Coping With Clarity

Chapter Two

The girl had been playing Blaine Larson. Selena’s essay lay untouched in her bag when she’d returned to ‘the house’, for the first time in two days, much to the disappointment of her mother.

But that song had ‘struck a chord’ in Selena. The girl, Demi, had made her curious to what the song was about, so she called Taylor.

Taylor, who on her first day she’d assumed was a boy, was the acclaimed dreamer of her cluster of friends. They’d hit it off straight away and with it Selena’s musical education had expanded dramatically. You couldn’t just ‘be’ friends with Taylor without appreciating her country music obsession. Luckily Selena did. So she’d called her up to hear the enthused reply after quoting the lyrics to the blonde. It would have been quicker to Google them, but Selena could never deny - even in the short time they’d known each other - a chance to involve Taylor when it came to music.

So that was how Selena had ended up with Blaine Larson’s; “How do you get that lonely?” on her iPod, and also how she still hadn’t done her essay. It rested in-between her folders in her bag, which swung on her shoulder as she was ushered from her mother’s ward. The ‘new arrivals’ were being bustled about and once again her mother had pressed short stubs of metal into her palms with apologetic eyes.

Selena carefully traced her steps from the stroke unit, past the short pause of ward twelve. Its there that Selena slows to make sure that she didn’taccidentally confuse herself again. Her hesitation broke down the hallway; ward fourteen was around the next corner. Her mistake yesterday was just going straight ahead, through heavy swinging doors, that read ‘Ward thirteen’ in bold lettering.

Selena is walking. She tells herself its towards the corner, but she’s peeking through the narrow window of the door to look into ward thirteen. She’s been doing a lot of ‘looking’ recently. Her curiosity is far from sated on spotting thesecond on the left. It stands out in the hall because its ajar, the pale wall from within shining through like bare skin unclothed.

The call of the family room is drowned and Selena timidly presses her whole body against the door to push through to the other side. Air whooshes past her, cool and carrying a new guitar on its wings. Selena frowns.

‘She said...’ She feels like she’s sneaking out of her house at night by the way her tip toes patter on the linoleum floor. Its not like she wants to intrude, more the opposite; but the girl, Demi she forces herself to say, had insisted she wouldn’t be playing again.

Selena can remember - pain - a single flash associated with the statement.

There’s no singing accompanying the instrument, so there’s no sudden announcement when the music quietly stops. Selena is almost in the doorframe when an older voice trembles inside, and it takes all the composure Selena possesses -not- to fall backwards onto her butt when the door is rapidly, almost angrily, swept open.

Selena does however stumble back so that she’s not toe-to-toe with a tall, tanned girl exiting Demi’s room. She blinks away the discomfort off her face for a split second of shock. Before Selena can say anything, the discomfort is back, and the guitar the strikingly similar woman held was put between them, a further barrier.

“Can I help you?”

Its exactly what Demi had said.

Selena wants to move her eyes away from the squinting of Demi’s visitor, because she knows she should be sitting in that family room reattempting her essay and not having a face off with a woman wielding a heavy guitar.

Selena tries to form some sort of coherent sentence but she’s sure it just sounded like “m’srylostgain’rd”. Which makes no sense. Even in gibberish.

The woman looks severely unimpressed and her wave of intimidation sent Selena stepping out of her way. Without further questioning to why she was outside, the storming woman was gone. Leaving Selena gasping for her calm-collect-image. She didn’t realize she was flailing visibly until a stifled laugh came from doorframe.

The frame seemed to be the only thing supporting the nimble structure of Demi, a giggling Demi, leaning against the door. Selena coloured pink at being caught mid-fluster. As she recovered she tried to ignore how Demi seemed to sway to a nonexistent breeze and to unsuccessfully stop herself from asking if she was alright again.

“Lost?” Demi asked with a whispering smile. 

Selena stood her ground more confidently. The girl’s relaxed posture infected the stiff atmosphere felt around the majority of wards. Selena felt herself calm.

“Actually I was just...” Selena lamely points back at the door before tangling her hand in her hair. Demi catches the last glimpse of the door closing.

“Scaring my sister?” Demi offered. Selena groaned internally.

“Apparently so.” Selena can’t suppress Demi’s smile in her mind as they both shyly find amusement in the situation.

“So what brings you to this neck of the woods for a second time?” Demi’s head rests on the white doorframe and her hand brushes away her hair from over her face. In the clear light of the hall, Selena can see the speckled bruises underneath and patterning on her skin, a worrying sight for anyone. She drops her usual nonchalant uncaring mode and silently wonders why.

“I thought you couldn’t play anymore.” In reality Selena is asking her so much more. How? Why? What? And then that music...

Demi, like yesterday, seemed to withdraw under the scrutiny of her music. Maybe if Selena ‘knew’ her, she could say; it would be clear that by taking away music, Demi was falling apart too. The girl fiddled with a bandage on her hand.

“I did. Dallas, my sister, she plays too.” Demi grew nervous under Selena’s direct attention, like she wasn’t used to being around people, or strangers. Selena remembered the ‘grimace’.

“Does it hurt?” Selena shoved a hand in her jean pocket in an attempt to somehow lessen her inquiry. Demi bashfully shakes her head in confirmation, but it looked like it hurt more to do it.

“Why?” Before Selena’s utterance was finished the girl was replying.

“A.M.L.” It was short for something that Selena doesn’t want to ask. And Demi seems to get her hesitance. 

“Its okay really. I’ve had it since I was six.” Demi repeated like she was used to saying it. 

Selena tries to imagine Demi, brown haired Demi, at six years old. But her eyes seem to hold onto an age that Selena can’t place on a six year old.

“They were surprised I could even hold a guitar back then.”

Selena finds her thoughts straying to all the patients in her mother’s ward - those who were perfectly fine, until they weren’t. All their lives behind them. Whereas at six, Demi had all of hers in front of her. The weight is too pressing for a corridor conversation. Selena doesn’t ask about A.M.L and Demi doesn’t tell her.