Goldfish Bowl

Chapter 15

Her desk was a messy clutter, the cup of pens was spilled on the desk and some of the papers were half full with lyrics she had jotted many weeks ago, lyrics that she couldn't force herself to finish. She wondered if writing songs from now on would always be painful, she bunched up some of them and tossed them into the half full bin. Alisha picked up her headphones, settling them over her ears and blasting Lorde to the highest volume, she liked listening to artists closer to in age, their lyrics spoke to her and told her she was not alone in all her anxieties and worries.

Alisha flipped open the black journal, she couldn't remember the last time she wrote in it, she had even forgotten she had one. She flipped through a few pages, laughing softly at a lyric that she had written several months ago that now came across to her as cringy now.

She was like the sun -
Harsh in her judgement
and alone

She picked up a new pen, lifting it to her lips to uncap it then spitting the cap onto the table, she took a fresh sheet of paper and began to write.

Dear August,

The blinds have been pulled over my windows and I sit and write this like a secret. This is not a letter of apology, even God knows you deserve it from me, and everyone who has failed you, and I am ashamed to be a part of these people. I should have fought harder, tried harder in any way I could to defend your name even though now it seems like there is nothing I could have done that would have been enough. I still should have tried.

This is not a love letter either, and while I will love you forever as my best friend, it is not my love you need or any one else's.

Alisha paused, her hand hovering above the paper and a part of her wanted to rip the paper to shreds and forget all about it, that part of her shrunk at the thought of baring herself to the bones through her words, the bigger part of her knew she had to do it. If she wanted to move on, if she wanted to help August. Because she knew now, that it was impossible to fix someone, it was demeaning to think so, because August was not a toy or her plaything or a project she could handle to make herself feel better, he was a person and however broken he was, she could fix him, she couldn't be his white knight. He had to save himself, he had to want to.

Alisha remembered when she was six, they had been be asked to bring their parents to school for career day, all her classmates had been chattering to their teachers how they wanted to be what their father or mother was. When it had been Alisha's turn, she had announced proudly that she wanted to be a mechanic, because she wanted to fix things.

Her mother had been quick to rebuke it, clicking her fingers over her daughter's head and pretending to toss it over her head as if the very idea was the most repulsive thing in the world.

The teacher had been barely been to keep back her laughter. For the rest of the school year, it had earned her the nickname of 'Alisha the mechanic'. Kids could be brutal.

Perhaps it was her obsession with fixing things that had made her turn the blind eye for many lies, lying to herself that everything was fine with her family. She picked up her pen and continued writing.

This is a confession letter, because I have so much to speak of. When I turned thirteen, I caught my father with another woman in his office, he made me swear not to tell my mother and branded my skin with a knife, telling me that it was a mark that would make God strike me down if I ever told. The guilt was too much for me, I think I was torn between my loyalty to God and my loyalty to my mother.

She never noticed of course, never noticed when I began to withdraw away from her, now I know that she was probably busy with her own affairs. Body no be firewood, she used to say to her friends. It took me a long while to understand that statement.