shadowed hallways & dark smudges
- a o n e s h o t -
You have a choice.
She stands in front of a mirror with no clothes on and just stares at herself.
Hollow eyes caked with crimson circles left from crying without pause, nails chewed down to bloody nubs and teeth rutted from knawing, bones peeping through taut white skin; she's every model's dream, but it's not worth it. Tears gather as her gaze slips lower, remembering first times and the feeling of a little foot kicking within her, remembering hours of crying out, of needles slicing into her spine, of pushing-pushing-pushing and eyelids drooping with exhaustion.
If she had a choice, would she take it all back?
No, probably not. She remembers tiny little fingers wrapping around her thumb, his smile and his laugh, his little body as he stumbled to a standing position.
(then again, she damned him to this; if he hadn't been born then he wouldn't have had to go through this.)
"Amy." Her mom is calling from outside her door. The door: locked, barred with a chair. "Amy, are you ready to go?"
I will never be ready to go. She doesn't say that of course, but she feels it pulsing with every breath she takes.
"Almost." Her voice sounds cracked and hoarse from lack of use, or maybe from the hours of sobbing in her bed as she begs for time to reverse.
Fingers tremble as she lifts the black dress from the back of her closet - she tried stuffing it far (far) away because her little baby boy loved all the colors of the rainbow. This service should be a celebration, and she shouldn't be crying - she shouldn't -
- tears leak down her cheeks and she sobs as she pulls the dress on, not even noticing that it hangs all baggy about her thin frame now. Maybe that's what happens when you don't eat for days on end, wishing you could just die too, because you don't deserve to live. Mascara travels in weaving lines down her cheeks and she welcomes the fact that she's all black now, all black. At least she can commit to something.
Out of habit she wipes her hair behind her ear - her fingers leave black stains like creeping spider legs, like coal, and oh god she looks like a widow; it's so fantastic she can't breathe.
"Amy, are you ready?" Her mom's voice again, so soothing and inflaming at the same time. Her mom doesn't understand, doesn't get it all all; she'll never get it, not when she's living in her own fantasy world with her new boyfriend and new puppy, pretending that she's not practically estranged from her husband and children.
"Yes." She's fine - fine - fine - look she's smiling and it's oh so fake but nobody cares.
If she had a choice, would she take it all back?
There doesn't seem to be a choice now - no matter what she might offer in return.
Live or Die.
She walks down the stairs, counting each step as though it might chain her to reality.
Her mom is dressed in a black suit - she couldn't even spend enough money to buy a nice dress for this event - with a purple flower pinned to the left pocket. Then again, she's dressed in the same mini-dress she wore to her junior prom: black top with a dark grey skirt and black heels without any ornamentation. He would understand, she thinks; he would understand that she couldn't bear to step out in public lest any of her friends see her. Not with her red circled eyes and haunted look and body so slim (skin and bones, starvation.)
Click-clack. Click-clack. Her heels clip against the tile.
Click-clack. 'This girl is alive,' they seem to be saying. Click-clack. 'She's still here.'
She wishes she wasn't.
The door slides open, pulled by her mother's hand; sunlight streams in, blinding, making her eyes sting. She hasn't been outside since - since it happened - and her whole body screams as she takes a step forward.
"Give me the keys." Her voice sounds cold, unyielding.
Her mom raises an eyebrow, "Why, Amy?"
Is she that stupid? Is everyone that stupid not to recognize what a simple command means? Damn stupidity.
"I want to drive."
"No." It can't be. That's her mom's voice alright, but she can't have heard correctly, can't have made sense of the word used.
"Why are you treating me like a stupid five old?" she cries, and it's hard to breathe. So, so hard. "Why can't you just give in to me this once, after everything I've been through?" She screaming without realizing it and the world is spinning because this is too much - just too much.
No. No. No. She finds herself in the car and they're driving now. The speedometer reads 40 - five mph too slow. Much too slow. She's suffocating, trapping within herself, with the haunted eyes and the cracked skin and bleeding fingernails and everything. This can't be her; this can't be how things play out.
"I'm sorry, Amy." Her mom is speaking again in that soft tone. "I'm sorry this happened to you so young."
Oh, so suddenly she's the responsible one? "I'm twenty," she mumbles against the glass. Her lips press together and leave a crimson stain on the glass; it almost looks like blood.
There are tears trailing down the glass pane now and she squeezes her eyes shut, dreaming that they are shooting stars so that she can make a wish and reverse time. She should be the one everyone is mourning over right now, not him; she got to live twenty good years while he - he got nothing. Five years is nothing in her book.
Every breath is a choice.
They park just across the street from the church - the building is so white and it shouldn't be, she thinks; not when death creeps forward in the night.
"Are you coming?" Her mom asks. She realizes that she's still sitting in the passenger seat watching the church and the tear tracks and the crimson print that almost looks like blood. Shakily, she opens the door (creak - so solemn) and gets out, placing one foot at a time out. She can't tell if she's blinded by the sun or her tears at this point.
"I'm okay. I'm okay." It's a lie, but she has to keep saying it, if to no one else but herself.
Her mom smiles and it's so sad. "I know."
She hears the familiar stread of his new shoes - the ones his foster mother made him buy; the ones he hates but wears for fear of a spanking or something - before she hears his voice.
"Amy?"
Fingers close around hers and she breathes in his scent, taking comfort in the fact that he'll catch her - or not; she never knows with him - if she falls.
"Hi," she breathes, grip tightening. Her mom is gone and it's just them and that's how it should be. Rejoice together, mourn together. "Hi, Ricky."
"You said that already," he says, but it's muffled by a weird sort of choking sound. She reaches up slowly, wondering if he'll slap her hand away (he doesn't.) His cheeks are wet too.
So she's not the only one who's finding it hard to breathe.
She kisses him - he doesn't initiate a kiss the whole day; she has to - and sucks greedily on his lower lip, fighting the urge to breathe until she literally feels as though her heart is going to burst. Then she breathes and relishes in the fact that she chose it, not did so without realizing it.
"You know," she says, kissing him again. Her eyes are closed so she can't see his expression, doesn't really want to. "If we wanted to stop breathing right now we could. We could fade away because we have a choice, Ricky. We have a choice, when he didn't!"
He grabs her chin and forces her to look at him, watches her hollow eyes cry black tears.
(he never says a word, but she never really needed him to.)
Every minute is a choice.
She doesn't remember his fingers slipping off her chin. She doesn't remember walking towards the church. She doesn't remember sitting down. She's just here, plopped down on the front pew next to Ricky and a giant box of Kleenex.
Her fingers dig into the wood beneath her and she feels the groves that other nails made, rubs at the dark stains that other tears left.
"Did you carry me here?" she asks Ricky.
His eyes are closed and he looks as if he's sleeping.
"No." One word, that's all it takes to make her wish he could be more of a man sometimes.
The pastor begins and she fades away from the present, looking at the picture of a little boy hung up next to an engraved coffin. But it's not just any little boy, and she feels rage bubble up as she wonders what idiot could have forgotten to write the boy's name on the picture. It's as if everyone has already forgotten about him, like he was never important enough to remember.
He's important to her.
He was inside of her for nine months; how could he not be important to her?
But that doesn't matter to the congregation. None of them know the boy like she does; no one knows how he gets this dimple on his left cheek when he smiles, how his right foot is a little bigger than his left foot, how his first word was mama.
None of them should be here.
A minute later everyone is standing up and leaving - time seems sluggish in her world - and oh god she can't leave. Her fingers stretch towards the coffin and she rushes towards it, cries out as Ricky's fingers latch around her arm and drag her back. He's grunting and she's sobbing black (black as soot) tears and the congregation is shaking their heads in sad sympathy.
"Amy." It's Ricky's voice. Ricky: the only one left who remotely understands what she's going through. Ricky. "Amy, look at me! Look at me!"
She clings to him like he's life itself, her nails digging into his skin.
Then they're walking out of the sanctuary, leaving her baby boy to rot in a coffin.
To be or not to be.
They walk forever and ever it seems, along the road leading to his house.
With every click of the second hand on his wrist watch she flinches and buries her head further into the crook of his neck. It's only been a couple days and she can't do this. How is she supposed to live the rest of her life when it feels like her heart has been ripped away from her?
"Tell me what he looked like, Ricky." Her voice shakes, but it's there. "Tell me what our little boy looked like."
His hand tightens around her waist and silence crashes over them for a minute.
"He had blond hair -" Ricky begins. His voice is all choked again.
"It was beginning to turn brown," she interuppts. "Like yours, I think."
If she was looking at him she knows he would have been glaring. "Will you let me finish?" He's annoyed with her.
"Sorry." That's all she can manage before her vision swims with black.
"His face was all pudgy," Ricky says softly, "and he had the biggest brown eyes. Whenever he got that little smile on his face -"
"I would melt," she finishes. He clears his throat irritably but she knows he wouldn't have finished the sentence anyways. "What are we going to do without him, Ricky?"
She's shaking again and god she hates it, hates feeling so weak.
"Try." Only one word, but she knows what he means. He's right, he's so right -
- but that doesn't stop her from bending over and sobbing so harshly her whole body trembles. She might be okay one day, but that day is not today.
Nothing can replace her little boy.
& after
She stands in front of her window hours, days, weeks (months) later and looks down at the green grass of her lawn and remembers how John used to run around and dig in the planter. She remembers his little laugh and the joy that filled his eyes as he pulled out a particularly large worm.
Black tears well in her eyes -
- and she smiles.
- f i n -
AN: Too depressing? I really liked it and I'm curious to hear your thoughts.
By the way, I used a quote in here; that's what separated each section:
You have a choice. Live or die. Every breath is a choice. Every minute is a choice. To be or not to be. - Chuck Palahniuk