Sara Part 2

The doorbell rang. She pretended it didn’t. It rang again. And again. She stopped the music and removed her headphones. She clicked ‘save’ and closed her laptop, setting it down on the hardwood floor beside the pile of test prep books. It was 3 and the nurse was here. That means it’s been two weeks. It was windy outside and the leaves were rustling in the waves and whistled through the slits as she opened the door. It was cold. It smelled of rust as autumn does sometimes. She shuts it out but the coldness and rustling sneak in somehow. It always does in this house. She looks down and notices a drop of red on her right little toe. She smudges it with her finger leaving an orangish brown behind. It oozes red again within a few seconds but she isn’t paying attention anymore.

The nurse nods and goes up the stairs. She peaks little English. The girl followed.

She watched the nurse do the dance with the syringe and alcohol and blue tourniquet around her mother’s limp wrinkly wrist. The tourniquet wrinkles it even more. Blood always comes out somehow though it seems she should be drained dry by now. It’s darker each time. This time almost black.

The nurse packed up and nodded again, then showed herself out leaving just the girl behind. The front door slams shut in the wind leaving it with only the slits to tease.

She tucked her mother’s limp wrist back under the white sheets. The nurse always left her wrists vulnerable as though to make it more ready for the next time.

The crusted lips gasped and the girl jumped back, startled. She immediately reached for the gauze on the nightstand and dabbed fervently at the yellow glaze drizzling out. It clung to the gauze and her fingertips. She gagged, nauseated. You’d think she’d be used to this sort of thing by now.

She tossed the gauze into the basket of other gauzes like it – rusty. She breathed deeply and composed herself again beside the bed. No breaths from either of them. She was waiting for her mother. She finally breathed on her own out of desperation, but her eyes remained stuck on the horizon of the white mound’s chest. It was a game they played, seeing who would give in first.

She waited more. Breathed again. That’s twice now that her mother had won. She bent closer, held even more still. No touching, just watching. Those were the rules. Nothing. It got hot and her nose began to glisten with sweat. Her cheeks slightly flushed, her right eye tearing slightly but not giving in, her hands clenched at her sides, avoiding the white.

Nothing.

She swallowed and broke the rules, angry that her mother had cheated. She tugged the rim of the sheets to see if she would respond, which she sometimes did, sometimes not.

Nothing.

Her fingers crawled up the sheet and found the limp wrist and squeezed. It was between lukewarm and drafty like the whole damn house. She froze again bending even closer to watch the horizon. If she blinked, she could miss her chance to finally catch her.

Nothing.

An indefinite amount of time had passed. She tried to appear as though she had forgotten about the breathing, convinced that she could do such a silly thing and just disappear already. But then her eyes got foggy and sour, her nose moist and clammy. Finally she threw herself away from the mound and let out something between a scream and a grunt. Her face seethed from anger. Her mother wins again.

She backed away slowly, careful not to step on any objects or make any noise. Her eyes darted all around the mound, as though trying to pounce on any flicker. She panicked, perhaps because she was alone with a dead body or because she realized now she couldn’t win the games anymore. She reached for the gauze and picked up one, then another, until she held the one with the freshest bronzeness. She glared at it fiercely wanting justice. Her eyes traced the outline of the body before her, as though looking for when was the last breath that came and went so cavalierly, just like its owner.

Her toes curled into the hardwood floor, oozing bright red on the right. She had lost. She always loses to her mother. She is always the one left to drag her bare skin over rocks chasing after this creature that pranced unabashedly in the wind. She is the one with scars. So many scars. So many but none this time or ever now. She gasped.

She looked down at her pale wrists, unmarked and virgin. She never hated them more. They were so whole, so pure, so put together, just like her white binder with color-coded subject and sub-subject dividers. She was disgusted by the irony of her being. Suddenly in that moment she realized why the scars were necessary and appropriate. They were the only places the ugliness could get out – and there was so much of it swarming inside.

She snaked her finger and thumb around her wrist and squeezed until her hand became cold and tingly. It was up to her now to make the scars. She trembled. She breathed to gather up courage, knowing she needed to commemorate the occasion with a special scar. She took a few steps toward the desk and opened the drawer. Her movements were slow and precise. She picked up the razor blade she had routinely thought about but never used. She knew its exact place in the drawer and pictured it against her skin so many times, but it still felt so foreign. It was cold. Her fingers were colder. She touched the blade with her fingertip to test the sharpness and was satisfied.

She approached the bed and bent down to place her wrist on the mound. She wanted her to see and be proud. She chose a particularly perfect looking part of her wrist that had to go and placed the blade tip on it. She pressed, and her skin dimpled. It was thicker and tougher than she thought. She pressed harder, and harder, her heart racing faster and faster.

Then finally, it burst. It was warm and generous. It flowed freely and naturally, tracing the curve of her forearm, moistening the sheet, and sinking into the fabric. She had never seen anything so beautiful. Her face melted into a slight smile. She was relieved to be released once again, this time all on her own.