“Betrayed” wasn’t the right word. “Betrayed” suggested that I was innocent.
I can remember how guilty and uncomfortable Trisha looked when she broke it off with me. Back then, she was my closest friend and my greatest link to the rest of the world that I was too shy to explore myself, so I was caught completely off guard when she walked up to me and said we needed to talk.
“You’re too clingy,” she said. “I feel like I can’t hang out with anyone else. You don’t talk much either, so I can’t really tell whether you’re even listening to what I’m saying. I need closer friends than that, and I need some space too. I can’t let you hold me back like this. Sorry.”
With an apologetic shrug, Trisha shuffled away, leaving me stunned as she crossed the P.E. field to a girl I’d seen her with pretty often recently. They glanced my way, said something to each other, and hurried out of sight. I was left alone for the rest of seventh grade, wondering what was wrong with me. Staring in mirrors. Watching. Analyzing. I still haven’t forgiven myself.
I hate people like Trisha, but I hate people like me more. I hate to hear them silently crying that they aren’t good enough, wishing for someone to come help them, forgive them. And I hate those that listen, because we don’t deserve that help, I don’t want it, I should be strong enough to deal with it myself!
That’s why after the numbness that consumed me on my way home from the party slowly began to dissipate, giving way to confusion and an aftertaste of horror, anger began to swell in my stomach. I tried to hold it down at first. When I got home, I dispassionately exchanged greetings with my parents, went to my room, and closed the door. Dropping my purse, I leaned against the wall. The silence rang in my ears. I glanced at the mirror. Then I lost it.
“How dare you?” I hissed, and ripped the sheets off of my bed. The linen wafted rapidly to the floor, and I went for my drawers next. Clothing scattered everywhere until the floor looked like the contents of a madman’s brain, and then it was quickly joined by the contents of my closet. The voices in my head leapt out with every movement, hitting the floor with the clothes, books, papers, and stuffed toys and then scrambling out of the debris and back to me to do it all over again. My face must have looked ferocious. All the while, all I could say was “How dare you? How dare you?” and “Why?”
How dare he try to help me when he’d done the same thing himself?
How dare he tell me to leave my razor alone when he had scars from his own?
How dare he take it upon himself to save me just because he’d been saved? Had he even been saved at all?
How dare he keep the truth from me all this time?
Was I not good enough to know?
Why?
Why am I never good enough?
I hate you.
I hate you.
I hate you.
Please, just hate me too.
If I’m not good enough, I want to be terrible. If I’m tainted, I want to be dyed all in black. If I’m falling…
I hate you.
I hope I end up in Hell itself.
Panting, I surveyed the wreckage that spread across my floor like a giant mosaic; I wondered if it would shatter into a million shards of color if I stepped on it, leaving me to tumble like Alice down the rabbit hole among the spatterings of every tint and hue imaginable, dying the space around me that was empty, empty, empty. I let my legs drop out from under me and settled in a tangle of t-shirts, letting out a shaky breath. My shoulders rose and fell slowly with my breathing and an occasional stream of liquid would trickle down the side of my nose. Exhaustion grasped at my edges. Wobbling, I flopped down in the sea of fabric and closed my eyes. When I blinked them open again a few minutes later, I found Cyclamen resting by my head, splayed open over another book like a gymnast quietly doing her stretches. On a whim, I picked it up and let the open pages come into focus.
