Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This

  “Help,” I murmured to the ears of no-one.

     Water crashed into my head, liquid hot on my skin that it felt like peeling off and dissolving down the drain, but not hot enough that I melted under the pressure. Not on the outside, at least. Blood trickled down through my fingers, dropping in scarlet onto the base of the shower, spreading and growing until all I could see was scarlet, deathly scarlet. Until the only thing my vision saw was the think red liquid coating my feet and staining the tiles. 

     My vision blurred, as it had done for hours and I let my mouth hang open, my eyes having given up on being squeezed shut. My wrists burned with a sensation that signified the pain was slowly dribbling out of me after being held captive inside the depths of my soul for too many aging days, months, years. The pain was not felt in my body, only a dull numbing wherever the little blade pulled from the sharpener that sat on my desk had slit deep through my skin.

      Race tracks of blood marked my wrists, my thighs, my body, from where pain had escaped beforehand, from when it can gotten too much. My very naked self shivered despite the heat pushing down on me, my pulse faint beneath my veins. The thrashing of water on tiles blocked the outside world from my ears, and blocked me from its. For screams erupted from my mouth like lava erupts from volcanoes, piercing through the small space, but not reaching the outside world. I was isolated. I was bleeding. And I was so very, very alone.

      Suddenly hands too cold grasped me and I screamed again, not from pain but from fear, that if I left this shower the demons would be able to reach me. That if I left the wall of water they would be able to break through and snatch me up. But the hands were unforgiving and as they dragged me from the shower and onto the bathroom floor, I left the smudged marks of blood and water behind me. The white bath mat turned a deep red as I was dragged across it. All around me, blood. Blood. Blood. And more blood. It was everywhere. My hands. My arms. My legs. My chest. My face. The shower screen. The tiles. The bath mat. The towel that was being wrapped around me. Everywhere. God, it was everywhere. Blood. Blood. Blood. I covered my eyes with my palms, only to smudge more of the dead solution onto my eyelids, making me recoil into a warm, clothed chest behind me.

      “Calm down. It’s alright. You’re alright. It’s ok. Calm down,” said the voice into my ear, deep and gentle. “You’re ok. I’m here. Everything’s going to be ok.”

      Risking a glance upwards, my eyes could just make out the features of a man, all pale and blonde and beautiful in this horror show. Blood stained his shirtfront and his cheek was smeared with a deep slice of scarlet, like a cut. Through my painted-red eyes, I watched as he looked at me. Really looked. I watched as he gazed down through my blood-stained body, through the broken heart, right down to my soul that lay deep within me in a bed of dead roses, trapped inside a prison of barbed-wire fences. No-one saw that far, because no-one got past the blood. No-one wanted to go inside because how could you come out alive when the person owning the soul couldn’t?

      “Help,” I murmured again.

     I buried myself into his chest, my ribs jabbing into his side like knives. But he didn’t care. Because all he did was hold me, his arms wrapping around me like a blanket. Tears streaked my face. The steam from the shower made the air dense and thick like pollution, but I still breathed it into my dead body. That’s what I was. Dead. My body may not be rotting beneath the ground in a plot in a cemetery, but deep down, I was as dead as anything. My body just hadn’t quite caught up yet.

      “I’m here,” he whispered to me again, like I wasn’t quite sure yet. Truly, I wasn’t. No-one wanted to stay – never did. No-one ever wanted to help me – never did. No-one wanted to ever see inside of me – never did. No-one wanted to have to deal with all the depression, the pain, the cutting, the anxiety, the self-hate – never did. No-one wanted to have to deal with me and all the baggage that came with dealing with me – never did.

      But this man, the arms wrapping around me. He did. He wanted in on all of it. He wanted to stroke my hair and murmur nice things when I lay in bed, crying. He wanted to sit next to me on the couch and wrap an arm around my shoulder as I sat, lost in my world of hate. He wanted to go with me to all of the therapists, doctors, counsellors. He wanted to sit on the floor of the bathroom at ridiculous times of night with blood coating him and a shivering, bleeding, screaming, naked girl crushed against his chest. He wanted to be there.

      He wanted me.

      And maybe that was what was stopping me from driving my car off every bridge I drove over. Maybe that was why my body was still holding onto a dead soul. Maybe that was why I dropped the little blade and cried. Because all I needed was someone like him, who wanted me for who I was, despite the flaws and the hate and the issues.

      Maybe all I needed was for someone to love me for who I was, without judging me. Maybe all I needed was to be loved.

      “Tha…nk y…ou,” I stuttered between tears.

      His response didn’t come with words because he knew I didn’t want to hear them. He simply kissed me on the cheek and hugged me against him, which was more than enough. It would always be enough.