may shatter on impact (tronnor)

4. Scream & Repeat

I stare at my reflection in the mirror, examining my eyes and hating the blue and I have, like, the bluest eyes in our school and keep talking, sound, make sound, it's okay, keep talking, oh God. Keep. Talking.

"I - I sp-spent most...." I have to keep talking. Safe, safe, safe, I'm safe. "I - I spent m-most...of m-m-my sum - mer un-un-p-packing," I whisper. "I s-spent most o-o-of my su-sum-mer....unpack-ing." I don't whisper this time. I say it louder and louder until I'm speaking at a normal volume and - "I spent most of my s-summer unpack...ing."

And it all means nothing, but it's hard, like I'm learning another language. I'm stringing together syllables and verbs and subjects and conjugations and it all makes sense and I'm not stuttering. I can barely hear myself, but I'm speaking.

I start again.

"I spent m-most of...my summer un...packing."

"I spent most o-of my sum-mer unpacking."

I'm screaming.

I shout the answer to the world and it echoes right back at me, the seven simple words hitting my like....like gunshots.

Oh God.

There are solid thoughts and there are vague ones and there are the ones hiding in the back of my mind and oh God is a solid thought, something firm and definitely there, and oh God, oh God. And there's am I safe and I am, Tyde said we were safe; I'm safe and I spent most of my summer packing floating around, a mess of words and thoughts and clauses and uncompleted sentences and stutters and almost-there, vague thoughts.

I scream.

My hands cover my ears because I can't stand to hear my scream echo back at my like rays of light shining down on me, bouncing back from a mirror that wasn't cracked an hour ago.

I'm still screaming when Tyde and Mum come home from the grocery store and find me sobbing and screaming on the bathroom rug, lost in last year's memories.