Nadia Reategui
ENG 218R – 003
Professor Williams
March 25, 2009
Down in a Rabbit Hole
"I hope I'm not bothering you. I wanted to talk to you. I miss you. When are you coming to see me? Maybe when you come visit we can go take some pictures at the beach. Please, call back. I've been hearing bad things. Oh, this is Adrian, by the way."
*
She was sitting in a sandy chair in front of a wooden table. The golden nametag on top of it read "DR. ERIC BRADY, PSYCHIATRIST". She looked away from the nametag and to the man sitting across. She stared piercingly at him with her small brown eyes and laughed to herself a little. The old man was writing on a white sheet of paper with a black-ink silver pen. His half-moon glasses slid down his nose continuously. The remaining white hair on the top of his head stood straight up and the bald spot on the left side shone like a beacon in the noon sunlight coming from the floor-length window on his right side.
She turned left and stared at the wide-open windows for a couple of minutes. She rubbed her right eye with her hand to clear her vision and looked into the sky. The sun was out but silver clouds were accumulating menacingly and blackening on the horizon.
She stood up and walked to the windows. Her eyes burst open as she looked down the 13th floor balcony of the Tebbs-San Diego Building where the office of her psychiatrist was. Every other day she was there for an hour, talking, and doing a lot of mind exercises where the use of her broad imagination was necessary. "Tell me what you see, tell me what you feel." Old routines.
She turned and fixed every detail of the white office in her mind. She would find her way out of the office in the dark with no problem at all if she ever needed to.
She went back to the sandy chair and smiled vaguely at Dr. Brady who had finally stopped writing on the paper he had on his clipboard. He pulled out a file labeled "STEWART, R. L." It seemed to be her medical history. She folded her legs as she sat on the chair.
"How long ago was this picture taken?" Dr. Brady asked as he looked at the picture on the file. The girl on the picture had a bright brown hair with golden highlights, a shiny smile, vibrant brown eyes and beautifully tanned skin.
"Almost six months ago."
Dr. Brady looked up to face the girl that sat across him. Her long brown hair fell dead on her shoulders. Her eyes had lost their brightness. Her skin appeared a pale purple as if she lacked oxygen. She looked like a little lamb on her way to the slaughterhouse.
"How are you doing, Riley?" Dr. Brady asked with a benevolent voice as he leaned back on his chair and interlocked his fingers.
"Fine, fine," she replied as she looked away from the paper that had everything Dr. Brady wrote every day they met. She shifted her gaze to the chrome clock hanging on the wall to her right. 12:05 pm. She just had to endure another 55 long and annoying minutes pretending she actually cared about their every-other-day meetings.
"Anything new going on? It is midterm week, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Riley said, looking down at what was left of her nails and trying to control herself from putting them in her teeth. "I had one today."
"Is that so?" Dr. Brady grabbed the file with Riley's history and pushed his glasses up his nose to read something. "University of San Diego?"
"Yeah."
"A little far from home, isn't it?"
"Not much," she said as she yawned. "I'm just from El Cajon."
"I lived there for a while," Dr. Brady added with a smile. "Very nice neighborhood."
She shrugged. "I guess."
Dr. Brady looked quickly at his clipboard and back at her. "Is it your parents?"
"Yeah," she closed her eyes with as much force as she could. "My dad's cheating on my mom, or did, I'm not sure."
"Do they know you know?"
"My dad does, he's been trying to explain me his reasons but I just can't listen to him… it makes me sick." Riley got distracted with a butterfly that flied against the window. It was trapped. "He blames it on her," she continued, still looking at the butterfly. "He blames her for leaving. How can he blame her? If there is anyone to blame…" Riley stopped as she saw the butterfly die on the windowsill.
Dr. Brady lifted his left palm and shook his head. "No. We've talked about that, Riley."
"We used to be so happy," her voice broke a little. "It is dead at home now. They will get divorced. They hardly talk to each other."
"What makes you say that?"
"Adrian notices everything," Riley chuckled as she wiped a tear from her face. "I knew she was special from the moment mom and dad brought her home from the hospital. She is so mature for her age. She understands much more than I can. She manages it well."
"How is Adrian?"
"She is good. She tries to endure it well. It's hard to read her emails. It's hard to listen to her voice messages."
Dr. Brady scribbled quickly on his clipboard and turned to look at Riley, who was staring at the floor.
"Riley," Dr. Brady said looking directly in her eyes. "I have to ask you something important."
"I believe I know what it is."
"I want you to tell me what happened the night of the eight of February."
"I knew it was about that," she chortled.
"Will you tell me what happened?"
Riley looked away from Dr. Brady's blue eyes and to the window on her left. It was raining. The water was washing away all the dirt outside. She closed her eyes one more time and bit her lip. Her hands were sitting still on her lap and she giggled nervously.
"Yes, Dr. Brady," she said as she grabbed her left arm out of habit. "I will tell you how it happened."
The psychiatrist leaned forward and stared at Riley's bloodshot eyes. She looked away to the window and smirked a crooked smile.
*
"Riley? Don't hang up," he almost begged.
"What?" She answered coldly while removing her thumb from the end button on her phone. She sat on her bed and put her legs up to embrace them. The Twilight calendar on her right hand blue wall showed the date: February 7th.
"We need to talk," a deep voice resounded in her ear.
"I have nothing to say to you."
"You shouldn't have gone into my email," he said reprovingly.
"But I did."
"Yes, you did," he affirmed, "and now you have to listen."
"I don't want to," she said as she grabbed a picture a man from her night desk. Angry tears ran down her cheeks as she smashed the silver frame against the floor. The glass broke; the picture was on the floor. She leaned to pick it up and with her own hands she ripped it off.
"I am still your father."
She looked at the picture she had just tore up and with anger said "Sadly."
An awkward silence filled up the air. The beep the phone made when it hit a minute was the only sound.
"I will call you back from my office," he finally said, "Please, answer."
She hung up the phone and threw it against the wall. It didn't break. She had read those emails, maybe she shouldn't have. Every minute that passed, she convinced herself that she would be better off if she hadn't read anything at all. She would still love her father.
Did she want to talk to him? Did she want to listen to his excuses?
Before she could answer herself, Here it goes by Jimmy Eat World went off. It was her ringtone. She looked at the screen of her black Motorola Q and saw her dad's office number coming up on the screen. She didn't want to answer.
She clicked on the green button.
"Hello?"
"It's me. Can you talk?"
"Yeah."
"I know you know what happened," his voice was quiet and regretful, "I am not going to deny anything."
"Good. Because I know enough and you can't lie to me."
Where had all the respect gone? Where was the father that raised her? The father she admired when she was little? The father that gave her everything?
"I am not trying to lie to you."
"What do you want to say?" she stood up abruptly and kicked a pile of clothes away from her way.
"I know I did something very wrong," he started and his voice trembled, "but you don't know anything, you don't know why I did it, you don't know my story."
"Don't try to justify your actions," she snapped, "what you did is wrong in every country, in every religion, in every sense."
"I know," he admitted, "but you have to listen."
"I'm listening," she said as she clenched her fists.
"Things between your mother and I have been very rough the last three years," as soon as he started, she wished she weren't asking anything, "last year, I suggested her that we split up. Later on, we decided that we would stay together for our daughters"
Split up? Where had she been? She had always thought her family was happy. She thought they would always be together. How blind could she have been?
"Did you ever love us?"
"Of course I did, and I still do."
"You love us?" she chuckled sarcastically.
"Never doubt that."
"Don't make me laugh. You wouldn't have done what you did if you did," Riley pressed the red End Call button and laid down on her bed sobbing her tears on her blue bed cover.
*
"Everything I thought was real faded with his words." Riley stood up and walked to the window, she looked down the balcony and stared at the cars driving by Rodeo Dr. "He called me again," she continued, "I couldn't answer. He left a message," Riley closed her eyes and pressed her lips while running her right hand through her dead brown hair. "That's when he blamed it all on her, he said if it weren't because she left, my parents would still be together."
"And what do you think?"
"He doesn't know jack," Riley hit the glass window with her right palm and turned to face Dr. Brady.
"Maybe you should come forward, and say what you know," Dr. Brady put his clipboard away and interlocked his fingers.
"He will not listen," Riley looked away and added, "He will believe I am crazy."
"Why would he do that? He is, after all, your father."
Riley walked back to the desk in the middle of the room and lifted up the left sleeve of her Billabong sweatshirt while Dr. Brady reached for her arm. He traced his fingers through Riley's flesh wounds. She didn't even cringe at the touch of Dr. Brady's cold stiff fingers. Dr. Brady clicked his tongue and shook his head as he went back to writing on his clipboard. Riley listened attentively to the sound of the pen scribbling on the paper arching an eyebrow.
"Why do you do it, Riley?"
"It frees me," she said while closing her eyes. "It makes everything go away."
"For how long?"
"For the time being."
"Like for a day? Or a little while?"
"It's better than nothing," she opened her eyes and looked back at Dr. Brady.
"I thought you had stopped."
"I had. Until that unfortunate seventh of February when I found out my life was a lie."
"How do they go together?"
Riley looked away from Dr. Brady's blue eyes and to the window on her left. It was raining. The water was washing away all the dirt outside. She closed her eyes one more time and bit her lip. Her hands were sitting still on her lap and she chuckled nervously.
"They do, Dr. Brady," she said as she grabbed her left arm out of habit. "And now I will tell you how it happened."
The psychiatrist leaned forward and stared at Riley's bloodshot eyes. She looked away to the window and her mind started flying.
*
Riley slammed the door and went to her room.
She rolled up her sleeves and saw them. They had never gone away. They were still reminding her of the desperation she had felt, of the cage she was trapped in, of the first time she decided to have control over something. Control. She couldn't even control that. Everything came back as she traced the scars on her left arm. She smirked a crooked smile.
You can go right out of your mind trying to escape the paradox of life.
She stood in front of the floor length mirror in her beige room and examined herself. She could not recognize the person that looked back at her. Her face was pasty white and her long brown hair fell lifeless on her shoulders. She looked dead. She felt dead inside. She was soulless. She took a step forward and stared more closely. She had purple circles around her eyes. Her black eyeliner was all over her face. She needed to buy waterproof mascara. Her make-up was smudged. Her face disgusted her. I am ugly, she thought. Her brown eyes looked vacant yet so full of resentment and shame. The white part of her eyeballs was bright red. She could hardly keep her eyes open. She punched the mirror as hard as she could with her fists. It hurt. A lot. Instead of cracking the surface, her knuckles had scratches on them.
She sat on the floor and embraced her legs. She leaned her head on the mirror next to her.
"No! No! What are you doing?" a female voice screamed.
"He broke me! He tore my heart apart." Another female voice said.
"Give me it!" the first voice squealed.
Riley clenched her teeth. Angry tears ran down her cheeks and smeared the surface of the smooth crystal she was leaning on. Tears full of hatred and rage. She wiped them out furiously with her sleeve. Tears were signs of weakness. She sighed. The mirror was ice cold. Her face started to burn. She looked down at her hands and saw them turn bright pink. Blood. Unconsciously she traced the scars on her arm again without even looking at them. She could feel the incisions in her skin as she ran her fingers over her left arm. They reminded her of a railroad, a railroad in her living flesh. She could feel the same things she had felt when she decided to take that knife and mark her body forever. It had been with a reason. She needed to feel pain. And she needed everybody to know she was hurting.
Her eyes drifted to the marks of her past and she just stared at them attentively. They were perfectly lined up. They were perfectly visible. They were clearer than her skin. Her eyes lit up. Why did she have to hide them? They were beautiful. They were hers. But people would never understand, because people would never know what she knew.
*
"It seems surreal to me sometimes." She said as she moved her feet under the chair she was sitting on. She looked at her black DC shoes as the shoelaces moved at the rhythm of her pace.
"What does?"
"Death." She said as she looked down and blushed a little. "The screams, the blood, but for some reason, I felt it was liberating."
"For you?"
"I did it for her too." Riley affirmed and her eyes were like piercing daggers as she said "You should do research on it."
"On what?" Dr. Brady said crossing his leg and bringing to view a shiny black shoe.
"On how someone can change so quickly, be affected so much by things that cannot be controlled."
"Why do you want control?"
"Why wouldn't I?"
Riley's eyes were lost in the horizon. And she started humming a known melody, Once upon a December, as she continued her story.
*
Nobody was home. Riley's roommates were probably still at SDU, after all, they had said they would stay in the library until midnight. Riley was completely alone. Alone with her thoughts. Alone with her ideas. Alone with her music. She had her white iPod on and Old Soul Song by Bright Eyeswas playing. Every note reminded her of different stages of the best times of her life. Times where everything was carefree and natural.
She could see herself laughing. She was happy. But what does it mean to be happy?
She let out a sob.
Old symbols of freedom.
She stood up and went to the kitchen. It was impeccable. No dust. No dirty dishes. It looked perfect. The tiniest drawer under the sink was calling her name. She reached to it and got out a pair of shiny black scissors and put them away inside her white sweatshirt pocket. She went into her room again and closed the door.
As she walked to her bed, she stepped on her roommate Aubrey's pants lying on the floor. Aubrey was messy. She always had her clothes and shoes spread all over the floor. Her bed was hardly ever made. The side of Riley's room was perfect, just like the kitchen. Riley was a good roommate. People should learn from her, she thought.
She laid down on her bed facing the ceiling. Her Harry Potterposter was looking back at her. She closed her eyes.
She saw the black Isuzu Rodeo in her mind so clearly she thought she was actually in front of it. She had seen the letters in the Californiaplate so many times she didn't need a reminder of what they said: 4WSC999. She was on the passenger seat and her eyes were fixed on the stick shift next to her, and on the hand moving it.
She fast-forwarded in her mind what happened next. She pressed the Play button of her mind when she saw the Isuzu Rodeo driving away from her and she knew at that moment she would never see it again. She ran to her apartment as fast as her legs allowed. She started crying.
She opened her eyes abruptly. The Harry Potterposter was still looking at her from the ceiling. A single clear tear left her eyes, ran down her cheek, and died on her chin. Her memories would never leave her. They would torment her for the rest of her life.
To risk it all and lose. To lose and not know.
She grabbed the silver frame from on top of her night desk. Seeing the picture was distressing. She stopped breathing. The picture frame fell from her hands as they went up to her throat. The glass cracked. It was broken. Ironic. She reached down and picked up the frame to guard it in her back pocket. She clenched her fists.
Riley walked out of her room and into the bathroom. She locked the door. As she sat on the bathtub, she got the picture out of her pocket, and put it on the toilet seat. Something that had been her strength and her reason to live was now enough to give up. She looked at the scissor blades for some minutes. Her iPod was now playing Time Code by Bright Eyes. Her sleeves were rolled up and the scars of her past were claiming her attention, claiming their place, claiming the cold blades.
Parting is such a sweet sorrow. To sleep. To die.
"Asher!" a female voice said. The blood was all over her clothes.
She stretched out her left arm and placed the scissor blades on top of it. The blades felt so cold, so reassuring.
Everything feels smaller when I go further away.
She scratched the scissors against her skin violently and started cutting. The crimson blood started flowing and running down her arm. Some drops would splash the walls and stain it. With every cut, she felt a bit of her pain was fading away. She was feeling again. Nobody was ever going to say her sadness was only in her mind. It was also shining proudly on her left arm. The scissors were all over her arm leaving their trace behind. It is not craziness, she thought. It's art. She got her boost from the blood that was now staining the floor.
At times, she would glare at the picture looking back at her from on top of the toilet seat. Some tears left her eyes and showed she was hurting. Tears were signs of vulnerability and limitation.
No, no tears. Just blood.
She saw a green vein on her forearm and knew it would be full of the red drug she needed to lay her hands on. The scissors were moving on their own trying to go home. Home to that fat bloody vein. She pressed the blades against her skin with all the strength she had left, but didn't dare to slice her arm with them. She took a last glimpse at the picture and her mind was flying away.
"I will respond when I get a chance."
The words echoed on her mind and brought back the vision of the Isuzu Rodeo driving away down Wind River Rd. When I get a chance. That was all she had gotten.
She sighed. She traced the vein. She felt it beating…
And cut.
*
"So… yeah." Riley shrugged.
"And that caused you to cut yourself?" Dr. Brady grabbed a metal container from his desk and offered Riley a piece of candy. She showed him the palm of her hand and the container was back on the desk.
"Everything did, yeah."
"I don't understand how things go together in your mind."
"I feel too much pain."
"You feel too much pain."
"Yeah." She made eye contact with Dr. Brady and folded her legs.
"And you are under medication, is that correct?"
She nodded. "Yeah."
"What is it that you're taking?"
"Prozac."
"Fluoxetine?"
"That's your mumbo jumbo for a simple word."
"Who told you to take the fluoxetine?"
"Dr. Graden," Riley said.
"How long have you been taking it?"
"A couple of weeks."
"Do you like your arms?"
She rolled her eyes and crossed her legs. "I don't mind them."
Riley saw Dr. Brady semi-close his eyes and watch her in silence. For a moment, Dr. Brady's blue eyes were focused on Riley's arm.
They scream louder than my voice can.
Everything he needed to know was in her cuts. The lines drawn across the girl's arm told her story. They had been carefully created by Riley's own hand as if everything that was in her mind had been written through the glowing red lines that formed around dark wounds.
"What are you thinking?" the psychiatrist asked looking away from Riley's inhuman arm.
"What are you thinking?" Riley rested her head on the palm of her right hand and waited.
He frowned.
"My diary." She admitted.
"You keep a journal?"
"Always have."
"Why?"
"I have a lot to say."
"You don't talk a lot to me."
"I don't trust you."
"Tell me what happened after you cut."
She closed her eyes and traveled back in time.
*
The cut was the deepest she had had so far. Her blood kept flowing out of her veins and it would not stop. Her eyes were wide open, fascinated with the idea of the human body. The blood flow was breathtaking. It made her think of a river running downstream. Never stopping. Her blood would not stop. It was time. She hadn't planned it that way but she was ready to go.
Her drug was always so available. It was the only thing that had never left her, and never would. Nobody suspected anything, she was always wearing sweatshirts and her arms were safely hidden. She had a deep love-like feeling for her cuts. Running the shiny scissors across her splotchy arms was addicting. It was a routine that had become a part of her.
They are what cannot be put into words.
Salty tears blurred her vision as she watched herself bleed.
To die.
She pulled herself up and tried to open the door. She unlocked it but her body was so weak that her weight was too much for her legs to handle and they gave up. The blood was all over her favorite Hurley sweatshirt and it wouldn't stop. She tried to cover her wound but soon her hand went from pale white to bright red. The beige walls in the bathroom all had red handprints on them. Her wound was wide open. She could see a bit of her muscle. She laughed.
Not yet.
She reached down to her pocket to get her phone. She couldn't see anything, everything was a blur. With a lot of effort she managed to dial her roommate's number and waited.
"Hello?"
"Danielle…" she panted.
"Riley, what's going on?" Danielle's voice sounded desperate and confused.
Riley was gone.
"Riley? Hello? Hello?"
The black phone was turning red.
*
"Do you remember anything else?"
"No."
"You faced death. What do you think about that?"
"Exhilarating."
"What about your journal?"
"What about my journal?"
"What did you write on it?"
"Stuff."
"Would you show it to me?"
"Nobody sees it but me."
"Riley, why are you here?"
She stood up.
"I don't know."
"Riley, let me help you."
"I don't need to be helped," she said as she shook the psychiatrist's hand. "I can't be helped." She looked at the chrome clock on the wall. 12:55pm. "Right on time." She took a piece of candy out of the metal container on the desk, and went out the door. She stared at the man's nametag on the door one last time.
As Riley walked down the street, she tried to avoid every look that was on her. Danielle was waiting in the car for Riley to come out. Riley climbed up on the passenger seat. She looked at the rain falling down from the sky and dying on the ground. They had served their purpose. That was a well-spent life.
"How was it?" Danielle asked while they were driving back to their apartment. She had a tentative smile on her chubby face. Riley looked at the clock in the car. It would take 20 minutes to get home.
"Same as always."
"It will help eventually."
"I'm done."
"Riley…"
"I'll be fine, Danielle."
Various cars drove by her roommate's blue Honda. Once they had arrived at the apartment, Riley went directly to her room and laid down on her bed. The Harry Potter poster on the ceiling was gone. She did not believe in fantasies anymore. Reality had overcome her. The window blinds were open.
It was still raining. Riley looked through the window wishing she could go out. She had her mind set on opening the window but she knew she couldn't.
The old picture that had caused her to cut herself was looking at her from its usual spot on the night desk but she couldn't reach it.
Her journal that kept all her secrets was under her pillow, but she couldn't reach it either.
She felt useless.
The rain fell down on the cold hard ground. The raindrops were falling audibly down on the metal window ledge.
"Where did you get that?"
"Leave me alone, Asher!" Riley hid something behind her back. "Go away!"
"Give me it!"
She was afraid of closing her eyes. She knew she would remember.
"No! She can't leave!" a man's voice said. "This can't happen again!"
Riley closed her eyes and tried to confess. "Asher…"
She needed to sleep. But when you sleep, you dream. She didn't want to have dreams. They were so vivid she always woke up screaming and covered in her own sweat.
"Asher," Riley said. "Give it back!"
"Let it go!" Asher pulled strongly and her eyes burst wide open as she fell back.
Her exhaustion won the battle and her eyes were shut. She was swimming in the ocean of her mind, scenes of her life passing by. She was reminded of the mistakes and bad decisions she made, of the first time she cut herself, but mainly of the gunshot.
"Asher! ASHER!"
"You have -- a lot yet -- to live for, Riley." A voice sighed. The blood was staining the floor and both of the sisters' clothes.
"They will never forgive me." Riley sobbed. "Please, Asher, don't go."
"I chose this." Asher coughed and blood came out of her mouth. "Someone -- holds me -- safe and warm –" she started singing.
"This was not supposed to turn out this way," Riley cried and held Asher close "It was supposed to be me, me, not you, Asher!"
"And a song -- someone sings," Asher sang "Once – upon -- a Decem—"
"-- ber." Riley finished.
She moved and with a lot of effort got her journal from under her pillow. She opened it and reached to grab her answer. It had been inside her journal all along.
*
"The damage on her arm will be permanent."
"What do you mean?" Danielle was rubbing her hands together. Her body was shaking uncontrollably.
"She cut too deep on her nerve endings. She's lost a lot of blood." Danielle looked away from the ER doctor to the hospital bed where her roommate was dying. She had tons of tubes connected to every tiny part of her body and some nurses were performing the blood transfusion. Danielle had never seen so much blood in her life. "She's lost feeling in her arm."
"That means…"
"She will not be able to use her arm anymore."
"Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!" Danielle's hands covered her eyes.
Tears ran down her face. Not tears of weakness, but of desperation and real pain.
"No! NO! NO!"
*
Riley held her journal close to her chest.
The raindrops started changing color and turned bright red. But it was not rain anymore. She took a deep breath.
"Once -- upon a Decem – ber"
Closing her eyes had never been freedom. But that day, it was. A small razor fell on the floor next to her bed.