Chapter 20
Shadow
I slam the door shut and lock it behind me as soon as I get home, then attack my leather vest like it’s suffocating me.
I shed it and throw it to the floor, stumbling down the hall.
I claw my shirt off, buttons raining down, pinging off the tiled kitchen floor.
I burst into the bathroom so hard that the door smashes against the wall.
There’s no doorstop and I probably just put the handle through the drywall.
I snap the light on with so much violence that I just about break the switch off too.
I thrust my arms out, hands gripping the lip of the vanity. The house is outdated. Like I give a fuck. The vanity is so ugly that if I wrenched it out of the wall and threw it through the doorway, I could easily excuse it on remodeling.
I stare up into the mirror above the sink. Three panes, two of them the kind that open to store shit in.
I step back so I can see myself in it. All of me.
I wrench my shirt off and bomb it out the door.
My shoulders and chest heave hard as I rage breathe, staring myself down. My eyes are burning, blown out, the kind of thing that would scare any sane person. My lips twist into an angry snarl as I start at my collarbones and run my hands down my chest. It’s not so bad, really. Not this part.
I angle to the side so I can see exactly where all the devastation starts.
The ringing picks up in my ears. The years of being told I’m not good enough.
My mom, or at least the woman who gave birth to me—she was never a proper mom—telling me that this was my punishment, I was now wearing the mark of Cain so everyone could see the evilness inside me.
Bile splashes up the back of my throat, coating my tongue.
I want to puke, to spew all this ugliness out of me, but it’s not that easy.
I go from breathing heavy to panting, sweat beading on my forehead and slicking down my temples. Beads of water stand out on my shoulders and trickle down my chest. My vision blacks out, then sharpens into a blinding white. It all gets painted a sickly red.
I can see just enough when I turn around and crane my head over my shoulder. Enough of the patchy skin, the welts, the grafts. The angry red, the stark white, the raised ridges, the lumps that don’t look anything close to right.
My fingers turn into claws. I rear away from the mirror, spinning around so I don’t have to look at my fucking self anymore. I wrap my arms around my shoulders and dig my fingers into the tender flesh.
Fawnie’s face breaks into my mind. Her blue eyes fill with tears.
She’d step into this bathroom. She’d cover my hands with her own.
Smooth out not my skin, but my fingers, until my palms are flat.
She bathes them with kisses before kissing every inch of my skin.
She’d tell me that I’m no monster. That it’s just skin and scars.
She’d look me right in the eye and tell me that I’m beautiful, and I’d believe her.
I fucking told her that I’d be fine.
And then I sat in my desk chair and spiraled so badly that within an hour, the only thing I’d accomplished was to sink back down into that black, bleak place that doesn’t believe I could ever be loved, or wanted.
That shit kept telling me that I was wrong about that little bud of hope.
That it would be squashed eventually. It said that the best thing to do was pluck it out.
There would be no future. No kindness. No gentleness.
No friendship. No love. It played my ugliness and my flaws on repeat, promising me that no one could love that.
That Fawnie would change her mind. That she’d learn something about me and be disgusted and she’d leave.
Impossible, that voice said. The whole thing is impossible.
I got tired of listening to it, so I shoved my jacket on and got the fuck out of there.
I rode around for an extra-long time, but even that refused to calm me.
I wish I could just trust. That I could make the black stop.
I’m not just afraid of everything being wonderful and then losing it all. I’m afraid of being this way while everything is wonderful. I’m afraid that there’s nothing that will fix me. That this is going to be me forever.
I drop my hands, but ball my right into a fist. I wrench around and swing at the mirror, ready to obliterate it. It’s the only one I have in this house. My fist stops inches from smashing into the surface.
I don’t care if I hurt myself. Pain is a sliding scale. It’s all pain. What’s a little more? Or a lot? I imagine my fist cut up, sliced through, the mirror inside my hand. The blood dripping, dripping, all over the sink, the vanity, the floor.
What if it didn’t stop?
What if I just didn’t exist any longer?
A different kind of pain slices through my chest, sharper than the glass, sharper than any blade, hotter than fire.
I’ve had those thoughts before. Destructive thoughts.
But… it’s not just me anymore. Fawnie would be devastated if she found out I hurt myself.
She wants to be my shield. My heart. My protector.
She wants to stand between me and the world, but not in the way a wall does.
She wants to be a river, flowing around both of us, bringing us back to each other.
She wants joy for me. Not a lifetime free of pain, or with a perfect body, or even a perfect mind that’s not full of endless dark shit.
She doesn’t want to save me. She wants to stand at my side while I figure out how to do it for myself.
If she comes later and finds me bleeding, I’ll have to watch her cry, and knowing that I hurt her is worse than any hurt I’m suffering now. I still want to wrench the mirror off the wall and shatter it into a thousand pieces, but what will that solve?
I know exactly what Fawnie would say, because she already has.
Talk to someone. Talk to the club’s therapist. We could go together.
Talk to my dad. He loves you like a son.
Talk to anyone. They’ll listen. Talk to me.
I don’t know how to help you, but I can find out.
You’re not weak. You have a lifetime of trauma to unpack.
You’ve never been loved or cared for properly.
That hurts. It all hurts. You can get better.
You can get healthy. I’ll be right there beside you if you want me to be.
I’ll be okay.
Damn it, my eyes are getting hot.
Fawnie would tell me to do something useful with my hands right now. Not smash them into a mirror. Not shred and cut myself up. She’d tell me to bleed myself out if I want to, but do it in a way that makes sense. Bring beauty out of all this wreckage inside of me.
I’m already half undressed. I keep going, stepping out of my clothes. I run a cold shower and use the icy water to calm the fuck down. It cuts through my anger, through the pain spasming up and down my back, through the great big ball of hurt taking up my whole chest.
After, I dry off and get into a fresh t-shirt and jeans.
I walk into the living room and sit down at the dusty old piano instead.
The hinges groan when I flip the lid up.
Some of the keys are chipped. It’s probably painfully out of tune.
I haven’t tried playing it once in five years.
Instead I’ve glared at it like it’s the enemy.
Reminding me of a life I left behind. Of a dream that was never going to be mine.
I set my fingers on the keys. I used to play because I loved it, for the sheer joy and bliss.
Yes, I had dreams and passions. Yes, it still hurts that I wasn’t able to achieve any of them.
But also… life goes on. I’ve done so very little to appreciate having breath in my lungs, that overall I’m still strong and mostly healthy, that I’m smart and capable.
Even if I had never known Fawnie, I could find some version of happiness here, if I let myself. With her, I could find versions of versions of happiness that I never even dreamed of or knew existed. The house rings with silence and the hurt welling in my chest.
I raise one finger cautiously. Then another and another. I find a chord, something basic, and I start. I might not have played for years, I might be out of practice and my fingers stiff, but the muscle memory returns.
I play for hours. I used to lose myself in it, but I’ve never been properly lost. Not like this.
Not where I have zero awareness of anything around me, or anything inside of me.
I’m well and truly gone. Immersed. There’s no dark or light.
Just the music I’ve locked inside of me for years pouring out.
I don’t know how long I’ve been playing, or what jarred me out of my trance. I raise my head, my neck and back protesting the movement because I must have been hunched like this for hours.
The sound that interrupted me comes again. Knocking. Someone is here.
Not someone. Fawnie.
I know it has to be her. Fuck’s sake, I was supposed to text her and she’s probably been waiting for me. Not only that, but when all this time went by, she likely started to worry. And worry. And worry more, until she couldn’t take sitting by her phone anymore, and drove over here.
I try to be fast getting to the door, but my back, my ass, my fucking legs—all of it hurts. My muscles don’t want to work the way they should. They’re like an elastic band that won’t snap back into place.
I open the door to tear-filled, wide blue eyes. “Fuck. Fawnie. I’m so sorry. I got home, I was losing my shit, and I sat down at the piano. I played. Lost all track of time. I’m a selfish, stupid asshole. I know I made you worry. I’m s—”