white noise

eight

(hello everyone i am so sorry for those of you who read this I have been gone for so long. i got busy with college then i was enjoying my summer but i've missed writing so much so here we go)

I awake with the vision of David leaving my room just a few hours ago. I couldn't look at him when he left, and he couldn't look at me.

I sulk to the bathroom and look at myself closely in the mirror. I'm starting to get tanner, but no matter how crisp my skin becomes it will not hold the shame that clings to my eyes. Somehow they seem paler. Instead of a deep ocean blue, they resemble a melted blue raspberry icee. Last night sucked the soul out of me. I was not the type of person to betray my sister. Her and I don't always get along, but I know she would never do this to me.

I draw a cold bath, a compensation for my behavior. I never minded cold water, but at the first thing in the morning it makes me catch my breath as I sink in.

I shut my eyes and think about the time Lavinia saved my life. It was during my "rebel without a cause" phase. I had started to silence the white noise with weed and pills. It helped for a while. I wasn't an addict, but I had reached the point where I would do anything for a fix.

Lavinia knew. She watched me with careful eyes as I snuck out of the house each night. Her little sister, climbing down the chimney to hop into the car of some adult. As I scrub soap over my face, I'm taken back to the night things got bad.

Lavinia had turned twenty-one a week prior. Every night she would leave to go to happy-hour at the latest hipster bar. Until one night, when her and her latest male conquest walked into the local biker bar.

I can picture it though her eyes. Her baby sister, only fifteen, sitting on a pool table while two men rub their hands over her tights.

Fuck. I'm back to reality when the sharp sting of soap in my eyes gets to intense. I sink into the tub, and run my fingers through my hair underwater, imagining it is sea grass pulling me deeper and deeper.

That night Lavinia stormed into my room while I was sneaking back through the window.
"Show me your shit Jemima."
"I don't know what you're talking about." Out of habit I rip off my shirt, completely ignoring her presence. Her gasp reminded me she was in the room.

"Jemima. What are those bruises?" She walks over and examines my chest. "Are you kidding me? Who the fuck did this?"

"It's under control Vinny."

"No it's not. If it was you wouldn't be out at some biker bar letting men feel you up."

A deep pit in my stomach forms. It's almost unbearable. I want to cry, tell her i'm scared, that I don't know why my mind betrays me. Instead I grab my towel and take a shower.

When I came back into my room, it looked as though a tornado tore through it. I slowly walk in, my mind still on pause from the shock.

"You won't find any of your shit."

I turned and saw Lavinia behind me. She didn't look mocking or cruel. Instead she showed concern and sorrow.

"I will not let you do this to yourself. Get out of your head, get out of anything you're in, and stop feeling sorry for yourself."

A few days later I arrived home to find a security agency installing alarms. Lavinia didn't tell my parents. Instead she asked them if she could buy an alarm system for the house because she was afraid of the Manson family rebirth.