The Catharsis

Chapter 8 - Shirtsleeves

Words

By Amethyst Turner

Love is deep affection

Adequate is up to par

Contemplation is deep reflection

Mangled is having scars

I know what they mean but

Nobody really loves me

I am not adequate

I can't contemplate anything

But all these scars I want to quit

Hiding from the world

I still am just a girl

Waiting for love that will never come

XXX

Amethyst was obviously very smart, Libby could tell that.

She was gaining words at an almost alarming rate, asking for things and telling her thoughts with surprising fluency. Richard found this funny, and often sat down to talk to his daughter for a few minutes when he got home at night.

Libby didn't talk to her. She didn't want to know what was in the little brat's head.

The next months, the next year seemed to blur together for Libby. Wake up, eat, think, sleep, eat again, sleep again. Cry. She wanted to die so badly that she began a journal on all the ways to accomplish the feat. Only, she knew she didn't have the courage to go through with it. Then she'd cry some more.

It was an endless cycle of torture, like a hot summer night when you can't sleep and keep tossing and turning, dreading the next morning after the sleepless hours.

Somewhere around Christmastime, Libby stopped eating. After that, she allowed herself one meal every other day, hoping she would deteriorate quietly, be dissolved into the atmosphere. It didn't happen. All this plan accomplished was to add to her pain and pile of bad habits.

Pills were her other killer addiction. Valium, most of the time, but she would settle for a handful of sleeping pills or painkillers if she was out. Addictive was an understatement. She couldn't even die now, she needed those pills so much. The valium muted the baby's shrieks and lulled Libby to sleep when nothing else could. And in those troubled fits of drugged sleep, she would dream of finally doing it.

Finally slitting her wrists. Finally swallowing too many pills at once. Finally ending it.

She promised herself she would do it soon. Soon never came fast enough.

XXX

Vita only hesitated for a moment. Then she rapped her knuckles on the chipped, white door, setting a look of determination on her face. Her bags sat at her feet, Toto's cage on the other side.

There was no answer, nor was there a doorbell. Vita knocked harder, muttering under her breath, "People these days." That crap pile that Richard called his car wasn't yet parked in front of the house, so Vita figured he was home yet. She would just have to wait for him.