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I see red lining my panties when I take them off. Maybe I need to see a doctor? But mother would never take me. No, she’d be glad to hear I am slowly dying. Maybe then she would finally love me after she no longer has to take care of me. Although, I stopped believing in that feeling.
What is love?
I looked it up on our school library computer the other day, and it said it was an intense feeling of deep affection and a great interest and pleasure in something. But those words confused me even more. The last one is what really got to me: a person or thing that one loves.
What do I love?
Nothing.
There is nothing for me to love. Not in this house or room. Not in this family.
I guess I could love my school, except everyone looks weird at me there. They see my ill-fitting clothes and sunken cheeks and think I am sick or something, so they all stay away. But it’sinteresting there. I am learning stuff. And I don’t feel as alone as I do in my empty bedroom, even if I am.
And I guess I do like some of the shows mother turns on. The ones where they cook in those fancy kitchens with big, sharp knives and so many different ingredients. I never knew that so much food existed. It looked like magic. And it was the best thing I have ever seen. Could that be considered love?
But even those shows stopped when I was around after mother caught me peeking through the crack in the door to watch them.
Yes, I think she will love me when I am gone.
Quickly, I change into a different set of panties, carefully washing the spoiled ones in cold water because these are the only two pairs I have, and what if more red shows up. But the stain doesn’t come off, and I run out of time when mother bursts into the bathroom.
“What in the hell is taking you so long here?” she yells out, but as soon as her eyes drop to my hands and she sees the stain, her face grows from fury to a wicked gleam. “Did you bleed?” she asks me, and I nod. “Fucking finally,” she howls. “Finally, you won’t be so worthless anymore.”
She charges out of the bathroom, slamming the old wood hard enough to put a few more cracks in it. But this wasn’t one of those anger outbursts. No, I realize she is…happy.
But what does this mean for me?
She comes back right away. “Here, you will put this on so the blood doesn’t get on my sheets.” She hands me a box of something I’ve never seen before, but they almost looked like diapers but have no top parts. “When the bleeding stops, you must tell me immediately, you hear me?”
I nod again, not understanding what is going on, but as soon as I get to my school library, I do another search and find out that today, at the age of thirteen, I turned into a woman.
But still…
I didn’t fully understand what that means until seven days later.
When even the small pleasure of school was taken away from me.
When the pain of my existence tipped over the edge as mother was dressing me up for the evening in clothes that showed more of my skin than covered.
When I felt another hand on my body and wanted to run away, but she was watching me, and I couldn’t move an inch. When I realized love is a stupid notion that really doesn’t exist and never will.
Chapter fifteen
Kira
“Aghhh.” My whole body jolts out of the bed with a hushed gasp as I clamp my hand over my mouth.
For the second time in the last few weeks, I have been haunted by the memories of the past in my dreams.
For the second time, I wake up panting and sweating with my cardiac muscle squeezing painfully inside my chest.
I wasn’t lying when I told Vassar I have no heart. I don’t. It was sliced away bit by bit from the moment I was born until I turned seventeen, and the last piece of it was dropped into the ocean, covered by moonshine and chilly winds.
But in moments like this, I also wish the damn muscle would stop pumping that blood. I wish it all would stop. Maybe then I could find my peace.
Find my love that resides on the bottom of that Atlantic floor.
I should have never invited him to stay here. Or shall I say, pressured. This was a stupid idea fueled by rage and jealousy that has no right to exist, but somehow took root in my mind despite it all because of that insufferable, gorgeous man who hasbeen my…something…for the last five years. Something because I have no idea what is it, I feel for him.
