by Nikki Morgan
The driver glared at me as I showed him my pass. ‘It’s the wrong way up love!’ he growled.
‘The pass,’ he barked again, shaking his head and pointing.
I ignored him and headed down the bus, the other passengers clucking and shaking their heads, their faces glaring up at me, twisted and grotesque like demons. But they were staring at me like I was the one with horns sticking out of my head or something. They whispered and laughed. Why didn't you do it properly? Why are you still here? Waste of space!
I grabbed on to one of the poles at the side of the aisle to steady myself, and then slowly pulled myself along the bus until I found a spare seat at the back, on my own.
I unzipped my hoodie and tugged at my tee-shirt, trying to allow air in, but I still couldn't breathe. I reached up and opened the window as waves of nausea swept over me. The panic was rising up again, like a cobra, threatening to strike and paralyse me.
‘Will you shut that window!’ barked a short blonde woman, reaching over me to slam the window shut.
I vaguely heard a male voice say ‘These youngsters,’ to a chorus of approval, before everything went quiet, and my mind floated off into the distance like I was in a dream, except I knew I wasn't in a dream because I didn't dream.
You had to sleep to dream.
If I could dream, then I would be normal, I could return to life.
Instead, I went back to playing dead.
I let my face fall against the cold wet glass. Outside, the world raced by, distorted by the condensation. I pulled my sleeve over my hand and rubbed the glass, making a small window of clarity.
Tears began to fall.
And there was no stopping them.
Everything was a mess.
Pain shot through my chest, a great physical ache of sadness, like a dagger plunging into me. But instead of killing me, it brought me back to life. I was feeling again and it ached so bad. I wrapped my arms around my chest, trying to hold on to the pain. To stop it spilling out of me with my guts.
No one came to me. No one put their arms around me. They didn't see me.
Evie
I sat on the floor of the shower cubicle, my arms wrapped tightly around my legs, as the scalding water pounded around me. I wore pain like a coat, a second layer of skin. I let the water blast it away, watched it spiral down the plug hole with the water and soap until I could see it no more, until the water had anaesthetised my soul.
I didn't want to feel anymore.
I wanted it all to go away.
Eventually I stumbled out of the cubicle, pulled on my pyjamas and went downstairs. I pulled the convector heater into the conservatory and settled down to draw, curled up on the sofa under a woollen blanket. Outside, night was falling fast, bringing with it an elegant flurry of snowflakes that coated everything in a thin blanket of pure white. As the snow gathered on the roof of the conservatory it felt like I was snuggled in a cocoon of silk, like a caterpillar waiting to transform into a butterfly.
The pencil lines flowed over the paper, giving me something else to think about as I defined some lines whilst taking the clarity away from others, my hand working almost constantly. I worked late into the evening, the snow still falling from the blanketed sky, until the heater could no longer mask the biting cold and my hands could work no more.
I had my finished sketch for art; a kick-ass warrior girl called Sabre.
My stomach groaned with hunger. I hadn't eaten all day; it just hadn't occurred to me to eat. My Gran, if she'd still been around, would've been appalled. Evelyn, she'd have said, you need to put the calories in to get the energy out. If you don't, you'll get ill.
My Gran. Gone.
How I longed for her to put her arms around me again.
I headed for the kitchen, found a frozen pizza, heated in the microwave then slumped in front of the telly to watch Neighbours and then Home and Away, a whole hour of sunshine television, the kind that you didn’t really have to concentrate on, the perfect antidote to cold January days and pizza that tasted of cardboard.
I'd just finished when the doorbell rang. I hoped it wasn't Celia. But it had to be, no one else ever came around, and she only came out of respect for Cassie. Celia hated me, but at least she was honest about it. I respected her for that at least. I fastened my dressing gown and then went and opened the front door.
‘Sam? What are you doing here?’
‘Hiya!’ said Sam, his blues eyes sparkling even in the dark, just like him, 'Just thought I'd come and see if you were alright.'
Sam was always too happy, always too nice, and I didn't deserve him, or his pity. ‘Oh, yeah, feeling much better thanks. Must have been something dodgy I ate last night,’ I said, rubbing my hand over my stomach, over-emphasising the point.
‘Good,' he said, his face tilted slightly. I watched his eyes narrow into slits. I knew he was trying to determine whether I was telling the truth or not, and I wasn't going to help him out on that.
There was an awkward pause before he continued, 'It was probably a good job you didn’t go to art today, Miss Powell was in a right foul mood,' he said, blowing a snowflake off his nose, 'one of the year nines had super-glued the acrylic pots to the worktops. She couldn't get them off, had to get the Caretaker to do it.’
'Oh,' I said, searching around for something to say, finally settling on, 'Anyone we know?'
‘Graham Higgins,’ said Sam, stamping his feet in the thickening snow, his breath escaping in wisps from his mouth.
‘Oh,’ I repeated.
Sam's gaze dropped to the floor. ‘I was wondering whether you wanted help with your art coursework, you know, as you'd forgotten it. Thought you might not have done it? You didn't really say earlier...’ He left the question dangling in the air.
Paranoia kicked me in the guts. Why was he asking me this now? Did he know about my run-in with the river? No, he didn't know, did he? Whatever, I had no intention of answering his question. ‘Look Sam, now's really not a good time, I’d invite you in, but mom’s just about to put tea out.' I said, gesturing behind me with a quick flick of my head.
‘Oh.' he said, with a weak smile that would usually have me crippled with guilt, 'oh okay then, just thought…you know. Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow?’
‘Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Ok. Bye,’ said Sam, raising his hand to wave goodbye and then thinking better of it.
I closed the door on him before he'd even left the driveway.
My home was my sanctuary and I didn't want anyone coming in and spoiling that. Not even my best friend. Especially not my best friend. I couldn't let him in, couldn't let anyone see how far I'd fallen. I didn't want to be his burden. I didn't want his pity, or his love, I didn't deserve it. I wanted to be alone in the only place I that I could truly be myself.
And yet, when I went back into the living room, the quiet crashed over me, dead and silent like a graveyard and I hated it. I hated the feeling of nothingness, the complete emptiness that opened up like a vast ocean in front of me. I was floating in the middle of it, keeping my head barely above the surface, miles and miles of black sea stretching out from me in every direction.
I didn't want to be with people. I didn't want to be alone. My conundrum. A complete contradiction that made me feel that I didn't belong anywhere, especially in this world.
That's why I'd tried to end it. I just wanted it all to stop. There was no other way out.
I went to bed to avoid the silence, the emptiness of the house. Maybe today I would be able to fall to sleep and then, for a few blissful hours, I wouldn't be able to feel or think.
I climbed in to bed and wrapped myself up in my plump patchwork quilt that smelt of summer and bright flowers and happiness, but inside me the ball of dread was beginning to roll in my stomach. How long would it be before I finally fell to sleep? Sometimes it could be hours, and on a few occasions I'd fallen to sleep just as my morning alarm shrieked. I would lie, still and silent like I was dead, watching the
shadows dance across the room, hours and hours swallowed whole by the long expanse of silence and darkness.
I shut my eyes and grotesque images danced across the back of my eyelids, laughing at me from the corners of my mind. I opened my eyes, tried to avoid them by staring at the ceiling, but the shadows began to laugh at me too as they started to creep across, dripping down the sides of the walls like big black spider webs. The monsters of my mind began to take form in the shadows, encouraged by the demonic beast; the Raven of the Edgar Allan Poe poem, who came gently rapping, rapping…Deep into that darkness peering…dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.
I had become so fearful of my own mind, of my deepest darkest thoughts. Sometimes, in the past, in the depths of the night, after finally falling to sleep, I'd wake up, not knowing what was real or what was a dream, the two worlds had somehow started to collide and merge into one.
The dreams where I'd slashed my wrists were the worst; I'd wake up drenched in sweat, not able to tell if I was alive or dead.
And then even the dreams stopped visiting.
The lines of the poem ran through my mind until the Sandman eventually took me into his arms.
Evie
When I woke early the next day, I bounded out of bed and flung open the curtains; outside was blanketed in a thick carpet of snow. There was no way on this earth that Mr Taylor would open the school - he lived too far away- and for one more day at least, I wouldn't have to deal with anyone - no Sam, no Amber, no teachers and definitely no Dexter. I couldn't deal with that. I didn't want the beast getting any help in plunging and twisting the knife into my gut.
I grabbed my laptop and went downstairs. It was coffee that I needed more than anything.
I dropped my laptop on the dining table and went into the kitchen, made coffee and let the invigorating aroma wake me up. I took it into the dining room and fired up the laptop.
I signed into my e-mail account first; it'd been a while since I'd heard off Cassie, not that that was unusual. When it came to Cassie, I seemed to be right at the bottom of her list of priorities. I wondered how long it would've taken her to find out I was dead, if I had succeeded in killing myself. Would she have cut short her holiday? Probably not.
She was due back on the Fourteenth, in six days, but, to be honest, with Cassie, no one actually knew until she was stood there in front of you.
I flicked my eyes over the list of e-mails, ignoring most of them - especially those from Ali57, Razorgirl and other names I recognised but not because they were friends - and scrolled down to Cassiealex, double-clicking on it to open it.
7th January 7.09 pm
Hi Hun,
Me and Dan are having such a good time that we’ve decided to stay on a little longer, maybe an extra week? Have a feeling he’s going to propose to me!!! Wish me luck.
Mom xx
I looked up, feeling the ghost of her presence in the room, from the expensive candles, to the oversized cushions on the sofa, and the picture of us both on the mantelpiece, taken in happier times, when my father was still alive. I think I was five or six, and it was my birthday. We'd been shopping for my first Barbie (it was the most beautiful doll I had ever seen, with a pure white gown and feathers in her hair. I still have her somewhere, locked up with other memories that are too painful to think about). My father had taken us to McDonalds for dinner. I remember when we sat down to eat, he made a little silver ring, engraved with the letter "E", magically appear from the back of my ear. I thought it was magic, but now I know differently.
I shivered. For some reason, at that moment, I really missed him.
And I felt her absence in the empty space in the house too, the gaping hole that should've been Cassie.
Cassie. My mother.
I looked back at the message on the computer screen. I stared at the words, let them sink into my soul.
The demonic beast was stirring again; he was really hungry and he gobbled up the words of her message with relish. I flopped back in my chair and massaged the knot in my right shoulder.
Cassie was getting engaged.
Again.
To another no hoper.
Cassie had been engaged three times since my father had died. And then there were the ones in between, the randoms, whose names and faces I didn't know and Cassie herself probably couldn't even remember. Her relationships were a kind of sick ritual, a cycle of self-harm where Cassie fell for the wrong guy, ended up hurt and humiliated, drank herself silly, then after a few weeks, hooked up with someone else.
Simon was the first I could remember. I hated him, and not just because he was the first guy Cassie had dated after my father had died, although that would've been bad enough on its own. Simon was a complete creep who used to spend most days drinking and smoking pot. He lasted about six months before Cassie found him in bed with his best mate.
The second was Dave, a complete slob who just leered at anything female with a pulse, including me. I remember the hungry look he used to give me with his bloodshot eyes. The thought of him still made my skin crawl. I couldn't remember why Cassie had split up with him - and I didn't want to think about it too much - but I was very glad when it fizzled out, despite the months of Cassie's mad antics after it. I remember leaving the house for school on a Monday morning, when I was about eleven or twelve, and finding her curled up outside on the doorstep, drunk.
The third guy was over so quick that I didn't even know his name. In fact, I didn't even meet him, just the devastation after he'd passed through. I nicknamed him Hurricane.
And now there was Dan.
He and Cassie had been together for about seven months and they were "in love". He was a nice enough bloke, I suppose, but still, past experience told me it was only a matter of time.
I slouched forward in my chair, crossing my legs underneath it, and took a good swig of coffee as I clicked on the e-mail from Razorgirl. I knew what was coming, but for some reason looking at these vile e-mails had somehow become my own sick ritual, poking the knife in my never-to-heal wound.
But this time it was different. An image of my own face flashed upon the screen. My eyes were shut like I was sleeping, my ghost-like face splattered with mud.
I sat frozen, strangely entranced by the grotesque image on the screen. I couldn't ever remember a time when I had looked so peaceful, so beautiful. And yet looking at my own dead face terrified me. Someone had taken a photo of me when I was...
I felt sick. Dexter had saved me, brought me home, but who had taken this photo? Who had seen me first?
I stared at the photo, something was pulling inside me, making me look. Underneath the image were the words "Next time, do it properly. BITCH!"
I clicked on delete and the next e-mail flashed up on my screen. It contained the same picture, this time with only two words; "Just die!"
I slammed the top of my laptop down and swept the mug of coffee off the table with my hand. Coffee splashed up the wall and the mug crashed to the floor, smashing into lots of tiny pieces. Like my life.
Even after I'd closed the computer down, the image still burned in my mind, like someone had branded it onto my vision with a red hot poker. There was a war raging inside me and I wasn't winning.
I leapt up, letting the chair fall to the floor with a crash, and fled upstairs.
Yanking my clothes off, I flung them on the bathroom floor and stumbled into the shower.
The scalding water felt good against my freezing cold skin. I - again - imagined it washing the pain and the anger away and watched as it all was sucked down the plughole with the soap. It was purifying me, allowing me to wrestle back control.
When I felt like I had been washed clean, I stepped out of the shower and grabbed the towel to dry myself. I stopped stone dead as I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror; I was grotesque and miss-formed with bits of bone jutting out here and there. How had I got so thin? Food had become boring and dull and didn't seem worth the effort. Eating had become more of a chore t
han a pleasure and, as everyone knows, chores were there to be avoided.
I got dressed and flopped on to my bed, my hair still dripping wet, and I stared up at the ceiling; I was supposed to be distracting myself, not pulling myself deeper into thinking about things. About me, the chaos that was my life.
I needed more coffee, so I went back downstairs. The coffee I'd thrown had marked the wall in the dining room. It had dried on like a congealed blood stain in a crime scene. I knew that no matter how much I scrubbed at the stain, the smell would mark my flesh like the blood-stained hands of Lady Macbeth.
And there, on the table, was the laptop. I could almost hear it whispering to me, tempting me to look at those ghostly images, like the Sirens calling sailors to their death on the jagged rocks. The voices told me to look. They told me to open up the wounds again, that picking at them with a sharp knife would make me feel better.
Now that I felt pain again, I had started to crave it like a drug; it made me feel alive, made me feel wanted and yet, when I was in pain, I longed to push it away and feel nothing again. To play dead. Another conundrum, another reason why I didn't belong in this world.
Not even fighting it, I opened one of the e-mails and the image flashed up. My image, although it felt as though it was someone else lying there, cold and blue. It didn't feel like it had happened to me, and only a few days ago. My ghostly-white face looked like it was carved from marble, an angel encircled by a halo of darkness, as if all my impurities, my sins, had leeched from my skin. But they were only petrol black feathers of a crow.
Only in death could I be truly beautiful.
Something flickered inside me, an image, a forgotten memory. It danced across my vision and then was gone, but its echo remained, telling me that it had once lived outside of my mind.
The feathers.
I had seen one in my room, the day after my "accident".
I raced upstairs and flung open my bedroom door. The room was a tip, and still smelt rancid even though I'd changed the bed covers.
