Page 16 of Save Me

The bedroom door slams against the chair I placed in front of it last night and I jump at the noise, eerily similar to the sound of the door crashing into my face. My hands begin to tremble and I can’t think, can’t focus on anything except curling tighter into my cocoon.

“What the fuck?” I hear whatever-his-name-is mutter as he pushes against the door again, the chair slowly shifting acrossthe wooden floor with a groan of resistance. I exhale, relieved that it’s not Tanner breaking into the room.

“Are you alive in here? It’s 2p.m.” His voice trails off from across the room, the sheets muffling his words.

I nod my head, not that he can see me, but I don’t trust my voice not to crack if I try to speak out loud.

I try to focus on what he’s saying, but I can’t bring myself back to reality, too lost in the hurricane of emotions that are swirling around in my head, flashbacks all that I can see. “Tanner just left…” He trails off as if waiting for me to speak.

I blanch at the sound of his name as the ringing in my ears threatens to drown out everything around me. I cover my ears with my hands and the sound of him talking fades to nothing. For a few blissful seconds all I can hear is my own breathing and the erratic beat of my heart.

“Why is there blood on the floor?” His voice rings loudly, and I sense he has moved out of the doorway and into the room.

Shame creeps in as I try to think of a response, think of something to say, but the words won’t form on my tongue, the sound of the crunch of my nose against the door the only thing I can hear as I think about the blood on the floor. I run my index finger over the side of my thumb, the bite of my nail bringing my focus back to now, calming me once again.

“It’s nothing,” I mutter quietly, my voice sounding strange even to me.

“Are you okay? It doesn’t look like nothing,” he starts.

Frustration and confusion join the mix of emotions churning inside of me, and my fists clench in response. For some reason his question sets me off, and I feel a wave of distrust as I wonder what his motives are, wonder why the person who helped bring me here, knocking me unconscious in the process, would care about a little bit of blood. At least Tanner showed me his true colors from the beginning and I always knew where I stood withhim. The familiar taste of bile rises in the back of my throat in response to my thoughts. Did I really just think that?

His footsteps echo around the room and I try to slow my breathing, panic rising within me at the thought of facing anyone right now.

“What’s going on?” he says, his voice sounding from only a few feet away, and to my shock he pulls the sheets off me.

My eyes meet his briefly, and I see the shock on his own face as he looks at me. I can only imagine what I look like based on how I feel.

“What the fuck, Evi?” He swears quietly, running a hand nervously through his dark hair.

I get out of bed, bolting for the bathroom, unable to deal with feeling so exposed outside of the cocoon I had encased myself in.

The door slams shut and I rest my back against it, closing my eyes and trying to steady my breathing. I rub my hands over my head, the ringing in my ears incessant and the dull ache in my skull unrelenting. I look in the mirror that hangs on the other side of the room, and not for the first time in my life my reflection is startling. Dark circles under my eyes frame my nose, which is less swollen than it feels and peppered with dark bruises. I move my hand slowly to my face, tracing around the skin again, and a sharp sting meets my touch. I pull my hand away quickly before pulling the neckline of my sweater down slightly. The bruise on my neck is black and purple and a sickening feeling rolls through me as I touch it, the feel of Tanner’s hand imprinted in my memory.

I trail my eyes down my body, and besides a couple of light bruises on my legs, everything elselooksfine. But I don’t feel fine. I don’t feel like myself, like anyone I recognize. I walk towards the mirror, trying to get a better look at what else could have possibly changed, why my appearance isn’t lining up with how I feel. Shameful. Disgusting. Dirty. My lip trembles and mynail bites into my thumb again, trying to hold the emotions at bay.

Keep it together, Evi, I tell myself silently.

This isn’t real. This cannot be real.

I take a deep breath and focus on the sharp ache in my thumb instead of the ache deep inside me that cannot be seen, the ache that makes me wonder if drowning would be better than trying to make sense of the wave of emotions inside of me. I look myself in the eyes, light green as always, but with a depth of sorrow that wasn’t there before. I’m unsure of how to pull myself out of this, feeling as though I’m fighting against a current pulling me out to sea, and I no longer have the fight left in me to try to keep my head above water anymore.

Shock blasts through me in response to the thought and I startle myself as I question whether or not it’s the truth, wondering if a piece of my soul died underneath Tanner’s last night, or if all of me did.

I take a deep breath, trying to bring myself back from the darkness in my mind. I count slowly, in sync with the motion of my finger moving up and down across my skin.One. Two. Three. Four.The skin under my nail becomes red.Five. Six. Seven. Eight.A thin layer peels off, and the sting brings my attention back to now.Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve.My nail bites harder into raw flesh, and I’m no longer stuck in my head.

I get to twenty before red speckles of blood rise to the surface, and I let out a heavy sigh, the pain the only thing that makes sense to me right now.

I turn on the tap and run my hands under the water, focusing on how it feels cold against my skin and stings against my cut. I try to shove everything that I’m feeling, everything I’ve experienced, into a box somewhere deep, deep inside of me. My body trembles at the effort to hold everything back, and I feel the weight of last night breaking something inside of me. I don’teven know which of these emotions I should be feeling as so many conflicting feelings build inside of me, but I know that I’m unable to feel them all without shattering.

I take a deep breath as I close the box inside of me, locking everything away, avoiding feeling anything at all. Numbness travels from my heart out to my extremities, and I can feel it as I slowly start to feel nothing at all, my body feeling so cold in response that I’m reminded of the night on my balcony with Rhett when he left me to die.

I turn off the sink, dry my hands on my shorts, and lock down everything I’m thinking, everything I’m feeling.

I turn away from the mirror, unable to look at myself anymore. I walk purposefully through my bedroom and out to the living room, not wanting to be alone with my thoughts, avoiding his gaze as I sit on the couch beside him. The sound of the TV is dull in my ears. He pushes a hot cup of tea towards me, but I just stare at the half-empty bottles of liquor Tanner left sitting on the table last night.

I can feel him staring at me silently as I reach my hands towards the drinks, and for a second, I think about picking up the tea he made for me. Instead I reach for a bottle, picking it up and bringing the amber liquid to my mouth, hoping it numbs everything inside of me. It burns my throat as I take sip after sip and my empty stomach rolls in protest, ignoring the words that Ryan spoke to me not long ago, my promise to deal with things instead of escaping them.

But I don’t stop drinking, I can’t stop.

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