Inside.

I always hated when mother left to go grocery shopping. It made me nervous to be alone. I wasn’t fit to be alone in all honesty. I turned on the TV though she’d instructed me not to. She said I was only allotted two hours of television a day. She was afraid that the frequencies would interfere with my brain waves and give me radiation damage.

I’d barely gotten any sleep last night. My insomnia was getting worse. I caught mother slipping sleeping pills in my pudding a few nights ago. She’ll do anything to make sure I take my medicine. Sometimes, when I’m having a bad day and my temper acts up, she’ll beg me to take it. If that doesn’t work, she’ll cry. She knows I can’t stand to see her cry. Mother always gets what she wants.

About half an hour later I heard keys jingling outside the front door of our apartment. I turned off the TV, and rushed back to my room, slipping under the covers. The front door opened, and she stumbled inside. After setting the bags down on the kitchen table she came and sat down beside me on my bed. I blinked, feigning grogginess. “Hey sleepy head. How long have you been up?”

“I just woke up,” I lied, propping myself up on my elbows.

 “Well I just got back from the store. How about I fix us some pancakes? How’s that sound?”

 “I never say no to pancakes,” I laughed.

After breakfast, at exactly 10:15 a.m. she ran me a bath, just like she does everyday at exactly 10:15am. I sat with my shoulders hunched over my body as she scrubbed my back with a pink loofa, humming some tune that she’d gotten stuck in her head at the grocery store. “It’s your birthday tomorrow,” she cooed. “I’m going to make your favorite – red velvet cake. And for dinner I thought we could have a nice pot roast.” I smiled in response, catching the drops that dripped from the faucet and watching as they slipped between my fingers back into the water.  

She helped me rinse off and then wrapped a towel around me when I stepped out of the bathtub. “Now run and get dressed. I have to go tidy up the house,” she ordered, shoving me out of the bathroom.

I dropped my damp towel to the floor and stood in front of my mirror. It was a habit I’d acquired rather recently. I think it’d been triggered after I watched a documentary on alien abductions after my mother went to sleep one night. Now every day after my bath I had to check my body for any marks, lumps, or scars that hadn’t been there the night before.

Once I felt as though I’d completed a thorough inspection of myself, I shrugged into the pink collared shirt and faded capris my mother had laid out on my bed for me. Sitting down at my vanity to do my hair, my brush strokes seemed to reflect my solemn mood. Or maybe mirrors have the tendency to make me solemn; and with good reason. My looks are less than mediocre. I used to be plain. I used to look like every other Caucasian female with brown hair, brown eyes, and a lack-luster figure. My transition into ugly was not as progressive as I would’ve liked. It was too quick. I didn’t have enough time to adjust. Now my skin is pallid to the point I looked ill, my hair is thin and stringy, and my eyes have dulled with the rest of me.

My seal of dismal peace is broken. She snatches the brush from my hand and begins to pull it through my hair. “Mother, I’d prefer that you knock before entering my room from now on,” I said keeping my voice low to mask the annoyance in my tone. Her brush strokes reflected her animosity towards my suggestion.

 “Why? What have you got to hide?”

“Nothing, I just would like to have some privacy is all. Oww, Mother! You’re hurting me,” I cried, grabbing the brush away from her tightly clutched fist. She brought her open palm across the side of my face, causing a loud popping noise to echo through my mouth when her hand made contact with my cheek.

My Mother hated violence. She only hit me when she thought I was being rude. A subtle, but ever-present resentment had slowly begun to build between my mother and me, and when she hit me this resentment flared with an intensity so fierce that it caused the back of my neck and face to catch fire.

She saw my eyes glaze over and my body stiffen. Usually these were the warning signs that my temper was about to get the best of me.

“I’m so sorry! Oh honey I’m so very, very sorry. It’s just …I don’t know…what’s gotten into you lately.” I spun around in my vanity chair to face her. She looked frightened. I think I scare her more than she likes to let on. I took mental note of this.

“No Mother, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made such a silly suggestion.” She stroked my hair tenderly – the acceptance of my apology.

She made fish tacos for lunch. I took all my medicine without complaint and reached for my third taco.

“Don’t you think two is enough Harper?” she chided. Though she’d worded it like a question, it was more of an order.

“I’m still hungry, Mother.”

“Have another glass of water then Dear. You should be thankful that I care enough to stop you from overdoing it. If I let you, you would just eat your weight in food.”

“May I be excused?” I asked.

“What for, Dear?  Did I upset you?”

“May I be excused?” I repeated, choosing to ignore her demeaning question.

“Well alright.”

I went to the bathroom and locked the door. Bracing myself against the counter, I stared down into the gleaming bowl of the sink. I turned on the faucet, waiting for the water to get hot enough for steam to billow up into my face in airy clouds of mist. I used three pumps of soap from the dispenser and lathered up my hands under the sweltering liquid flame. Most people wouldn’t think of washing your hands as a form of self-mutilation, but that’s precisely what it was for me. I’d wash them seven times in a row – thirteen on a bad day. My hands would bleed and the skin on my knuckles would crack when I made the slightest movements with my fingers.

She knocked on the door. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself Harper. It’s an unhealthy way of taking out your frustrations. Dr. Miller says you should try painting, or writing. You used to like poetry. Why don’t you write some poems in that new journal I got you?”

I ignored her incessant chatter, watching the water turn pink as it streamed over my hands. They were numb from the heat. The burn was now a mild tingle. I turned off the faucet and closed my eyes. “Harper, come out of there. I wanna discuss your birthday plans. Should I get twenty three individual candles or a two and a three?”

I dry my hands and open the door. She is standing in the doorway, picking lint off of her nude pink sweater.  “No candles.”

“Why not?”

“No candles and no cake.”

“But you can’t have a birthday without cake.”

“I’ll be in my room.”

“Fine, Dear. Go take your medicine.”

 I didn’t take it. I stood at the bedroom window, feeling what little warmth I could through the glass pane. I longed to remember what it was like to feel the sun on my skin without a barrier between its light and my flesh. The thought of it made my whole body smile. If it gave life to dead things, maybe it could give it to me. Lord knows I wanted it. It had been sixteen long years since I’d stepped foot outside this apartment. Sixteen years of seclusion and being cut off from everything and everyone outside. The front door and the sterile, unused guest bedroom were the farthest stretches of my known universe. The last time I’d seen the sun face-to-face was when I had just turned six years old. I never got a chance to say goodbye.

I felt the fact that my birthday was on a Monday to be a bad omen. There’s a reason everyone hates Mondays. Why should I think my birthday was an exception? I couldn’t find a reason either. So I assumed it was going to be awful.

I woke up when it was still dark out. My alarm clock confirmed that it was 4:27 am. Ordinarily I would make an attempt to go back to sleep, but after listening for a few moments I realized that my Mother was not yet awake. This kind of occurrence was a rare one. I sprang from bed too quickly and my head swam between my ears. I was cautious as I crept out of my bedroom and towards the bathroom.

I lock the door once safely inside, and – trying my best to avoid making eye contact with myself in the bathroom mirror – open the medicine cabinet. The knife makes a soft whisper when it cuts through the air as I pull it from its designated shelf. It’s a thin knife that I’m able to keep hidden behind bottles of expired ibuprofen.

            Climbing into the white, porcelain bowl, I simultaneously dropp the stopper in the drain and turn the water on; watching as it rushes out of the mouth of the faucet and into the soap scum lined tub. I suck in a breath between my teeth when the cold water makes contact with my skin.

            By the time the water reaches mid-torso, my body is completely numb from the cold. I shut off the water and slide down lower in the tub. My thumb gingerly caresses the blade of the knife. Without much effort, it slices through the first few layers of my skin. The red runs down my arm and into the water. The drops of red spread, momentarily staining the water pink. I watch the rings of color fade again and again.

            I let my arm dangle over the lip of the tub, my fingers just touching the floor. The water facilitates the blood flow from my small cut. My fingers trace in the pink puddle I’ve created on the linoleum. It’s silent. Not even my own thoughts make noise. Not even the slightest whisper. It’s the red. It makes everything quiet. It hushes all the noise. It hollows out the sound. That’s why red is my favorite color.  

I prop my leg up on the side of the bathtub, biting my lip to suppress the moan I know is bound to come. I feel the coolness of the blade, resting against my inner thigh. I exhale and close my eyes as I press the blade of the knife against the skin there.

My eyes close again and I’m on the edge of euphoria. Back and forth between consciousness and unconsciousness. I dig the blade deeper into my flesh; making a real effort not to protest the pain that pulsates through my entire being.

Then the pain comes. I try to blink away the tears that fill my eyes, and clutch the side of the bathtub as I admire all the crimson. Even through the tears that blur my vision, I can see the red clearly. Clearest of all in fact, because all other colors have faded to a shade of grey. A hiss of severe discomfort escapes my mouth when the water fills my fresh wound as I ease my leg back into the tub.

            I sink down lower. The water fills my ears and all I hear is the faint echo of my muted heartbeat. I hold my breath, remaining under the water for as long as my lungs allow. A few moments later I resurface for air, pushing my wet hair out of my face. My body trembles. I’m cold. I’m shivering. Absentmindedly I touch my fingers to my lips. I feel them quiver and for some reason this is hysterical to me.

I guess I’d been laughing for a while when my Mother finally walked in. I forgot to lock the door. Habit I suppose. She opened the door to me tossing the small knife back and forth. Right, then left, then right again. It was almost hypnotic. I waited, but she didn’t scream. She didn’t scream, but the expression on her face was far louder than any noise she could’ve made.

She rushed towards the bathtub, her arms outstretched towards me.  She’d nearly reached me when she slipped in my pink puddle. I sat motionless in the bathtub as I watched her try to regain her footing. Instead, she fell backwards, hitting her head on the corner of the sink counter on her way down. My body thawed and I unfroze, climbing out of the tub to inspect the damage. “Mother?” I stammered. There was so much red. And with the red came the silence.

I didn’t like this silence.

The fall wasn’t what I expected. It was too anticlimactic. She was supposed to try to wrestle the knife out of my hands and accidentally stab herself in the process. And the fall happened too fast. It should’ve been in slow motion. She should’ve been suspended in mid fall for what seemed like ages. She was supposed to whisper something in my ear before she died. Something that would dramatically alter the course of my life. But none of those things happened.

I think I was less traumatized by her sudden death, and more so by my reaction to it. No tears or remorse. I thought those were default reactions to death. I didn’t throw myself on her body, sobbing to satisfy my grief.  I didn’t even have a desire to touch her. She looked contagious. Maybe the full impact of the blow hadn’t hit me yet. That’s what I wanted to believe.

The blood pooled from the gash in the back of her head. It looked like a halo. A halo of red. I think that’s when red stopped being my favorite color.

I left the bathroom, my leg wrapped in a ribbon of red. It dripped down my leg, leaving a trace of vibrant foot prints on the white carpet. My favorite silk robe was lying at the top of the hamper. I grabbed it and pulled it on. Then, walking back out into the living room, I noticed something. I was headed for the telephone when I saw that the front door was open. Not wide open, just slightly ajar. How long had it been that way? A few hours? All night?

            Mother had always been careful to make sure the door was locked before she went to bed. I made my approach, taking hold of the doorknob. Outside. The door was the barrier between me and it. Nothing more than a slab of wood. I opened the door. The door that would lead me from seclusion.

            Fear surged through me as I was standing in the door way. The first few steps were stiff and forced. Then I become more confident, my speed increasing as I paced down the narrow hallway. By the time I reached the stairs I was running. It was invigorating. I felt my face give birth to a smile. It threatened to rip my face in two. Soon I had burst through the doors of the administration office to my apartment complex. I had reached the court yard. I was outside.

The sun kissed my face and embraced me in its arms of warmth.

“I missed you.”