All that is dark | ✓

2| memories

TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY-TWO. That's how many rose bushes he had planted. It had been hard to count in her fatigue, but it was even harder to sleep. No matter how hard she yelled or hit the door, no one came, leaving her all alone with her thoughts for the first time in years. Until now she had turned all her attention towards analyzing the people around her and helping her patients, to the extent that she barely had any time to think about herself. That was the only way for her to function. She didn't care about healing her problems, because she knew that took patience and forgiveness, both which she wouldn't grant herself. After all, she didn't have any moment to spare when she had to be the best at everything she did.

And now here she was, proclaimed to be the best psychiatrist in the world and yet unable to spend a second in her own company. She didn't want to analyze herself, but it was hard not to when it had become like a reflex to her. Every time she felt herself slip in the thought process she was used to, one which was now critically directed at every one of her own moves, she started walking circles in the room, so fast that her head began spinning. It was the only way she could stop herself.

She was doing it for the fifth time this morning now, her stomach beginning to turn at how fast she was going. It was the fifteenth day he had left her alone here, the only way she could keep track of the hours the rising and setting of the sun over the bed of roses below. At first she had had some hope that she'd have some contact with him when he came to bring her food, but she quickly realized that wouldn't be happening. When she had opened the second door leading to the bathroom, she had found a stack of canned food, crackers and dried fruits in the stall of the shower, reaching to the ceiling. From the amount of it, she'd be able to survive here for six months at least. She wouldn't let it come to that. If need be, she'd bite through her own tongue.

When she sat down on the floor, her mind began to wander again, like it had done these past days here. As soon as she blinked she was back in a room she didn't want to recognize, one which her mother had made sure was beautiful enough that no one would bother to look further. People didn't care about how pale the national prodigy was or how she always covered her skin. No, none of that mattered when her dresses were pretty and her room big. The view from the outside was a distorted one, but no one wanted to see the terrible things underneath a pretty smile anyway. Abuse couldn't possibly exist in a family so perfect, her teacher had said once, when she had seen her bruises.

She tried to shake herself out of the memory, but for some reason she wasn't able to see anything but her old room. Even after all these years, even as a hallucination, she hated this room. It was straight out of an advertisement for interior decorating, with pastel pink walls and beautiful dolls lined up neatly on the closet full of books. Brand new school supplies were stacked on her desk, colorful dresses in her closet. It was all pleasing to look at, but that's also all it was meant to be. She didn't touch the things in this room, after all, she wasn't allowed to. The dolls weren't for her to play with, the books were just covers, empty pages on the inside. Everything was for show and so was she.

"Helene!" a shrill voice called out, echoing through their empty home," come downstairs, now."

Though she wanted to refuse, her body never listened to her. She walked downstairs, moving as if controlled by someone else, a smile plastered on her face as soon as she reached the living room. Her mother was sitting on the couch with her back turned towards her, busy cutting something out of the paper. When she didn't give another order, Helene continued walking, only stopping when she stood right beside her. The woman was hunched over the paper, her face concealed by her pale blond hair, which was spilling down more as she leaned forward. Her knuckles were white from how tensely she was holding the scissors, nails bitten so far that her fingers bled at even the slightest pressure. Even her desire for beauty couldn't outweigh her compulsions.