Page 164 of Under the Waves

56

Poppy Wells

Late at night, when ghosts haunted the halls, my hands found the back of my neck, and suddenly I could breathe again. I knew my mother was awake. I could feel her presence through the walls. It was like having a detector in my head that knew when she was near. I’d always been like that, even when I was a kid. I was always able to tell people’s moods before they even uttered a single word.

It kept me safe. It was the only way I could survive.

I locked myself away inside my head, gripping onto my skin so tightly until it turned white. It was safe inside my head. I could distance myself from the world around me. Where I wasn’t in that body. Where their touches didn’t reach my skin.

A house of secrets. A place I’d never be able to leave. Not if they had any say in it. There was nowhere I could go anyway. Nowhere would take me in. Nowhere would want me. Whywould they? I was trapped in that body, that mind, that house. Reliving those days over and over and over again. Each touch, each bruise, each trickle of blood that seeped between my fingers.

My head bashed against invisible walls. Phantom hands around my neck, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing until my vision went black. My lungs compressed. The air thinned. Ribs cracked. One by one by one. I couldn’t see anything. Open eyes. Open mouth. I made sounds, screamed, and screamed, and screamed, but nothing came out.

The numbness settled beneath my skin.

Calmness washed over me.

My room came back into focus.

My lungs breathed.

One.

Two.

Three breaths.

There was red on my fingers.

On my neck.

Down my back.

My body was a crime scene.

I was my own murderer.

My legs carried me to the shower on autopilot. Steam covered the glass.

All the little red rivers seeped down the drain. Traveled through the pipes.

The evidence washed away. No one would ever know it was there to begin with.

I was a fraud.

Each raw patch burned under the hot spray.

I held onto the pain. Close to my chest.

Closed my eyes.

Shut off my mind.

And stood there.

The water still flowed.

My heart still beat.