2019
Sometime after a endless school day in a warm endless australian summer day
“YOU FUCKING LUNATIC”
I’m cowering in a corner.
“Please..please stop”
“YOUR SO FUCKING ANNOYING”
“I-i just wanted to play..”
“I SHOULD JUST GO AHEAD AND PUNCH YOU”
“Please…that really, really hurts”
A hand is sneaking around my neck and forcing me up, my legs are frantically waving in the air”
“THIS IS WHAT YOU GET FOR PESTERING ME YOU FUCKING PRICK”
“Please”
And then he's dropped me, and I’m gasping on the cold carpet, neck red and sore.
A move and an eternity later.
I’m waking up, and it's 5;15 am.
I twist around till I face the wall and close my eyes. I get 45 more minutes of luxuriating in my bed.
I don't know if it's sad, but lately my only comfort has been waking up early so I can sleep in for a bit more. The sky's all grey, and there's that slight chill in the air that means that autumn is around the corner. In the back of my mind faint thoughts are beginning to buzz about my impending day, what classes I have, If i'm going to swing by that cafe near school that I can never remember the name of. I push the thoughts into a small nook in my brain that I like to call “life” and try to get a few more minutes of shut eye.
;;;;
I bolt up as my alarm dutifully rings out its jangling tunes. FUCK. How long was I asleep? I search through the covers, searching for my phone, locating it twisted into my pillowcase. How the fuck did it get there? I groan as the time reads out; 6;20. I scramble out of my bed, covers stretching across the floor, tangling around my socked feet. I snatch my uniform from my chair and scrape my hair into a bun, heading to the shower.
I press play on “juliet” by cavetown and crank out the hot water, lathering thick goopy soap onto my scarred thighs. I frown slightly, remembering how those scars got there. I turn my thoughts to brushing my teeth, my mouth filling with minty flavoured foam. The paste runs down my neck, down to my chest. I rinse it off, crooning to the lyrics playing in the background, words made faint by the constant pulse of the water trickling down the walls.
“Juliet.,
A special gi-rl
But i need to
Understa-a-and
When i can,
Power through”
I twist the shower knobs off, and step out the shower, and wrap a towel around my chest, moving the towel up, and down, watching beads of water drop to the floor, running down the cracks in the tile.
I pause and look at my reflection in the mirror.
I don't exactly dislike my appearance, in fact there are parts of it that I quite like, such as my hair. But sometimes, my body just feels inadequate, not enough. Its a bit chubby in some places and a bit thin in the others. I think, If I wasn't around social media so much, I would like my body a bit more.
I finish scrubbing, and pull on my shirt and pants. They're awful colours, maroon and white. I always try my best to accessorise them with a cardigan, bracelets, rings, necklaces etc, etc. I’m not really sure if this is because they're pretty, or because they feel like armour. If people are focused on my bracelets, maybe they would forget about that new pimple that popped up on my forehead and won't go away.
I finish adjusting my hair and tiptoe downstairs, I fail and end up tripping and stumbling down the stairs. So much for being quiet. I pick myself off the ground and produce a bowl of cereal with peaches and yoghurt. I let it sit and trudge back upstairs to pack my bag. A quick glance at the time lets me know that I have 10 minutes to pull my shit together and head out the door. I end up forgoing breakfast and pull my socks on, with shoes in one hand and headphones in the other. I kiss my mum goodbye and run to the bus stop across the road, socks dampening from a night's rain. The bus pulls up as I've just finished panting from my morning escapades.
Once I hop on the bus, everything passes in a blur, I vaguely remember getting off to change stops, smiling at my friend on the bus, the faint thump of my music pounding in my head.
I feel my head slowly filling with that fog that seems to dampen my thoughts. It continues to hover in my mind as I stare blankly at a screen, unable to produce an adequate response that would be deemed good enough, and therefore give me an adequate grade.
“So,, I think to summarise, I've been doing ok lately, but……
I dunno.
I just feel….so, empty”
Miss McGonagall nodded, and scribbled something down on her notebook.
It's 4;00 pm and I’m absentminded in a chair, with my therapist, Miss McGonagall.
Today she's been asking me to summarise my thoughts, and feelings from the past four weeks. Throughout my fascinating narrative(sarcasm) she’s scattered responses through my story like droplets, quiet hm, meaningful ahhs, the list could go on. I've been trying to find out what these noises mean, and their purpose in her dialogue.
Miss McGonagall sighs, and sets down her notebook. (this is a sign shes going to ask something sad and important)
“Remus …do you have…a guess of..why you have been feeling this way?”
She tilts her head to the side and looks at me.
I curl deeper into my chair, and rack my brain, placing my arms around my knees, making some sort of makeshift hug.
“Um..”
“It's ok, we can move on, if you feel more comfortable with that. “
She looks at me expectantly, as I squirm around a bit more.
I stare at the ground as I speak.
“I…think, maybee just, being….
Here?”
“Where Remus?”
“ Um……
Maybe…
Just….my home”
“That’s understandable Remus”.
I shift around in my makeshift hug.
“It…. doesn't feel that way. I just feel, like maybe, If I tried harder, smiled more, been more complacent, there would have been no fights? No…punches…or screaming..”
“I I just…feel that if maybe i was better, tried harder I would have been…safer”
I struggle to connect my words, long floating gaps stretching like chasms across my broken phrases.
I press my head to my knees, trying to stem the flow of tears I feel bubbling up from my eyes. I’m not sure why I’m crying. It's…just the thought of my home, and staying there for years more, is just so, so stressful.
Everyday feels like an eternity, as I silently beg to fall asleep sooner so I wouldn't have to stay in this haunted place.
I raise my head and tilt my head towards my therapist, she looks at me, her head cocked in a question.
“Do you think that if you had him do what he wanted, as a kid, he would have been kinder to you ?”
“He wouldn't have…done the things he did?”
I pause, rocking back and forth, treasuring the heat in my stomach, to consider. Minutes pass, and I rack my brain for something, something I could have done that would have fully, fully protected me from him.
I don't know. I can't think of anything. But There. Must. Have . Been. Something. I Did.
Something.
The bus home is quiet. I press my head against the plastic window as the hot muggy air presses around me. I sigh, and the bus starts to move, a quiet hum reverberating through the bus, pulsating into my bones.
I watch as the bus passes over the river, the waves lapping softly at the muddy grass decorating the banks.
Then the bus pulls away and the window faces a tall set of apartments. I watch each one pass, all the same, but all so different.
Eventually I step off the bus and walk up to my house. The lights are off, and nobody's home. As I step in and slip off my shoes a buzz on my phone confirms my suspicion, the house is empty and mum wants me to get a start on dinner. I sigh and propel myself to the kitchen, putting spaghetti in a pan, and cut up a few onions and tomatos for a sauce.
I finish up and lay myself onto the couch and click on the tv. The blue light illuminates the household, washing everything in a hazy blur. I blink for a few seconds, adjusting.
I click around on Netflix for a while before settling on an old sitcom, I let the laugh track become static to my thoughts, filling my head with a soft haze that makes everything softer. I feel myself sink into the cushions, and my limbs become heavy.
I wake bleary eyed to the sound of the door sliding open and my father walking in.
He closes the door and glances over at me.
‘Asleep already?”
He chuckles.
“Yea, I suppose”
He rolls his eyes and walks over to his desk, continuing his work.
My father is an interesting man. He looks like any other dad by the time they’re 39, a bit pudgy and thinning at the top, that classic goofy smile.
But he's always been a bit….distant. He’ll speak to you and smile but we never really talk about anything substantial. It’s like we're constantly on a loop, the same conversations with the same smiles and same responses and same times. All perfectly selected and perfectly planned.
It’s infuriating. I tell my dad to watch the pasta and I walk up the carpeted steps to my room, all the shadows slant along the floor creating a swirling haze or colour. I lean against the door to my room, my legs buckling under the task of going up stairs.
My room is full of shadows. Faint, grainy specks of light pattern on the ceiling, creating a constellation. But that's it, bold black lines fall across my room, if they weren't shadows I’d think they were a prison. But maybe they already are.
I’m trudging to my bed and my legs are giving out and my feet slip and I tilt back and I’m falling
Falling
Falling
Boom.
My back hits the floor and the carpets smushed and I can tell by the searing pain in my foot that I’ve stubbed my toe. I sigh, I’m too tired to pick myself up so I just curl into a ball there.
I feel that small coveted warmth in my chest return and my heart rate slows down. Quiet.
Cold
But warm on the inside.
I stay there for a while, I let the shadows slowly blanket me and the sparkles on the ceiling fade away.
I stay there till dinner time.
Till my dads calling and I can smell the weed wafting and my brother’s screaming.
I stay there for a while.
Till the food’s gone cold, till the lights downstairs switch off.
Just staying there.
Just breathing.
Steady, safe, maybe not.
At some point I feel myself fall asleep and my head is filled with stars and the soft whine of my memories clinking.
Just staying.
2019
“I could punch you, if you wanted to, just so you know”
“That’s not ok Tilly”
“ Your just making a big deal- your gonna complain that I fucked you up or something when all I gave you was a little bump”
“That still wasn’t ok Tilly”
“Oh grow up and be a fucking man- real men should fight back instead of crying to some therapist”
“Tilly, please I don’t want to have this conversation anymore”
“Haha- just backing out like a classic Pussy- told you you weren't a real man. “