Studio 22 | Mary-Kate Olsen

Chapter Five

January 10th 2022 - New York City - The Sinclair Brownstone

I was completely submerged in water. As I lay still in the bath, my cast resting on the side of the tub, my lungs screamed for air but I felt a sense of peace as I denied their request. I had a thin strand of control back. The noise of my family home was muffled by the water filling my ears, my heart rate was steady, and my mind was focused on not letting any water in my lungs. The burning sensation only grew stronger the longer I forced my body to stay under the water. For the first time in the past week, my mind wasn't replaying the events of the accident, it was just focusing on the sensation of the water all around me. It rippled against my skin whenever I moved my fingers or arm and—suddenly the feeling stopped as I felt hands under my armpits jerking me out from under the water.

"Sofía, what are you doing! I've been calling you for two minutes," My mum says, clearly panicked as she held me up while I attempted to cover my exposed body from her. "What were you doing, Sofía?" She repeated when I hadn't answered her. "Just relaxing," I say, moving from her grip and getting out of the water to cover my body with a towel.

Mum scanned me over as I silently walked around the humid bathroom using my casted hand to hold up my towel and the other to pull the plug out, draining the water from the tub. I put away the products I had used. "Blue?" She says, softly this time, as she lays a hand on my arm, "What were you doing?" "You told me I had to go have a bath so I was doing exactly that," I say simply trying to keep the sass to a minimum. "Sweetie you weren't answering me, you were under the water for a very long time," She highlighted to me. I stood up straight and looked at her. "What are you suggesting?" I questioned, looking her in the eyes, challenging her to accuse me of something. "I don't think you're coping very well, Blue." We looked at each other, my words were wrapped around my tongue and I couldn't form a sentence to defend myself. "I think you need to start talking, Blue." My heartbeat was no longer calm, it was beating against my chest rapidly at the thought of having to talk through all of this clutter in my head. I couldn't talk about it, I couldn't admit how bad it really was. I couldn't shake the feeling of grief and guilt that followed me around like my shadow.

"Jazz is coming over, I need to get dressed," I tell her, before leaving quickly. I rushed into my room and closed my door before leaning against it, holding the handle of the door to stop my mum from opening it. "Blue." She called. "Please, baby girl. Let me in." I squeezed my eyes shut tight and took a deep breath. Build the barricades up and keep my emotions masked as I have done in the past. "Blue, baby," She tried the handle again. I didn't say anything and I didn't move. I just waited her out. The second I heard her footsteps fade away as she walked down the hall I moved away from the door and started getting ready. Jazz didn't need to see me like this. She had been dealing with my wallowing self since I got home. I changed, brushed through my hair and braided it to keep it neat and give the illusion that I was pulling my life together slowly. I made my bed and took my dirty dishes down to the kitchen. I opened my window to let some fresh air in, the sounds of the busy city echoing around my room. On the outside I looked like I had made progress, I was pulling it together, packaging the pain away in a box and tying it shut with a pretty bow so no one knew the horrors inside.

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"Hey, loser, how are you feeling?" Jazz said as she entered my room dumping her bag on my desk and going to my closet to pick out some clothes to change into. "Good, I had a bath today. It was nice." She looked over her shoulder at me and I forced a smile as I sat down on the bed waiting for her to join me. She had just finished work and this had been her routine twice a week. She'd come here and check on me. My parents are nervous to leave me alone, everyone is treating me like a china doll that could break at any second, so Jazz comes to sit with me whilst my parents go to volunteer at this centre for homeless veterans. "Did you want to go out?" She asked as she changed her clothes. "No," I say flat out, with no hesitation in my response. "Come on, Blue, we could go to the Thai place. Can you remember when we went with my parents last time you were home for Christmas?" "Jazz, I don't want to go out today." "You have to leave the house at some point," She told me rolling her eyes at my lack of effort to venture out of the house, my safe space. "I did. Two days ago," I point out. "To go to your doctor's appointment and your brother carried you out to the car," She tells me bluntly. "I still left the house," I pointed out being smart with her, which caused her to roll her eyes at me once again. "We can watch a film." "We do that every day," She complained as she flopped onto my bed. "We could go bake?" I offered. "Or we could actually go be 20-something-year-olds and live our lives. A few of my friends from work are going to this uptown bar tonight." She wiggled her eyebrows at me and I kept my face firm. I was not leaving this house. I was exhausted just talking to Jazz, never mind actually getting ready to leave. "Fine. But you're making me dinner." She says when she realises no amount of coaxing was getting me to leave this house tonight. "If you're okay with Raman then sure, I'll make you dinner." She chuckled in response knowing I could only cook a few dishes and I wasn't joking about having ramen for dinner.