Evan Farrington's Confession | ✔️

nine

Evan had been sitting on her bed since she had left the bathroom. She had changed, with difficulty, into jogging bottoms and a loose jumper. Despite the care she had taken to lift the jumper over her bandage, it had slipped and snagged the torn skin. Her shoulder thudded constantly. It thudded in her mind as well, too painful to be forgotten.

A hallucination. That was all it could possibly have been.

(but the-)

They had come from the dark side of her mind, the subconscious. Evan had read about it quite a bit since they moved and it made sense. Heck, it was dark in the kitchen. The shadows had been cast by the upper cabinets, the unlit lamp above the dining table. She had picked up the knife and cut her shoulder because her subconscious told her to. That was all.

"Ev!" yelled Suzanne from the bathroom. Evan sat up a little straighter against her pillow and marked her place with her thumb. She was reading Macbeth. Something about it reminded her of home. Reading might be too strong of a word; she was looking at the words and turning the pages.

"Yeah, Mum?" Evan called. Her voice was weaker than she had expected.

"What's all this mess in the bathroom?"

Evan's heart quivered. "What's that, Mum?" she asked, tucking her bookmark in and swinging her legs off her bed. She didn't stand up yet but held onto her bedside table as if she was about to get to her feet. There wasn't a mess in the bathroom. A fair bit of blood had smeared on the floor when she crawled in but Evan had wiped it up, she was sure of it.

"Come and see. This is the kind of thing I'd expect to be cleaned up, Evan."

Evan pushed herself up and made her way to the bathroom. She took her time in getting there. When she arrived, she found her mother standing perfectly straight with her arms folded across her chest. She was still wearing her bubble gum coloured tunic and her hair was fastened in a neat but stylish low ponytail. Suzanne outright refused to match the other waitresses' high ponies. Evan gripped the doorframe and peered past her mother into the bathroom. Evan closed her eyes and swore under her breath. The bleeding plasters.

"What was that young lady?" her mother asked.

Evan pouted slightly and let out a breath through her nose. "Sorry, Mum. I forgot they fell."

Suzanne raised an eyebrow in expectation.

"I'll go clear them up."

"Thank you," Suzanne cut. Evan eased past her into the bathroom. Suzanne didn't leave. "Is...Is something going on? Ev?" Her voice was softer now, that of a worried parent.

Evan stood awkwardly and pinched her bottom lip. Her shoulder throbbed under the poorly wrapped bandage. Suzanne would do it right. She could make it stop hurting so badly. Evan glanced at the wall and blinked fast. "Nope. I'm fine, Mum. I'll clean this up."

Suzanne smiled and left. Evan noticed more than a hint of sadness in her mother's expression. She grunted as she crouched down and gathered up the scattered plasters. She took her time slotting them back into the small, worn cardboard box that they came in. Reaching up to tuck them back onto the shelf sent boiling waves coursing through her shoulder. Evan gritted her teeth to keep from yelping and tossed the box onto a lower shelf. Suzanne probably wouldn't notice if the plasters were next to the tampons instead of the bandages. The TCP still sat on the small shelf above the sink but Evan didn't bother trying to put it away. She didn't want to smash the bottle.

A hallucination. That's all it was. Some kind of fucked up, ultra-HD hallucination.

(but that doesn't make-)

A hallucination. Evan pulled herself to her feet, dusted off her hands and walked back to her bedroom. She picked up her complete works of Shakespeare from where she had left it and continued to read. 

--

Is anyone here also a fan of Shakespeare? No? Just me? Cool.

Love always,

-pinknaails

xx