xoxo killer

Remember

I wake up, my head is thick with sounds, my mouth thick with blood. Spitting the crimson liquid out, I sit up gasping for air. The cold hard surface beneath me, a weird contrast with the fresh warm blood oozing out from a large gash on my  forehead. 

Upon thorough inspection, I finally concluded that my clothes were intact. It was a good thing right...? Does it really mean that nothing happened tonight? My subconscious' small terrified voice jolted my insides. Getting up as fast as I could I begin a frantic search for my phone, hoping, no, praying, that I find it. Just when I give up hope, my own face smiles at  me from underneath a nearby dustbin lid. My phone's wallpaper. I snatch it from underneath all the filth.

3:30  

The numbers flash before me and I am completely dumbstruck at the time and then my location. Thankfully the phone had enough battery for me to call an Uber. Remnants of a broken bottle, containing a transparent liquid lay strewn around me, much like myself I mused. Vodka. My purse wasn't here so maybe I was mugged? Was that it? But then what was I doing in this shady backwater alley in the first place? AND WHY COULDN'T I REMEMBER ANYTHING??? I screamed at my alcohol riddled brain, my head already pulsing  with pain.

These questions rang in my head at a million miles an hour as I stumbled towards my ride. The driver, a gruff, middle aged man gave me a puzzled look full of  alarm.

"What happn'd miss? Ya sure you're alright?"

"Yes... please just get me home", a few traitorous tears escaped as I hoarsely said in response.

"Ya sure you don't wanna go to a hospital first?", the man inquired still.

"NO!", I said it a little more forcefully than required but it seemed to do the trick.

He grumbled the whole way as he drove saying that  no one seemed to appreciate any kind of help. But I had other things to worry about as I leaned my head against the cool window and saw my reflection on my phone. The girl staring back at me looked even worse than I had imagined. With a bloody slash on her forehead, a few smaller cuts as from tiny shards of glass on her cheek and lips. Her eyes like hollowed out sockets and nails caked with blood. This wasn't me. This can't be me? 

I silently sobbed the whole way home while the kind driver shot worried glances at me from the rear view mirror. Finally, after what seemed like ages, my house finally came in to view and I let out a sigh of relief, a breath that I realized I was holding for a long time. The sun was starting to peak out a little, the halo's glow lightly igniting the  night sky, as if breathing life into it. By the time I rushed into the house, paid the driver, thanking him repeatedly and tip toed inside again, it was almost morning. 

Just as I thought that I would be able to escape into the sanctuary of my bedroom unnoticed, my mother emerged from her bedroom like a hawk. I quickly turned my back to her and started a brisk walk up the stairs.

"ALEXIS DONOVAN YOU BETTER START EXPLAINING YOURSELF RIGHT NOW!", she practically screamed.

That made my dad come out  too and he looked at me with sleepy, worried eyes.

Great! I thought to myself.

For a scary second I thought of telling them everything, but then I thought I, MYSELF, didn't even know what I was doing and how was I going to explain my battered and bruised appearance.

Eventually deciding against it I muttered," I can't talk right now. I'm tired" and  slammed the door shut.

"Alexis you come out right now! I was worried sick!''.

I could quite literally picture my mom's face, red and nostrils flared, as she shouted. This made me stay in. The voices receded after 10 minutes, so I figured dad was able to somehow get her to her room. Groaning I rushed towards the bathroom and after hurling my guts out for a good 20 minutes I was too exhausted to even walk. So I sat, curled up, on the floor of the shower, with my hands gripping my thighs with such intensity that my knuckles turned white as I  watched streams of red washing off of my body.

I was starting to remember now. Certain clips and sounds playing in my head like a broken movie. Still, I was able to piece together everything that had happened in the past two days. TWO DAYS. I had never imagined it took such little time for your whole life to be flipped upside down. For you to feel like you were drowning, with the weight of the betrayals you had endured, constantly pulling you down. Further. And further. Until all that was left, was you and your regrets.