4 Am (#Wattys2019)

Salt In Our Hair

"I tried to drown my pain. But the dammed pain learned to swim."

There are some days in which I can breathe without pain, they are facile. There are days when I can hold my own hand and warm it ,laugh inside my own voice box , I can braid my hair and feel pretty. I can hum my favourite melodies and wear my favourite mismatched pair of socks because I dote both of them so much and cant decide which one to wear. I can hug my pillow and laugh at the way my sister aggressively untangles her curly hair. And there are some days I wish I don't drown. And I don't worry water will get trapped in my lungs. And I don't worry that I will have to live until I die. Until my cracked soul leaves my oh so apologetic body. Until my heart that sometimes loves stops beating.

And today is not one of those days.

I gasp as I raise my head above the water that has turned cold. My breaths are agonizing and painful, the water splashes and my tense body coerces me to breath. My head hurts so much as my vision blurs, I don't know how long I have stayed submersed.

Breathe, until you can't. I tell myself.

I quickly get up from the tub and drain the water. I realise that I don't have much time to dress up for school, I have a math test today which I don't want to write, I have to meet people today whom I don't want to meet, and I have to live a life, I don't want to live.

I transmute into my school uniform and blow dry my hair. My eyes are not swollen as I had applied ice cubes last night. I was at Mira's house after the horrific revelation.

She demanded answers I did not know myself.

I leave the bathroom and visually perceive my sister, she acts as if nothing has happened.We sit in our mom's car and reach school. In the car no one verbalizes and I revise mathmatical formulas which will help me during today's test.

***

I sit alone in the school cafeteria. I brought the undeserving over priced coffee. I don't want to eat, and I feel rather lethargic, so coffee is good for my situation. Mira did not talk with me the whole day and our last period is library and I did not want to go there because I wanted to be away from my class, away from Mira. I think of the last week, and how eventful it had been, I lost my virginity to a boy who doesn't love me. And we did not speak after that. Today in the hallway he ignored any denotements of eye contact with me. And as if I don't mean anything to him. Because I don't.

At this thought my chest tightens and I feel dizzy, and my mind wanders back to my half brother. I wonder who he is, and what he is looks like, does he know that he has two half sister's? Does he hate me?

I want to meet him, touch his face to know that he is real, to know that he breathes and talks and lives and subsists and he is not just a figment of my Father's imagination.

But at the same time I dread the consequences of meeting him. It is an apostasy to my mother. My heart and mind clash between wanting to meet someone I have never met and never wanting to see somebody who is the evidence of my Father's wrongdoings. I take a sip of the coffee, as the taste spreads in my mouth I instantly scrunch in disrelish as it is so bitter. But I don't have the energy to stand up and the get small sugar packets.

I take my bag and take put my math register and check the answers to the questions, I am pretty content that most of them are right.

"You like math?" Somebody familiar says. I ignore him. I don't have the energy to verbalize with anybody.

Not taking my nescience and silence as an answer he sits in front of me. I look at him. He gives me a half smile. I want to smile back at him but something inside of me doesn't let me.