Venta Black | Amanda Young

Eric

Blue light, dark room, the white of your teeth
As you smile at my trembling shoulders
But your skin, did you notice your skin
It cries a soft weep like mine

Amanda's apartment: Daylight

The glint of the blade reflected in the morning sunshine, and the crimson blood that followed after dripped and drizzled off of my wrist like liquid regret, stress, and anger. Yet, it calmed me. I breathed in shakily, as I drew the blade across my skin with a stinging pain again. I looked at the wall. Mindless motions, cutting, dragging, and breathing through the relief of my stress. The pain settled my mind and the blood coating my hands calmed me in a way I could not understand, a familiar sensation. I deserved it. I wasn't listening, I disobeyed and caused more harm to someone than I had intended to do. Again I was the cause of a painful death, oh death, I wanted it to come for me. But it didn't. All I could do was wait. I was mad, I was seethingly upset, and I was sorrowful. Sorrow was my driven manipulator, dragging me to punish myself, and guilt was my motivator. My voice of what sounded like reason, but ultimately was not. I wiped the razor blade with my sleeve.
The open window filtered air into the room, the summer breeze rippling through the curtains and casting light into the small room. I was sitting on the edge of my bed, and my eyes fell from the wall back to my wrists. Scars re-opened, leaving worse marks that had begun to scab and turn brown due to exposure to oxygen. I was tired and worn, the only reminder that I was still alive being my beating heart. The room was spinning and fading, my head felt heavy and my body felt limp, as I let go of my posture and eventually gave into my grief. Part of me missed my old life, as depressing and exhausting as it was. Yet I was given this chance, it would be wrong of me to turn it down. It was eating me inside, like someones chomping teeth were ripping my body apart from the hollows of my stomach, all the way up to my brain. My brain and heart did not think alike. My brain told me to scream and to give in to my despair and guilt, while my heart told me to chase the feeling that filled it when I was with John, through my doubts in myself. My doubts that I was ever going to be fixed. John, I nearly forgot that he was standing by the windowsill looking out. I closed my eyes and felt someone's hand lift up my chin.
"You must meet death in order to be reborn." Was all John said as he placed his hands to my cheek. I could barely see him, could barely register it when he took my hand in his and held me closer. I tightened my grip on him like he was my lifeline, as I felt the razor blade fall from my grasp.
"It's okay, Amanda." I didn't respond, just closed my eyes and once again felt the comforting summer breeze in the fulfilling moment. There was that filling feeling, my heart swelled. He was the father I had never really had. One who doesn't neglect me, or think of me worthless. John thought so much of me it almost hurt. To carry on his legacy was a large task. Yet every time I said I couldn't do it, he stabilized my faith in him and in myself. But shortly after, the feelings returned. There was no escaping them. I breathed in and out, feeling a bandage be wrapped around my wrists in the darkness of my closed eyelids, the warmth of John leaving me for a second before it returned. He swayed and took me with him, showing me an affection I'd never yet experienced. Familial love. A father comforting his daughter. A daughter's desperation and a fathers broken soul.
"I think it's time we give somebody a visit."
Yet she was the center of his attention,
All his love went into her.
I was only shown a fraction.

Homeward bound clinic: Daylight

Again I found myself hiding in a corner of Jill's clinic, yet under circumstances I never had thought would occur. It had the same smell as I recalled, and the tile floors looked all the same. Except rather than hiding behind a door, I was hiding in plain sight. Sitting in a folding chair tucked to the corner where Jill wouldn't be able to see me. He was sitting in the one across from me. John had this way of presentation, everything we did had to be a great show to put on. Like a circus, or a grand entrance at the pearly gates. Jill stopped at the door, blonde curls falling at her shoulders with a stark white doctor's coat draped across her body. I made myself as small as possible. John never looked at her, but recognized her presence. Probably from her perfume.
"The thing with masking agents is that they only numb the senses."
Jill didn't speak, but her glossed lips parted. Despite her facade, I could see the tiredness in her eyes, the paleness of her skin. She was tired and worn out, replaying events in her head that had happened what felt like a lifetime ago.
"I've found you a better way." John's barely audible voice whispered, and Jill's head cocked to the side. She looked fed up, but there was something about these walls she was putting up that felt fake, she didn't truly hate him. She still longed for what they once had.
"These people– they will continue to hurt you. To let you down-"
"They're addicts, John," Jill protested, her fists tightly clenching at her sides. "Recovery is a process."
"Maybe addiction's just a part of human nature." Through their disagreements, I shuddered. I tried to make my breathing small and quiet, but the pounding in my chest was almost unbearable. Despite my discomfort, I stayed silent.
"What about these people who come here everyday and use you? They bide their time, they're avoiding prison sentences." He stood up and gestured with his hand.
"They're getting hooked on masking agents, do you call that recovery?!"
"It's not that simple.." Jill said quietly, frightened. She didn't know what he was going to do or say, and I didn't know either.
"Addiction is not simple jill, Wake up!" John raised his voice, and I knew how angry he was. I had just never seen it. He'd always been calm and methodical around me, and never showed me the side of him that could destroy anyone in his path. He was terrifying.
"These people have no respect- for the lives that they're destroying." He softened his tone, and Jill fumbled nervously with her hands much like how she had done when Cecil and I broke in. I felt bad, more guilt rattled my bones. I couldn't do this, I couldn't do this. My body was aching and I wanted to rip off all of my skin just so I could breathe, instead I focused more on John and Jill as I ran my own fingers through my hair.
"Until you see death up close," John looked at the floor, nodded, then looked back to Jill who was shaking in the doorframe.
"Then you understand the value of life." Jill shook her head at John's nonsensical sounding words, but he's right, is he not? I had overcome my addiction because of him, I had gone on to live because of his philosophy yet I had just resorted to another way to ruin myself. Through silver blades and velvety blood, rather than through settling chemicals and shiny needles.
"That's my way." John continued to look at Jill, his eyes piercing and unwavering. I wonder if he knew the effect this had on people, and that was why he did it so often. Knew it made them fear for what was to come, and knew that anyone and everyone would listen intently. Yet he hadn't used it on me, no. He hadn't. I wasn't the front of his anger, only his despair, and discarded affections, hopes, and dreams. Whenever we talked it was always about tomorrow, the looming future that was overcast above us. Through the thrill of the hunt and rush of adrenaline whenever we had put somebody into a game, it hurt, but it was also like a feeling of true love. I was falling slowly in love with this lifestyle, in love with the feeling of complete agony, I searched for these feelings. In order for me to live, I needed to feel sadness. Through my hope for happiness, I knew I could only thrive in death and sorrow. It's not my fault, it was just how I was born into this world. I have a feeling that John was the same.
But there was also the side of me that hated it. I knew it was wrong, and that I shouldn't substitute the drugs for something else. Whether it be John, or the games we played. I couldn't let the chemical dependency of my brain latch onto something else, but I feared I already had. It was too late.
"I brought proof." was said quietly by John, and I knew that it was time to come out of hiding and show Jill that I was rehabilitated, or at least that's what he thinks. That's what he wants it to seem like, so I'll lie for him. I'll tell the truth, but I'll also sugarcoat it with lies. I stood up slowly from my chair and walked toward Jill, stopping somewhere in the middle of the room. She turned to face me, and it was like stars sparkled in her tired eyes. Her lips were threatening to pull into a smile, and I tried my hardest to keep looking at her as she muttered my name in shock and amazement.
"Amanda..?"
"Hello Jill." I said flatly, although there was emotion there. She was my doctor, she tried to help me numerous times, yet somewhere along the line she had given up. She kept looking at me until John wrapped his arm around her. That's when I looked at the floor instead for just a flash, but forced myself to keep looking. It meant nothing to me, she was his wife. I was his apprentice and metaphorical daughter. Yet at times it didn't feel metaphorical. It felt very real. I was almost convinced it was real. Yes, it was. Should anyone else come along I wouldn't have it. I'll do anything so it's just me and him, forever. A captain and his ship at sea, with nobody else bothering to come close. But he was sick, and this couldn't continue. I needed to do more, to create more games and to test more people. To help him with his every need.
"You once told me she was a lost soul, here she stands. She's clean. And whole." John spoke into her ear, and I saw her finally smile. She melted into the feeling she had so long craved for months, maybe even years. The moment was short lived though, and he let go of her, but kept his hands on her arms.
"She has a new appreciation for her life." Jill stared more, darting her eyes from John back over to me, then back over again. She looked nervous but relieved, I couldn't read her.
"Its real, it works. He helped me." I finally spoke, feeling my chapped lips unlock. John and Jill looked at each other softly, and my eyes fell to my shoes. Scuffed black boots, laces falling out. Old socks peering from the top. I got them ages ago, can't even remember when. They barely fit, there's holes threatening to break through, yet I can't bring myself to get rid of them. Etched on the bottom was my mothers maiden name. Jasmine Young. I remember now, they were hers. She gave them to me before she had died, and I don't think dad ever knew they were hers. He didn't care about her. He didn't care about anyone but the cashier at the beer store. I hope he was worried about me, after I left years ago. I hope he's reveling in the feeling, tossing and turning and realizing all the pain he put me through, running his mind through all the times he'd left a bruise on my skin. Yet sometimes, I ache to be back home. On my stiff mattress, the smell of my mothers cooking being carried through the small townhouse as father sat on the couch in the living room, drinking till dawn and watching mindless television programs.  I don't want to focus on him though, only my mom. A sweet woman, she cared so much for me, and I never understood why she didn't leave. We could have been better off without dad, but she stayed. I never understood that, and I never will understand that. She died when I was ten. I miss her. Father always regarded that I looked just like her, yet every time I look in the mirror all I see is him. His eyes, his nose, his lips. The only thing I have is my mothers lanky body. Yet I don't know if that was from genetics or because we simply didn't care enough about ourselves, only worrying about when my father would explode in anger next. I was mad at her for leaving and not taking me with her, but maybe it was for better if I stayed alive, that my attempts were futile. My attempts at death, my attempts to please him. My life has better use now, and I no longer need to dread the details of a life that once was. I'm sorry mom, I'm sorry dad. But goodbye, I'm not ever going to look back ever again.