Maybe Then...

Chapter 49: when I can't handle it

When I can't handle holding it in any longer, 

And honesty comes out, 

Maybe then, I'll find catharsis,

And understand I'm loved

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I stayed in my room for a while, I'm not sure how long. I wasn't bothered to check the time, just got lost in my thoughts, trying to make the lighter work. A spark of light sometimes danced before my eyes. It became more frequent the longer I tried. I lie there, letting the thoughts come and go as they pleased. I didn't fight it anymore. I didn't want to fight it anymore. Each time I felt better, it got bad sooner or later anyway. What was the point in trying not to break down when I knew I would at some point?

Why not let myself become consumed with the truth?

One truth in particular kept popping into my head:

Everyone would trade me to have my mom back.

My eyes bore into the ceiling, arms limp on the bed. My chest rose and fell, my breaths entering and leaving with a sensation of heaviness. It felt like I was back where I was after the night Zeke violated and humiliated me. Then again, did I ever really leave that place?

I didn't understand why I couldn't leave it behind. Why I couldn't put it behind me. I didn't understand why I had to carry around the weight of another person's past, and prove to everyone who cared about her that I'm not her, and I won't end up down the same road that she went. There are a lot of things I didn't really understand, and I often find myself being one of them.

With eyes never leaving the ceiling, my fingers crept around the bed, coming up with a lighter in my palm. I held it near my head, dangling in front of my eyes. Once again, I ran my thumb along the gear, landing it on the button. I repeated the process several times, slowly drifting back into my thoughts again. The bluriness of my eyes rapidly snapped back into focus when a little flame came out of the top.

This should have been the moment when my life suddenly snapped back into place, and my worries and troubles quickly disappeared or resolved themselves. I wish it was the moment that a metaphor somehow made my life change for the better.

But that's all it ever was: a metaphor. Seeing a lighter as a metaphor for my life one time didn't mean that I would change every time it did. That little flame didn't relight the light in my eyes. They still stared vacantly at nothing, lost in the sky while my heart was being buried.

I wanted to tear myself off of the blanket, but every little thought, every little realization of the truth that lingered in my mind, kept my head weighed down on there.

I didn't get why exactly, but I wanted to stare up at the sky. Slowly, I peeled myself off of there, ventured downstairs, and walked right out the door into the late summer twilight. My bare feet found their way onto the scratchy crab grass, and I reclined myself onto the prickly green shards that I let stab into my skin.

I looked at the stars that were pushing their way into the darkening plain above me. I briefly thought of the time Zeke and I stargazed, but quickly dismissed the memory when I recollected the thing that Cooper told me at taco bell in the middle of the night.

But as soon as I pushed that memory away, worse thoughts poured in. Thoughts about whether or not my mom was looking down on me, and whether or not my mom looked down at me. Did she think I deserved all of this? Did she think I deserved better or worse? Did she even care if I lived or died when I was born premature? Would she have only seen me as a mistake?