Chapter 1
The air was prickly. It stuck to Rachel’s skin, poking and prodding, creeping into her pores. Her hair stuck up, the slight crackling noises around her alerting her to the situation. She was in a storm, quite literally with her head in the clouds. Everywhere she looked, all she could see was a dark, swirling fog lit up with chaotic flashes of lightning. The wind was howling so loudly that she could barely think. Rachel opened her mouth to try and call out. Immediately, she gasped as she choked on the thick vapor that enveloped her. She coughed, trying not to drown in the sea of mist and electricity as she tried to feel for solid ground.
Rachel was so disoriented that she wasn’t sure she even was on the ground anymore. Her body seemed to feel weightless and entirely out of her control. Every turn she made seemed fruitless, and there was nothing to see but billowing grey tendrils of cloud. Every breath Rachel took was labored, her lungs forced to take in the invading water. She was trapped - and soon to be engulfed - by the storm.
Before she closed her eyes in defeat, Rachel heard the faintest of voices. Shouting, crying. Her name. A voice... a familiar one... She couldn’t see it’s source through the mist and her fluttering eyes, but she could tell that they were trying to help her. To save her. She opened her mouth once more, trying to call out.
But she gasped again as the fog assaulted her lungs, and in her exhaustion, Rachel finally slipped into darkness.
***
Rachel woke up with her lungs begging for air. She coughed and sputtered, sitting up in her bed, trying not to heave. Her chest burned and her hand was stinging. Rachel winced as she felt blood trickle down her arm, still panting for breath. She turned over her right palm to see the cut, probably acquired from another night of violent sleep. It seemed that her dreams were trying to give her more bruises than she already had.
Groaning, Rachel, placed her finger over the cut to stop the bleeding and dragged herself off the bed. Her muscles, aching after a long day of chores, only seem to hurt more after her restless night. It felt like she’d lost a fight every morning.
Before she could wallow in her pain for any longer, though, Rachel heard the familiar, ear-piercing shrieks she heard every second of the day.
“Rachel! I’m only going to call you once, you ungrateful little brat!”
Mustering up whatever little strength she had left, Rachel called back. “I’ll be down soon!”
“Don’t lie to me, bitch! My shotgun’s in the closet and you bet your bony little ass I’ll use it if I need to. If I don’t see you down here in less than five minutes-”
“Got it!” Rachel yelled, cutting off the ensuing tirade as she ran to the bathroom, throwing the door shut behind her and locking it. The sound of yelling only grew louder, so she turned on her music as she stepped into the shower.
The cold water did no favors for her sore muscles in the already freezing winter, and her cut began to sting again. Rachel shivered, closing her eyes and focusing on the beats of her songs.
There wasn’t much to Rachel’s days other than chores and yelling and school, but these five minutes were golden. Five minutes where she knew the anger couldn’t reach her. Five minutes where a good song and the tapping of the water on the shower floor were the only things reaching her ears. Five minutes that she could pretend stretched into a whole day where she wouldn’t have to leave the bathroom and face going to school.
Or, even better, where she could leave the bathroom and open the door to a small, lovely suburban home that smelled of buttery pancakes and fresh coffee in the morning. With a dad flipping pancakes on the stove and a mom who smiled at her and gave her a hug, wishing her good luck on her test. An annoying younger brother who teased her and a baby sister she could cuddle and miss while she was at school.
Sometimes if she thought too long and too hard, Rachel swore she could smell the pancakes and hear a woman’s kind, loving voice. But then she opened her eyes to the grout-ridden bathroom tiles and the blaring music and the stench of cigarette smoke that somehow had invaded every inch of the house and never seemed to leave. And the dream was shattered.
Another shrill shriek signalled the end of her five minutes, and Rachel rushed to get dressed and run down the stairs, anxious about keeping her mother waiting. As she ran into the kitchen, her shoes still untied, Rachel tripped and tumbled onto the tile floor.
“You’re late,” her mother said dryly, offering no sympathy - perhaps even a little distaste
- for Rachel’s fall. “It’s 7:32.”
Rachel grimaced, her cut throbbing now as she’d used her hand to break her fall. “I-I’m sorry. I, um, hurt myself this morning and needed to clean out the cut. It won’t happen again, ever. I swear.”
“Shut up,” the woman sighed, massaging her temple as she leaned back on the cough.
“Everything you say makes me want to vomit. I don’t even know why you’re still here.”
Rachel nodded slowly. “Right... I’ll be going to school soon.”
Her mother let out a shrill laugh, though there was little mirth in her tone. “No. I mean why you’re still here. Alive. With me. Ruining my life. I should've gone with the damn coat hanger.”
Rachel swallowed, biting her cheek. These were words that weren’t uncommon with her mother. It wasn’t her fault anyway, the drugs kept her hopped up in a strange state of mind. It couldn’t be helped, she thought, as she opened the cabinet and searched for a band-aid.
Another loud groan came from the other room. “Where the hell is my wine? Get me some wine, Rachel.”
“Um...” Rachel rifled through the cabinets, trying desperately to find some kind of gauze to help stop the bleeding. “I’ll bring it to you in a minute!”
“When I say now, you know I mean right the hell now!”
“I’m just looking for a band-aid!”
“Rachel!” Before she had time to react to the last yell, there was a gust of air next to her ear and the piercing sound of glass shattering.
Rachel gasped, still partly in shock, as she took in the sight of the broken wine glass on the floor next to her. She looked back to see her mother standing at the entrance to the kitchen, a twisted smile on her face. As she moved into the sunlight, Rachel could see her face. It was streaked with smeared make-up, overdrawn and exaggerated from the night out. There was vomit staining her dress, combined with the usual spots of wine. Her mother looked as if she’d woken up in a dumpster.
“Listen, you little bitch,” she said, her words miraculously not slurring for once, “I fucking fed you, and bathed you, and clothed you, for all these goddamn years. And I never once ask for anything in return.” As she came closer, Rachel held her breath, anticipating the rotten musk of cheap cologne and liquor. “So when your mother asks you for such a small favor as a glass of wine in the morning, what do you think is the appropriate response?”
Rachel dared not to breathe, for fear of inhaling the toxic resultant of her mother’s night out, so she replied softly, looking at the ground. “I should... bring you the wine. Immediately. No questions asked.”
“Hm,” her mother smiled sarcastically, “you think you know what’s best for me, don’t you?”
“What?” Rachel gasped out, as her mother grabbed her hand, squeezing it ruthlessly. The blood seeped out as pain coursed through her arm. “Mom... mom, please,” she whispered in agony. The smell of ethanol - so strong it could have been gasoline - entered her nostrils.
“You think you’re better than me? You think I need judgments from a teenager?”
“No, of course not!” Rachel bit her lip tears springing to her eyes. “No, now please just... let go... please I’ll give you the wine next time.”
After a moment of silent calculation, the fire in the other woman’s eyes seemed to dim, and she dropped Rachel’s hand in disgust. “Clean this shit up. Your blood better not stain this tile. And get the hell out of here before eight. Richard’s coming over and the last thing I need him to see is a mistake from my twenties.”
Rachel stared at her mother’s retreating figure, clutching her hand and holding back tears. Each drop that streaked down her cheek felt like a betrayal, a win for her mother. She couldn’t let her win, couldn’t let her feel like she’d broken her. Steeling her nerves, Rachel wrapped a cloth towel around her hand, tied up her hair, and began picking up the pieces of her fractured life.
