Ruby Red Marionette

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I woke up this morning with an uncomfortable wetness on my thigh.

It might have been an hour or two before I collected the strength to investigate it. I kept my eyes shut for most of the morning, pretending that I didn’t feel it and even formulating a dream around it (I was imagining that someone was pouring milk all over me).

Eventually, the dream ended and so did the luxury of ignoring what I knew the liquid was: blood. I rose from the bed, eyelids still weighing what felt like a ton, and pushed the sheets off of me to reveal the deep, red gash. The blood was thick, seeping through the sheets and probably all the way down to the mattress. I just stared at it for a while, too tired to do much of anything but look. Even beginning to process where the gash came from was too much of a headache. So I gathered the sheets, stuffed them under the bed, and headed for the bathroom.

Only when I was in the hallway of the basement did I realize where I was: the studio. It was a satisfying and disappointing awareness. Satisfying, because of the fact that I couldn’t remember what happened after I left Isaiah, but regardless of what happened, it must have ended well if I woke up in a familiar place. Bleeding, but still safe. I was disappointed, however, because waking up in my mother’s studio was rare for me. At least for the past few months, things weren’t routine anymore. I didn’t spend my days doing specific things and then go to sleep in my specific residence and wake up in that same place. My days were spent either wandering the streets of this city, at work, or spending time with old creeps like Charlie. Every morning, I would open my eyes to the guest room in Simon’s house, bumping into the degrees on his wall whenever I stumbled my way into the bathroom, feeling exhausted and almost dead from a hangover.

It used to embarrass me, being at Simon’s house, but all it took was some getting used to. We hadn’t spoken for a few years, and when he first took me in, it was like being at a stranger’s home. But we’d always been able to break the ice easily, even from elementary school. He just had to learn how to befriend this new person, this different and re-vamped Geneva. He had to learn how to like me. In the process, he fell in love with me (again), and now he’s in the process of trying to ignore that passion.

Our relationship was strange.

I stumbled into the bathroom the same way I did Simon’s, closing the door behind me before any of the girls could bombard me with their smiles and excessive friendliness. Blood dripped onto the cold, tiled floors as I searched through the medicine cabinet for some kind of peroxide and bandages. I found both, closed the cabinet, and got into the tub.

My blood created a mixture with the water in the tub left behind from the last person who showered. The two liquids blended, swimming down and into the drain. The medley continued; I enjoyed watching the process. It wasn’t a comforting sight, watching my DNA be further etched into this establishment, but it was a temporary distraction from the pain. I lay in the tub, eyes closed, just breathing. Just letting myself soak in the beads of water and the dead skin on the walls and the fact that I was alive. And inexplicably bleeding.

I sat up to examine the cut. It was deep, but not so much that I needed stitches. Reluctantly, I turned on the water on my leg, letting the blood disperse, and then gnawed on the shower curtain as I poured just a drop of peroxide.

After a few minutes of contemplating buying some candles and a speaker to soak myself the right way, I left the bathroom, limping on my leg. A few of the girls glanced down at my bandage and then up at my face. None of them asked questions. I only realized why they didn’t comment when I passed by the costume room, where Leah and an instructor named Helen were packing boxes.

They intoned a glum good morning, never raising their heads. I only watched them, wondering why they were packing up the little pink dresses that they dyed yesterday for the junior class.