Darling, I Want to Destroy You

One

It was a bright, sunny day. Birds were chirping, light streamed in through the small window of her third-floor bedroom and onto the book she'd been trying to focus on for the past hour, and Mark Hoppus was serenading her in the background. She tucked a loose strand of long blue hair behind her ear as she hummed along, flipping to the next page in Homer's The Iliad. She bit down on the silver ring stuck through her lip as the blink-182 song played, dog-earing her page and snapping the antique paperback shut.

Her name was Theodosia, but mother always called her Dosie. She was sixteen and homeschooled since forever, but she didn't mind too much. Mother said she was ill and couldn't possibly leave the confines of her room without becoming sick or causing others to catch her illness as well, and she'd stopped asking to go outside with other kids her age a long time ago. It didn't seem to stop her from dreaming though, considering the long and ever growing list of places she'd added to her bucket list throughout the years. She knew it was a pipe dream, that she couldn't go out and it was all for naught, but it was the dream of every person told a specific task was impossible; the longer Dosie thought about it, the more lovely the notion seemed. So she printed out pictures of apparently famous places and pinned them to her walls, set her computer background as the Aurora Borialis, and hoped that one day some kind of cure could be found.

Dosie spun her wheeled desk chair around, moving from one desk to another set at a right angle from the first. She flipped open the top of her laptop as blink-182 changed to Linkin Park and typed in her password. As the spinning wheel of loading sadness popped up, she shook out her hair and started to braid it with fingers painted black. The pastel blue mess practically reached her ankles when she stood, but she'd gotten used to it. Mother would never let her cut it, and Dosie wasn't too fond of having scissors that close to her neck anyway. She'd always been that way, constantly paranoid and afraid that there was something around the corner waiting to harm her. At least, that's what the friends in her head that only spoke to her convinced her of.

She tied off the braid with an old rubber band right as the home screen on her ancient computer had loaded, and then winced when she tried to scoot forward and the hair still got stuck in a wheel. "C'mon," she muttered, bending down and expertly unwinding the strands from around the plastic hunk of evil. Finally free, she pulled open the last web page she'd had open. An art magazine was holding a contest, and the artist in her wanted to enter. Dosie gave the dresser that held her art supplies a longing look, knowing that she couldn't do it. The grand prize was a trip to The Louvre in Paris, and even though she knew there was no possible way she'd win, mother would never let her do it. She'd just make up some excuse on the spot as usual, not that Dosie really listened anymore. All she really heard were excuses nowadays, but she was used to it. It wasn't as though she had much of a choice.

She had barely closed the website when she heard a distinctive creak of the trapdoor in her floor opening. Dosie quickly spun her chair around as her mother's head popped up through the opening. Helena Moss looked like a picture taken straight from the 1940s, with her blonde victory rolls and perfectly ironed dress. She smiled her usual red painted smile and climbed up into Dosie's room in the attic, a bowl of hastily made salad in hand.

"Good afternoon, mama," Dosie said with a smile, taking the food from her mother's hand and immediately shoveling it into her mouth.

Helena didn't respond, instead glancing at the computer screen behind her daughter with a frown. "You aren't still wasting your time with those silly abstract paintings, are you?"

Dosie glanced behind her, a shred of lettuce stuck to her lip. "'Snot a painting," she garbled through a mouthful of food, "itsh a scientific phenomenon caused by-"

"Sweetie, you know how I hate the ramblings," Helena sighed, placing a hand on her hip. "And where are your manners? Swallow before you speak, I didn't raise you in a barn."

Dosie opened her mouth to argue that she'd never been in a barn and couldn't possibly know what it was like to be raised in one, realized she would be reprimanded for sass, and instead popped  a piece of carrot onto her tongue.

"Sorry," she mumbled. "I just- I really would love to see them - the painting, I mean - and I was wondering that since it's my birthday tomorrow and all..." She played with her hair as she spoke, winding loose strands around her fingers until her fingertips turned purple.

"Ah, that can't be right, you already had your birthday," Helena said with a smile now strained. "I distinctly remember it was around twelve months ago."

"Yeah, uhh, funny thing about that, twelve months is a year and birthdays happen every year. I even have this handy dandy little calendar on my computer-" she spun around and clicked an icon, a calendar decorated with tiny cats in taco costumes popping up "-with important things like holidays and birthdays on it, and whataya know, mine happens to be tomorrow." She turned back around and put a hopeful little smile on her face as her hands clasped in her lap.

"Theodosia Justine, you know leaving here in your condition is impossible," Helena snapped. "Why, if you ask even one more time to leave, I don't know what I'd-"

"Guess it's a good thing I'm joking then," Dosie interrupted, smile forced now. "What I really want are those really nice watercolors - you know, the set of like twenty colors you got me for Christmas a couple years back - and some more isopropol alcohol for my chemistry set. Nothing too ridiculous, I hope."

Helena nodded slowly and took the now-empty bowl from her daughter's hands. "That's more like it. Although you do know it's at least a day drive either way just for the paints, and I don't think you should be alone for that long."

Dosie dismissed the comment with a wave of her hand. "Mama, I'll be fine, I promise. Just leave me some cereal and microwave meals, I'll be okay. I'm going to be seventeen, after all, not five."

Helena sighed and set the bowl aside before bending down to take Dosie into her arms. "My little girl is growing up too fast. I will be back in two days time." She straightened up, getting onto the ladder that led up to the trapdoor. "Stay safe, my love." With that, she left, closing the door tight enough that it blended in perfectly with the floorboards, impossible for Dosie to pry up herself.