Precious Things || Jensoo

Chapter 49

Chapter Forty-Nine

There is no dinner.

I don't come downstairs for the whole of Sunday night and my grandfather does not call me.

He does not check on me at bedtime.

He does not check that I'm awake on Monday morning.

I barely sleep, so it's no trouble to get up early. I have to, because it takes me forever to get ready for school.

I am the walking dead. My brain doesn't work, mostly because it's being constantly assaulted with messages of pain.

I make it to the bathroom and throw up again. It hurts. There are no painkillers in the house. I don't care. I just have to make it through a few days. Just a few days.

I don't know what's going to happen today, but I'm going to assume that we're back to normal. Like yesterday never happened. Like it always is. Like it's over.

It will never be over, but this is how it works. This is my life. I'd forgotten that.

This is my life.

I don't know what to do with my back, because showering is out of the question. In the end, I wash what I can, which is basically my face and arms, and... other bits, with a wash-cloth. Every second, every movement, hurts but I make myself do it anyway.

I get the traces of dried blood off where I can. It's hard, because I don't have a lot of flexibility right now, and it's all on my back. I know it's going to bleed. Most of my blouses are white or, at the very least, light in colour.

That's not going to work.

In the end, I find a way, pulling out our ancient first-aid kit. I fashion a massive flat bandage from a bunch of gauze compresses that I sticky-tape down to the inside of a singlet.

Wincing and gasping with pain, I get it over my head, leaving yesterday's bra in place. I haven't taken it off and I don't know that I'll be able to for a little while. Over the top of that, I put another singlet, and then finally, my blouse.

Thank God it's fall, or I'd be so hot.

I'm going to overheat inside school anyway.

Over the top of it all, I put on a dark navy cardigan. With luck, if anything escapes through the gauze and through the two singlets and through the blouse, it won't show up on the dark wool.

Otherwise I'm going to have to explain why my period tracked up.

Even I can't figure that one out.

Not that my brain is really functioning anyway.

I finish up my morning routine by vomiting in the sink again, pain washing through me. Then I brush my teeth.

I stare at the stranger in the mirror again, and then move slowly to my room.

I carry my satchel in my hand. There's no way in hell I could throw it over my shoulder.

When I go into the kitchen, there he is. The first I've seen of him.

If looking in the mirror was like looking at an identity parade, trying desperately to find some semblance of recognition, then looking at him is like finding a complete unknown in the kitchen.

I don't know who he is anymore.

I don't know who I am either.

But after yesterday, we're not who we were.

I don't know that I can forgive him. I don't know that I can just argue this one away. I just... I can't.

I sit down at the breakfast table with a cup of tea in front of me. He says nothing. I say nothing.