Chapter 87
Mireya
Play - Funny by Searrows
I’ve done it, again
She didn’t choose to leave
I need to get away from him, I just need to go home.
I’m burying her once again, I buried the version of herself I thought left us, and I’m doing it all over again because she never did.
I spent years thinking I wasn’t enough, that Milo wasn’t enough. All I do is remember. Every anniversary, every night I hurt myself thinking I deserved it for pushing her away, every tear I let out thinking my mother chose death over us.
My body moves, my legs keep carrying me and my mind drifts away.
There’s something in my chest that’s growing at each step I take, it keeps pushing the images back in my brain, the blue sweater I wore the night we found out, how my arms were itching and I kept wearing it because I thought I deserved it, that it didn’t matter.
I want to throw up.
Mom died…no. Mom was taken.
I press my hands against my temples as I keep walking.
I close my eyes, shaking my head to keep the images away.
But they keep coming back. She’s young, sitting on the rooftop staring at the sky and wishing that her mother can still see her and maybe forgive her.
She waits until she falls asleep. She waits the next day thinking her mother might come back.
She keeps waiting and waiting. Until she stops trying to un-love the ghost of her. Because she convinced herself her own mother had stopped loving her first.
I keep walking, and I wish I could sit next to her again, at the edge of the cliff, hug her and repeat how sorry I am. For every scar I had to make her carve onto her skin. For making her believe she was never enough. For carrying a punishment that was never hers.
She’s me, and she’s still waiting but it’s too late now.
He lied to you, Mireya. He lied. He lied.
I ball my hands into fists, thin crescents of blood rise where my nails dig too deep. But I don’t feel anything, so I press harder.
Stupid. So Stupid, Mireya.
When I finally reach my front door, I don’t remember the last forty minutes.
I shakily push my keys into the lock and the door creaks open, the smell of stale beer and vodka permeates the air as I step in.
“…Is that you… Mireya?” My father calls out and I know that he’s drunk. I try to ignore him and make a start with cleaning the empty beer cans from the table, putting them into the trash can absentmindedly. Blood stains the glass and I keep focusing on the way my hands move.
Laughter bellows from the living area and I wince from the sound. I turn picking up anything I can find, putting it all in the garbage bag.
Occupy your mind.
A hand is thrown towards me and latches onto my wrist. But I can’t feel anything.
“I thought I told you not to go anywhere tonight, huh?” My father’s voice is raspy, almost sad.
He shoves me into the wall, and I hear him scream before grabbing a fist full of my hair as he brings me towards him.
I can’t feel anything.
“YOU CAN NEVER DO ANYTHING RIGHT!”
He can scream until his voice breaks, and I still feel nothing. I should feel something, fear, anger, guilt maybe, anything. But it’s all empty. He pushes me out of the kitchen and I make my way to my room, not knowing exactly how to react.
I’m supposed to break, cry, or even hide, but I just walk.
When I close the door of my bedroom behind me, I lock it.
Only then do I realize I’m still wearing his shirt.
For a few seconds I stay there, staring at the fabric against my skin, trying to understand how this can feel so warm and so uncomfortable at the same time.
His scent is still here. It makes me sick.
So, I pull it off, throw it onto the floor, and walk to my bathroom. The drawers are quickly open beneath my hands. The cabinets too.
I grab the pills, not even trying to count them. And take them all at once. I need them to work. I need it more than anything. To quiet everything, to make me remember what it feels like to be inside my own body again. But nothing changes.
I sit on the cold floor, a blade between my fingers, and trace long lines on my skin. The pain, the blood… it’s supposed to bring me back. But even that isn’t enough.
No…
Maybe I’m too far gone now. Maybe it’s too late.
The morning comes fast and I’m still staring at the ceiling. The noise stopped, the thoughts too. I force myself into the shower, scrubbing hard, washing away the dry blood. I use a bandage around my wrist.
Everyone needs to believe I’m okay. Last night didn’t change anything. Maybe it did change everything…
The illusion I built for months now, the healing, the feeling that I was getting better, it all cracked. One lie, one night, one blade. That was all it had taken to ruin it all.
I know now, it will happen again. If this is the price of surviving and making sure Milo gets the life he deserves, I’ll pay it.
I can’t fall apart at St. Ellesta, not now that all that’s left is one semester. The last one.
Burying the ache beneath discipline, locking every dark thought somewhere deep enough to not interfere with it, is what I can do instead.
I sent a text to Edna this morning before taking the road back to campus. She sent me a picture of Milo and Blue sleeping together and for the first time since I left last night, my heart warmed up again.
No one will see the girl who relapsed a few hours ago, no one will see the girl who hurts herself to feel, because I am a big sister, and I have to keep pretending.