SHOUT - Adopted by Lin Manuel Miranda

GHOST IN THE GLASS

When Lin and Vanessa are pissed, they remind me of crying toddlers whose problems are so pitifully insignificant, it's almost funny.

Edit that. It's Vanessa who's pissed. Lin is more confused, since he was called home from work and doesn't know the full story as to why. Sebastian is napping in his room. Lin and Vanessa stand in front of me with crossed arms. They wait for an explanation and I slouch into the couch. The stench of the doctor hasn't left my nose: rubbing alcohol and too-strong cologne. Are there doctors specializing in olfactory fumigation?

They mutter amongst themselves for a moment. I zip and unzip my sweatshirt. Sleet pelts against the windowpane. April really blows in New York. The entire state gets the overflow from Ontario's lake effect storms. We are Canada's meteorological garbage dump. I feel sort of affixed to the weather. Mother nature aligned today's forecast with my predicament. 

Vanessa clears her throat. "What do you have to say for yourself, Vidya?"

She has this smooth, kindergarten teacher voice that sounds too nice to be speaking to me. I cross my arms and don't say a word.

Lin lowers his head and raises his eyebrows. "Vidya?"

"I just can't see how this could happen. The doctor? Really, Vidya?" Vanessa paces back and forth. The sound of her heels on the floor makes her seem like one of those villains from the movies who might sprout a set of fangs and lunge at me on the couch. She doesn't. She kneels in front of the coffee table and looks straight at me. I zip my sweatshirt one last time and concentrate on the twists in the braided rugs. 

"Look at me, Vidya." She's real serious. I do what she asks. 

"Why?" She asks. "Why on earth did you feel the need to react that way?"

For every two words her voice lowers half a step, so her question comes out more like a statement. When Lin can't bear to see me glare at his beloved any longer, he intervenes. "Maybe--"

Vanessa stands and turns to face him before he can finish. "Maybe what?" 

"I'm— I'm sorry. I'm just trying to understand. What could the poor guy have done for you to punch him?"

"Um." She gulps. "It was part of the examination to test for STDs. Not that she'd have any," she tacks on when Lin is visibly startled. "It was a required part of the exam. So when he, you know, tested her, she..."

Tested is an ambiguous description, but Lin catches on. "Jesus, Vidya." He squints and rubs his forehead. "I understand things are hard for you, but you're gonna find yourself in some deep shit if you keep this up." He looks at me like we're standing on the overhang of a cliff. Like we might lose our balance any moment, plummet to our death. "These feelings inside of you? The ones that made you do this? You have to learn to control them."

The sleet accumulates in a brown slush on the windowsill. I crack my knuckles real hard, to mess with them, a little. Lin steadily watches me. Vanessa takes a deep breath and sits next to me on the couch.

"Look." Vanessa smooths the blanket draped over the cushions. "I know you've had it rough. I know that. But that doesn't give you the right to go around punching people. You're smarter than this, Vidya." 

Of course I'm smart. That's why I punched the guy. But would they listen? Would they believe me? Fat chance. They banish me to the the guest room until dinner. I have to meet with them after we eat to discuss further punishment. I can't go anywhere outside of school. (Like I have anywhere to go.) They want me to talk to them whenever I'm feeling this pent-up anger. (Don't think I'll take them up on that offer.) 

That night when they send me to bed after the coups de grâce, I half-ass a runaway note and leave it on my desk. Vanessa finds me sleeping in the closet. She sets a mug of tea on the bedside table and drapes my afghan over me. I wait until I'm sure she's gone to trudge to the bed. I don't bother to straighten the comforter or set my alarm for the next morning. I wish I could sleep for a hundred years. Where's sleeping beauty's magic spindle when you need it? The tea is cold by the time I go to drink it. I slide the mug to the other side of the bedside table. I hear Lin, Vanessa and Sebastian in the living room. They're awake and singing Pop Goes the Weasel. Something about that, about the way Sebastian shrieks on the "pop" and how Lin exaggerates the whole song with ridiculous vibrato, makes me furious. A hundred magic spindles slice open my veins.

I sleep for eighteen hours. No one comes to wake me up. 

When I rise from the dead, it's four o' clock in the afternoon. I wake with a knotty feeling in my stomach. I thought sleep was supposed to make me feel better. Still wrapped in my afghan, I sit and confront my degeneracy. The mehdni on both my arms is fading. I'm too tired to redo it. I'm sweaty from extra blankets and a blasting furnace. The apartment is quiet. Lin and Vanessa are at work. They must have taken Sebastian to daycare. I turn and look at the indent in the pillow that was my head. I want to go back to sleep. Maybe I'll get lucky and get in some freak accident today. Bed rest doesn't sound so bad, at the moment. 

Who am I kidding? I have to get up before I starve.

I go to chug some Lucky Charms but halt to a stop in front of the mirror. Ha-ha. Watch out, Milan. Here comes Vidya, runway ready with yesterday's clothes and bloodshot eyes. I look for patterns in my face. Could I mehdni a face, frozen in a fortress of daisies and birds? No makeup. Hoary skin. Dark circles. Definitely not a face I want on my arms.

I hook a loose strand of hair behind my ear. I should have washed it. I still haven't shaken the smell of the doctor's office. I should put some candles in here. I unzip my sweatshirt and let it fall to the floor. I lean into the mirror. Two hollow eyes stare back. In all my time living here I never really looked myself in the face. I don't see Vidya in there. I see my sketchbook on the bed behind me. I see the cold tea mug on the beside table. I lean my forehead against the glass to block out the rest of the room.

My body splinters down the middle and becomes a fragile contraption of bones, distorted enough to look like some freaky piece of modern art. There was a story Radhika told me once about a man whose corpse was frozen to preserve his remains. I slide my fingers through the dip in my collarbones. Cold to the touch. I rest my other hand on my pelvis and slide it upward. I take in the feeling of only cloth between my hand and skin, the sensation of scaring myself with my own touch. I feel like my skin has been torn off. 

I push my mouth against the mirror. A ragged pair of lips push back. I wonder what that man would feel if he came to life and broke free of the ice. Would his skin return to normal, or would he always feel part-frozen? I slide my hand beneath my tank top and onto my stomach. Pins and needles prickle over my midsection. I wish I could freeze my body. Maybe if it were cold enough, I could freeze every thought out of my brain. Every memory would solidify into icicles affixed to a hollow skull. No more memory, no more guilt, no more anger. Just ice, just something that can be broken in half with hands. 

I don't know why I'm thinking about this. Lin says I need to control my feelings. How could I? They are tearing me apart, beating me black and blue then forcing me to stand. There will be no normal. There is no forgetting, no burial, no hiding place. 

The edges of my reflection go blurry and static clogs my ears. I hear a snapping inside me, my conscience breaking, which is why instinct takes over. Fists ball, worlds crumble. At first I don't hear the crash, but the sound breaks the room into millions of shiny fragments. Shards of glass skid across the floor. A shockwave jolts through my hand and up my arm and my knees give out. I land on something sharp, but I'm more focused on my reflection, which is obstructed by the spider web of cracks in the mirror. Blood oozes down my hand and pools out from beneath my knees. There are dozens of reflections, dozens of bloody corpses staring back.

I need to get out of here.