AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Fiona
Medicine bottles clatter into the sink as I sweep my hand over the vanity, checking labels, panic settling in when I get to the end of the stash and don’t find what I’m looking for.
My fingers clutch at the porcelain, chest heaving as I glare at myself in the mirror, a hatred bubbling up inside me that I haven’t felt in a long time.
It lends itself to the violent tendencies, that hatred. A self-loathing that lashes out at others, makes me say and do stupid things. Convinces me I’m unworthy of love, that I’m toxic, that I’m better off alone. It’s my greatest obsession, and today I let it run rampant as I ruined my entire relationship with Boyd Kelly.
While part of me still stands by the decision, knowing that we’re not ready for anything more, I also can’t shake the feeling that I gave up on him. On us. And it eats away at my insides, a cannibalistic tumor devouring me, because I’m no quitter.
I’m an Ivers. We persevere.
But today, I crumbled.
Today, I was weak.
And while I can try to pass it off on my uncertainties about Boyd’s sense of self and his real feelings, or the fact that my life is imploding all around me, the truth is I was just scared.
Maybe I don’t face my demons as much as I like to claim.
Maybe I’m more like my father than I ever realized.
My chest pulls taut the longer I stare at myself in the vanity, the lines and colors of my face reminding me of my mother’s when she was young. The similarities remind me of everything I’ve lost, everything I’m losing, and I can feel myself spiraling.
Sweat beads along my hairline and my throat constricts; I clutch at the neckline of my shirt, yanking it away from my skin to give myself room to breathe, but it’s no use.
Grunting, I push off from the sink and stomp back into the bedroom, my eyes darting around the room, trying to remember where I might have put the Zoloft I took once upon a time.
I’m not even sure if it’d work at this point, but the way my heart thumps inside of my chest, so hard and heavy against my ribs that my entire body feels each aching pulse, has me desperate.
My fingers tremble as they scour every surface, toppling perfume bottles and searching my jewelry boxes, throat growing tighter with each passing second, anxiety wrapping around my heart like a coiled snake, waiting for a chance to strike.
Turning around after knocking my textbooks and school papers to the ground, resisting the urge I get to immediately pick up the mess, I dive for my bed, ripping the sheets from where they’re tucked in at the corners and throwing them off the mattress.
I’m frantic now, my sanity slowly unraveling, panic mounting inside of me until it’s all I can focus on. All I can think about, looping brokenly in my head, and I push the mattress off the box spring, heaving it so it flips over, hooking on my nightstand and dragging the table lamp down with it.
Gently trailing my fingernails along the fabric of the box spring, I press down between the wooden slats; the fabric tears easily, withering under me, and satisfaction washes over me in waves as I start to shred the rest of it from the wooden frame.
When my mother first got sick and had a bad habit of forgetting when she’d already taken her medicine, we’d stuffed it in the box springs beneath her bed, knowing she wouldn’t have the strength to search for it.
Maybe that’s what happened to mine.
A few minutes later, though, and my nails are jagged and bleeding from scraping against the wood and ripping into the fabric, fragile from when I chewed them down to nubs after finding out about my father’s affair.
I need a cigarette.
Giving up on finding the prescription, I leave my bedroom in its disarray, my mind hopping right over to its next obsession. Heading downstairs, I scurry down the hall, ducking out past the greenhouse to the back yard overlooking the hedge gardens and the acres of unnecessary land the house sits on.
I’m not expecting someone to already be in my old smoking spot, seated on an old rubber tire that’s been there for so long, it’s part of the patio surface now. But when I round the corner of the house, there my father sits, a cigarette poised between his lips, staring up at the night sky.
I start to retreat, not wanting him to know I come out here—especially given how well I’ve been doing at resisting even the thought to smoke—but when I move my foot backward, he turns his head, spotting me.
Smoke billows up above his head, disappearing into the stars. “I was hoping you’d join me one of these days.”
Confused, I get closer, crossing my arms over my chest. “You were hoping your daughter would join you for a cigarette?”
“I wouldn’t want to shame-smoke with anyone else by my side.” He shakes a menthol from the green pack in his shirt pocket, offering it to me along with a Bic lighter. I take it, dropping down onto the tire beside him, and turn the cigarette in my hand, studying the smooth surface and inhaling the sweet tobacco scent.
It took me months to get the smell out from under my fingernails, and even though I so very badly want to, I’m not exactly sure I should indulge.
