Because We Had Us

Chapter 20. Facing My Mind

Jo

      I awoke surrounded by a sea of blue glass walls. Where was I? The last thing I remembered was having a splintering headache and then blacking out next to Corin. We were in the control room fighting and I had said some pretty horrible things to him. Then he said some pretty amazing things to me. I smiled and for just a moment it felt as if all my problems had faded away. Why was I so mad in the first place? Then I remembered. "Miriam," I called her name in desperation! I heard no response, but saw a thousand distorted versions of myself in the walls around me. It was quite poetic in a way.

      It literally mirrored how I felt inside somedays, as if there was a hundred different versions of myself. There was responsible me, hopeless romantic me, compassionate me, closed off me, silly me, control freak me, determined me, optimist me, and so many more versions of myself that I saw come to life before me. "Is anyone else seeing this?" I called aloud to my friends, but I saw and heard no one.

     My reflections turned to my own memories unfolding before my eyes. It wasn't good memories though, it was like I was watching a highlight reel of all the bad parts of myself. The parts I tried to cover up with smiles and little motivating sayings. The parts of me that the perfectionist in me despised. I saw myself lashing out on Miriam and Corin for no reason, I saw the parts of me that were cold and fake, the part of me that felt uncomfortable in my own body and less than beautiful, I saw the me who tried desperately tried to be perfect, to be enough, I saw the me who felt so deeply she tried to numb her emotions to survive, but then I saw the scariest part of me, the one full of shame and guilt. 

      My memories turned to his face. My brother appeared before me again, taunting me like he did in my dreams. I tried to run, but everywhere I turned he haunted me.

      "Why'd you do it little sis?" His whispers echoed from his many mouths. "Why'd you kill me?" I began to sob.

      "It was an accident," I screamed in between bouts of tears. "I, I, didn't mean to let the dog go!" My screams turned to jumbles of stuttering apologies, and my head started to pound. I was about to give up when I heard Miriam's sweet, sweet laugh, and saw her feet pattering against the concrete floor. "Mir is that you?" I whimpered. Her carefree laugh was her only response; maybe she couldn't hear me. I stood to my feet and faced the nagging guilt I had carried for years now. I mustered up the strength and looked my guilt, that I disguised in the body of Ky, in the eye. "You don't control me anymore," I whispered, leaning in to the wall that mocked me.

      "Say it," the wall whispered back. I looked at it hard for one last time before I spoke.

      "It wasn't my fault." I spoke clearly with utter confidence and the repeated the phrase which freed me again. "It wasn't my fault that you died." A tear rolled down my cheek, but it wasn't a tear of sorrow. It was a tear of relief. As the guilt left my body, the walls that trapped me did too. Everything around me faded as if I was waking up from a dream.