even if it was fake. Could I trust him enough to be vulnerable like this? Could I trust him enough to find that missing piece of me and not crush it into dust? To let him see behind all my walls?

Start taking down some of those walls you hide behind.