Holding My Breath [Wattys 2016]

7 8 ~ A n n a

                 

Flashback ~ December 31, 2010

Before I begin playing a song, I do this little thing. It started as a habit from a long time ago, back when I started playing guitar.

I used to play outside, where the notes would be carried away from me. I used to go outside because that way it felt like nobody could hear my guitar. I know that really when I'm out there, everyone outside could hear it. But in my mind, nobody in the houses could, and that was good enough for me.

Anyway, I would make a habit of moving from place to place out there, then dusting the dirt off my hands before I start my next melody. That habit sort of carried over, I guess. I don't do it every song, but every time I go to start playing, I dust the dirt of my hands.

Even if there isn't any. But there almost always is. There's always something that I choose to leave at the door when I go into my imaginary place of peace and music.

So when I don't get out of bed the next day until I can see the sun streaming in through the curtains still covered with dirt and mud and blood and dried lake water.

I get a shower. What else am I supposed to do? Getting a shower... it's the only thing that feels normal right now.

And then I grab my guitar. I know I need to go get that photo for Caesar, but I don't know where to start. I know I should be trying to figure out what to do next, but I don't. I just dust off the dirt and sit in my room, strumming my guitar.

It doesn't work. For a few minutes, I try to lose myself. I try to let go and forget the weight pressing down on my chest. This always works... Why isn't it working?

Eventually, I have to put the instrument down. I go look at myself in the mirror of my bathroom.

When I look in the mirror, all I can see is a stranger. She has my auburn hair, but it's unrulier and more frazzled than I've ever seen it. She has green eyes like mine, but they aren't as bright with ambition and spirit. They are bloodshot and puffy from her tears. She has a bruise and cut on her forehead. A scar across her cheek. I don't know who she is. Now I don't even know her name.

That isn't Anna Blake staring back at me. That's not the girl who took care of her little brother and slipped money into the peanut butter jar to keep her family afloat. That girl failed. Her family was killed. Her life was trashed. And she is the only one to blame.

The girl in the mirror isn't just a stranger. She is a criminal. She is a thief. A liar.

A murderer.