© Amber Kalkes 2014
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"Disarm" By Smashing Pumpkins
. T W O .
It didn’t happen.
That’s what she’s been telling herself the past two days since that crazy nightmare. It was a delusion, she figures; something completely brought on by all the drugs the nurses had been giving her. Still she feels better not being in that hospital anymore and can relax a bit now that she’s home even if she now has to deal with her overbearing mother, Audrey Wheeler.
“Bubbles!” Her mother calls from the kitchen of her apartment making Iris cringe, “What kind of soup do you want?”
“None, mom. Really I’m fine you don’t need to hang around anymore. I’m sure Robert is missing you.”
Her mother’s brunette head pops into view quickly with a scowl, “Iris Lynn Wheeler. You are my daughter and I will take care of you as long as I wish. Robert understands that so stop trying to get rid of me.”
“I’m not—“
“You are.” She says giving her daughter a dry look, “Now the soup?”
“Chicken noodle.” Iris grumbles.
Audrey beams with a wink, “That’s my good Bubbles.”
With her mother out of sight Iris can’t help but mimic her behind her back. Bubbles, she thinks with a disgusted face, she hates that nickname. It’s the last remnant of when Iris was a chubby kid back home. Her mother called her bubbles as a term of endearment as a chubby baby but it carried on to Iris’s chubby pre-teen and eventual teen years as well making her hate it. Especially so when the kids at school heard it and started to use it to tease her.
Three hours later Iris is alone after her mother had gotten a call from Robert who had gotten a text from Iris to get the woman out of her apartment. Robert may not have been Iris’s biological father but he is the only father figure she’s ever known making the two thick as thieves. Now alone in her apartment Iris decides to work up enough energy to shower since that’s not something she’s really been able to do since her hospital stay.
Flicking on the bathroom light Iris is frozen at her reflection in the mirror. This is what she’s been looking like? No wonder her friend Ava kept comparing her to a zombie. Iris’s brown eyes are dull looking with dark nearly purple circles under them more visible with the sallowness of her usually lightly tanned Mediterranean skin, no doubt from her current anemic status. Her hair is a greasy mess of brown pieces tossed up in a messy bun on the top of her head but mostly she just can’t stop looking at her neck.
The bandage is still there and though she was told she couldn’t take it off just yet Iris hasn’t worked up the courage to. She doesn’t want to go against doctors orders but the burning curiosity is getting too much to bear in the secrecy of her apartment. She can just peek, she tells herself; she can take a peek and then just cover it up again. Yes, that’s what she’ll do.
Picking at the tape holding it to her skin she squeezes her eyes shut as it pulls at the tender skin but keeps going until the whole thing is tingling with the feel of air on it. Opening her eyes her hands go numb as she trains her gaze on the injury on her neck. A bite mark, a row of deep scabbing marks on each side of her neck stares back at her with black wire keeping it and her from bleeding out again. Was this really a homeless man who did this to her? Was it really some druggy looking to take a few dollars just to get a fix?
YOU ARE READING
.Deadly Affections.
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