Under Rose-Tainted Skies

by Louise Gornall

  ‘What?’ I try but fail to see the problem. Her nose is small and cute, maybe even a little bit button. ‘No, it’s not.’

  ‘Aha.’ She points at me; her mouth opens and a gotcha expression pulls at her features. ‘You can’t always look at yourself subjectively. You need to remember that. Trust me when I say just be yourself.’ She walks over to me, exhibits an extreme amount of caution before resting a soft hand on my shoulder. ‘And don’t forget, that number for my cell is still good, any time. Okay?’

  As I nod, Luke raps on the door again. I just stand there, staring past the table, over a vase of pink peonies and down the hall, which I swear has doubled in length.

  ‘You might want to get that,’ Dr Reeves whispers as she leaves out the back.

  Dr Reeves’s pep talk is pretty good as sustaining fuel. My bravery is showing no signs of burning out as my butt reboots and I head over to the door.

  It’s different talking to the doc at home. I mean, I knew she was smart – her office walls are decorated with academic achievements and her shelves are lined with books she’s written, co-written, or consulted on. But in her office I can never be one hundred per cent there. Half of me is always too busy worrying about being out of the house to listen to her talk. Here, today, I noticed that she has the vivacity of a US president in one of those doomsday movies, talking guys into sacrificing themselves for the greater good. I bet in her spare time she gives motivational speeches at ‘Be a Better You’-type conventions.

  Deep breath. The general populace is compassionate goes through my head as I unbolt the lock.

  Prove it. My mind mocks me.

  ‘I’m trying. If you’d just let me figure it out,’ I snap.

  ‘Norah?’

  Crap. I resist the urge to face-plant into the door and promise myself to never again let passion increase the volume of what are supposed to be whispered words.

  ‘One more second.’

  Shoulder roll. Yesterday’s deodorant is forced into action when sweat starts pooling in my armpits.

  It’s just one root.

  One tiny root that I have to draw. And with that, I open the door.

  He’s remembered the DVDs. They’re tucked under his arm.

  ‘Hi.’ He grins, and I fall down dead.

  He looks like the next big thing in boy bands. Planet-size green eyes sparkling beneath thick black lashes. He glances at me, and his smile is full of flirt. Whether that’s intentional, I’m not sure.

  He’s wearing product in his hair, the kind that makes his curls look wet. A single unruly ringlet has broken free from the pack and dangles down the middle of his forehead. It would be completely inappropriate to grab hold of the end, pull on it, and let it bounce back like a spring. Right? Of course it would. I twist my hands together so they’re not tempted to stray anyway.

  He’s wearing a white tee that clings to his torso like a second skin and an unbuttoned, baggy green shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. And just to add serious insult to injury, he smells like a mouthwatering mix of winter and sweet spices.

  Garbage. That’s what I look like in comparison. Ten-day-old garbage that’s been left to fester under a blistering summer sun. I didn’t brush my hair. Didn’t wash my face or brush my teeth, and now I’m piling an unforgivable amount of pressure on a twenty-four-hour-old squirt of rose-scented Stay Dry.

  Just smile through it. No. Don’t smile through it.

  I lift my hand to my mouth, use it as a shield. What am I thinking? I can’t smile when my teeth aren’t clean. And I drank orange juice, the one liquid besides coffee you can still taste on your breath hours after your first sip.

  ‘Is this a bad time?’ Luke asks.

  I shake my head, try to run the fingers of my free hand through my hair, but they get caught up in knots. What is supposed to be a stealth manoeuvre turns into a brief tug of war that ends with a stinging scalp and a handful of loose hairs. I fight back a wince and scream Ouch internally.

  ‘Should I come back later?’

  ‘No!’ I yell.

  Waiting for him to show up has already liquefied most of me. If I have to wait for a second showing I might just dissolve entirely. There’s no way my body can survive another wave of anxiety so soon. I’ll just have to fix it. ‘Can you give me another minute? Last one, I swear.’ He doesn’t have a chance to answer before I slam the door in his face.

  I’m halfway up the stairs when I realize how rude that must have seemed. He’s been here ten seconds and I’m failing miserably at being normal.

  Freak. Not killed off. The exact opposite. It’s very much alive and kicking, like a monster living off lightning.

  I look at the door. It would take more time to go back and explain to him why I can’t let him sit downstairs in my house alone than it would to just carry on. Screw it. I’ll be five minutes.

  I jet into the bathroom. My toothbrush lives in a plastic case in the cabinet. I brush fifty-two times, twenty-six strokes on the top, twenty-six on the bottom. I don’t compromise on this. I can’t. But I scrub in double-quick time, then cannonball back downstairs, taking the last step twice and narrowly avoiding a broken limb.

  Without pausing for a breath, I fling open the door. I don’t know if a small part of me is expecting him not to be there. But he is, exactly as he was the first time.

  ‘Hi,’ he says again.

  ‘Hi,’ I reply, fearless of morning-breath fumes rendering him unconscious. ‘How’s it going?’ My voice is weird. I’ve adopted a Boston twang to my accent. I have no idea why. I’ve never been to Boston and I don’t know anyone from there.

  Cramp kicks in, sucker-punching me in the spleen, and I have to lean on the doorjamb, swallow back air like a drunk knocking back whisky.

  ‘Are you . . .’ he starts, stops, looks over at his house. ‘You know, maybe I should just come back later?’

  ‘God, no. Please. I’d rather you didn’t.’ I miss how ugly that sounds at first because I’m too busy working through pelvic pain, but I realize the second I see his face melting into misery. My jaw hits the floor.

  ‘Ouch,’ he says and forces a smile that wobbles before it takes shape.

  ‘Oh, no. No. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m so sorry. I just meant . . .’ Don’t know how to explain. My brain has stopped turning. It’s gotten stuck, like a scratched CD. ‘I meant . . . I meant . . . what it is . . . I was just trying to . . .’ I blink. See my head burst and watch chunks of grey matter slide down the wall.

  ‘Norah.’ Luke grins and something inside me sighs. ‘It’s okay.’

  I’m not sure it is. I’m not sure I wanted the first time I have a boy over to turn into something I just have to get through.

  I’ve no idea what to say now. Any armour I was wearing has started to peel off me. As thin and as brittle as snakeskin, it blows away in the wind. Luke looks down, stares at his Chuck Taylors. I stare at them too and am tackled to the ground by a burly wad of instant regret. They’re laced differently. It’s just one tiny bit, on the left shoe. Instead of going across like the rest of the lace, it criss-crosses. My nails hit my neck, and I try to soothe the sudden itch.

  Don’t think about it. It’s irrelevant. Don’t think about it. Totally unimportant.

  ‘Coffee,’ I blurt out. And he startles. ‘I mean, coffee,’ I repeat at a regular pitch for regular people. ‘Would you like some?’

  ‘Sure.’ He nods and I scuttle off into the kitchen. The rubber soles of his shoes, his laced-wrong shoes, squeak as he follows me.

  Don’t think about it.

  Have you ever been able to not think about that itch? The one that blossoms in the centre of your back, right between your shoulder blades? The one that you can’t reach? Impossible.

  I can feel his eyes burning holes in my back as I root around in the cabinet for cups.

  ‘How do you take it?’

  ‘However it comes. I’m not fussy.’

  Oh, brother.

  I’m not channelling the right
line of focus to figure out how to work the coffee machine, so instead I grab the jar of instant.

  ‘So, Norah,’ he says when I hand him the steaming mug. He chews his nails; they’re brittle and broken. I watch his fingers, wince when they almost connect with mine. He doesn’t seem to notice. ‘Have you lived around here long?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ I nod, would offer him more of an answer but all my brainpower is going into stopping my mouth from mentioning his laces. My eye is twitching under the pressure. It’s like when you’re a kid sharing secrets with your friends and you pretend to lock your lips. I’m doing that, except my pursed lips are actually pinched between my fingertips and I’m twisting them into a knot.

  ‘How long is that?’ Luke asks; he’s not going to let me off easy.

  ‘Seventeen years, three months, and two days,’ I mumble. He raises his eyebrows and whistles a long, high-pitched note.

  ‘Here.’ I grab a chair. ‘Have a seat.’ I’m hoping if he buries his feet under the table I can stop thinking about those damn laces and start acting normal. Normal-er.

  Once I have a frustrating thought, I have to follow it through. Have to. No negotiating or forgetting about it. I can’t shrug it off or come back to it later. It just keeps growing and growing; like a balloon being filled with air, it expands until the pressure becomes too much. It’s my between-the-shoulder-blades itch.

  Luke starts talking about something, music or movies. I watch his lips make shapes but don’t absorb the sound.

  ‘Norah?’ He waves a hand in front of my face several moments later, and I am pulled sharply back into the here and now. I hear the drum of my fingers on the tabletop and flatten my palm immediately to make it stop.

  I clear my throat, pick at a scab on the side of my finger until it stings. ‘What were you saying?’

  He pauses, mouth open, laser eyes fixed on mine, trying to burn their way inside my brain. Even if they make it through they’ll never figure me out.

  ‘I’m going to go,’ he says, standing.

  Fuck. Fuck and shit and hell. And some swear word that has yet to be invented to describe how frustrated I am with myself. I’ve totally messed this up.

  ‘Luke,’ I say, standing too. I’m on the edge, toes curling over the side. I don’t know what to say. So instead of talking, I chew my fingers.

  ‘Is there something wrong?’ he asks. He’s not blind. He can see my meltdown as if it were bleaching my skin a bright colour. Pink. Neon. If panic were a colour it’d be neon pink and you’d be able to see its blinding hue from outer space.

  I nod.

  ‘You want to talk about it?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Not yet? But later?’

  ‘It’s really . . . complicated.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me you have superpowers?’ I can’t decide if his smile is real or fake.

  Tell him. Just tell him. Tell him the whole thing. You may be able to salvage something from this freak show of a situation.

  ‘I’m awkward.’ Ugh. Even an admission that small tastes like vomit as it claws its way across my tongue.

  ‘I know,’ he says.

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Well, you do spend a lot of time hiding behind doors.’ Don’t cry. Even though your eyes are burning and there’s a glob of hysteria wedged like a chicken bone in your windpipe. Don’t cry. ‘You wanna know a secret?’ Luke asks.

  I owe him words at the very least, but all I can manage is a nod.

  ‘I’m awkward too.’

  He’s humouring me, and I’m blinking hearts again. He’s so nice, I desperately wish my mind would give him a break and stop second-guessing his sentiments.

  ‘I’m going to give you some space. But we’ll talk soon, okay? Maybe I can sit on your porch and you can keep the door closed.’ He holds out his hand for me to shake. I take a step back to avoid contact and stare at his palm like it’s a loaded gun. He retracts it slowly, slips it into his back pocket. My teeth bite down on my bottom lip as I force my eyes to lift and look at him. I’m bracing, convinced I’m going to meet with animosity, but he doesn’t look offended or angry or anything I’d expect. He looks kind of sad. Feeling sorry for me, maybe. Or maybe mourning a friendship that he’s decided won’t go beyond half a cup of coffee. Whatever. All this over a shoelace. Sometimes I wonder if I should be locked in a straitjacket.

  ‘I’ll see myself out,’ Luke says, heading down the hall.

  The door clicks shut, and I wonder if I can buy a lobotomy on eBay.

  ‘I hate you. I fucking hate you.’ I seethe at my reflection through tight teeth. Tears roll down my cheeks and drip, drip, drip on to my shirt, making Rorschach patterns that I don’t dare try to decipher.

  An urge that I haven’t felt in a long time is burning inside my stomach. I take a deep breath, but air has the consistency of tar as I suck it back and choke it down. I lean on the sink, claw at the porcelain basin. It’s no good. I’m spiralling and I can’t stop it.

  Panic is bad. Panic mixed with disdain for yourself is worse.

  Maybe I can sit on your porch and you can keep the door closed.

  It burns, makes my ears bleed. I wonder how many times he’s said that to Amy.

  Never. Not once. God. I’m such a freak. I want to climb out of my own skin.

  The room undulates. There’s no one here, but I feel like there are hands on me, pushing me around and around in a circle. My head throbs; my teeth start chattering.

  Most of the time I can ride out a panic attack. I just curl up in a ball and wait for it to pass. There’s something about knowing it will come to an end that I’m certain of. Despite the way my body behaves, it feels manageable. But when it’s mixed with anger or rage, something shifts, and control feels further out of reach.

  I open the bathroom cabinet, grab the nail scissors, and wilt to the floor.

  Maybe I can sit on your porch and you can keep the door closed.

  ‘Shh.’ I press a finger to my lips, try to quiet my head, but the whirring sounds persist. There’s static rattling around inside my skull, mixing with Luke’s promise to stay ten feet away the next time we talk.

  I lean back, feel the coldness of the bathtub side seeping through my shirt. My legs part and my fingers glide over the inside of my thigh, tracing the lumps and bumps of tiny scars.

  ‘Please stop.’ I bury my face in my hands, mash the heels of my palms against my eyes until I can see coloured spots.

  Luke walked away in sixteen steps. Eight perfectly-tied-shoelace steps. And eight not. It’s not the laces, not really. They were just a catalyst, a microscope through which I could see all the broken parts of me. Why can’t I be normal? Why can’t I think the way normal people do? I so desperately would have liked to have him as a friend.

  I squeeze the scissors in my hand, remember the first time I sat here, almost three years ago. The first cut I ever made came from the fear of taking a physics exam. I’d already left Cardinal by then, had started homeschooling with Mom.

  Most kids who enter an exam room are freaking out about failing, but not me. I wasn’t afraid of that. Failing didn’t even enter my head. The fear came from the intensity of it all. I kept imagining sitting still, under strict conditions, not being able to move, not being able to come and go as I needed to.

  I mentally shackled myself to a chair.

  And then the what-ifs started. What if this happened? What if that happened? What if? What if? What if? Too many questions that I couldn’t answer. I just wanted silence.

  It’s weird, the release I get from dragging the tiny metal arm across my skin. It’s like slamming on brakes for an emergency stop; my head will go dead the second I feel the blade bite into me. All the buzzing receptors in my brain will forget the panic and concentrate on registering the hurt, the blood. It’s drastic, a last resort. But so easy. Like breathing, blinking. One beat in time. One quick slice, where nobody can see, and it all stops. This is not about dying. This is about trying to get back some co
ntrol.

  My hands tremble as I lift my sweater off my legs, hitch my shorts up, and pull the skin tight on my thigh. The scars from before have faded to little silver bumps that could easily be mistaken for snail trails. I inch the blade closer to my leg, blink away a fresh batch of tears.

  Despite my dangerously fragile thought pattern, OCD insists on its sick sense of loyalty to even numbers. It won’t let me make a fifth mark, so I run the blade along one of the four existing scars. A well of blood springs to the surface, and I go slack.

  It works like a shake, a slap, an injection of anaesthetic. I picture it like a never-ending tug of war between panic and calm. Self-harm is an impartial observer that steps up with something sharp to sever the rope. The minute the cut is made, both teams fly back, collapse to the ground on top of one another, exhausted.

  Thing is, now that it’s done, I want it to go away. I don’t want to see it or feel it or acknowledge that I needed control so badly I cut myself. But I have to, every time I stand in the shower, or my jeans rub against it, or my mom walks by my door when I’m getting changed and I jump around like a jackrabbit to cover myself.

  The blood tickles as it trickles down my leg. I reach back, grab the sponge off the side of the bathtub, and press it over the cut. The panic is dead, done. Disdain has tripled in size.

  I can’t win.

  It’s gone dark. I open my eyes when I feel a buzzing beneath my waistband. There’s a chill on my skin that reminds me I’m lying on a cold floor, wearing shorts, and I left our air conditioner on. My mouth is a cotton mill, drier than sawdust, like I haven’t had a drop to drink in a decade. I need water.

  I’m about to stand when I feel that buzzing again. I realize real quick that it’s my cell and without a second’s more delay, I snatch it up and hold it to my ear. I don’t bother checking the caller ID. Don’t need to. It could be aliens trying to sell me apocalypse insurance for all I care. I just need to hear another voice.