This chapter is really close to my heart, for obvious reasons. Just a forewarning, though, it is a tad dark. I really hope that you guys enjoy it. Just as always, this is for my girl. She helped me an incredible amount with this one, especially (though, she is always such an amazing help with everything!). This was written for her, because she's been wanting to read it for some time now. :D Here you go, babe!!
"I Feel Everything" - Idina Menzel
like a prima ballerina,
i tip toe, tip toe around you constantly.
i hear the water running.
will it wash your tears or leak through the ceiling?
make my way up a spiral staircase,
hope to God you had a good day.
It was almost difficult to explain, the façade that she put on display for the world to examine and pick apart day after day. After so many years of being brought up as a show dog, a trophy child, it was strangely complicated to explain the exact reason why her front intended an inevitable, and quite possibly fatal, fall. It was defective, unnecessary, and so practiced that it was almost who she was all-together. There was virtually no separation between her actuality and the front that she portrayed on a daily basis. It was consuming. The user had unintentionally become the abused.
Truthfully, Shelley could not say that she hated her mother. She had never hated her parents, either of them. As a matter of fact, she was, surprisingly enough, one of those children who held a certain lack of understanding for those whom 'hated' or 'disliked' the ones that brought them up and laid the foundation for whom they would be. Shelley had always respected her mother, yet thought very little of her father. Her mother ran the family, essentially. She pulled out all the stops, made the larger salary, and she supposed that her father just did not possess enough dignity to say a word about it, which was scarcely normal, or even justifiable, in her eyes. Though, she also couldn't say that she cared.
She had grown up in a life where female dominance was ridiculously prominent; therefore, that was how she was brought up to live and be, as well. She never once allowed any male in her life to overpower her. She was indefinitely against it. Her mother had taught her to work for what she wanted, to use what she had to overcome others, and to keep a stiff upper lip through it all. Although using what she had clearly become bent out of proportion as she matured, Shelley knew precisely what she was doing. Over the years, she had sharpened her craft and made her intentions known.
Her mother had insisted that Shelley mature as quickly as possible. She didn't want to deal with the unavoidable problems of adolescence for too long, or, in all honesty, at all. Shelley, decidedly, didn't, either. She wanted to prove herself, to prove that she could fend for herself at an early age, and thus show her mother that she was prepared for the next step.
That was why Shelley had smoked her first cigarette, started drinking, and lost her virginity all at the unspeakable age of thirteen. Her mother, of course, never said a word to her about it. As much as she harped to Shelley about keeping her image up, keeping her eyes ahead, and keeping her mind sharp, it was a mild surprise that she never once stopped her only daughter from doing all of those potentially dangerous things. Shelley assumed that it was a silent understanding of "if I don't see it or hear about, then I honestly do not care". However, this lack of caring was genuine disinterest as opposed to a mother who just did not want to follow through with her maternal obligations. So long as Shelley kept her image up, Anne Ambrose did not care what she did in the slightest.
For her mother, a woman's image was her everything. Shelley had been programmed to believe the same principle, only to a much more extreme degree. Anne lived vicariously through her daughter. Any slip or physical, mental, or emotional imperfection, and it would have to be eradicated instantaneously. She was building her daughter into what she believed was the most perfect and beautiful replica of herself. However, thus far, the results were more disappointing than she would have liked to believe.
Shelley knew that she probably should have resented her mother, but she could not. Though it had come late in Anne Ambrose's life, she was now a successful woman, and that was what Shelley knew that she aspired to be, as well. While her mother's early life was montage after montage of failures and disappointments, now, in the middle of her life, she was finally right where she wanted to be, and she did not want a repeat performance of her own life out of her daughter.
That was why she worked her so hard. That was why she controlled virtually every aspect of her life. That was why she drove her to sickening extremes and dared to watch as the side effects began to wreck havoc on her only child. She had an obsession with perfection, an obsession with making certain that she was not disappointed with Shelley's physical and public image, as well as her list of accomplishments.
As intelligent as Shelley prided herself to be, she found herself caught and held in her own mother's poisonous clutch. She couldn't escape, and yet she wasn't sure if she wanted to. As much as Anne pissed her off, as much as she put her down, and as hard as she pushed her on a day to day basis, there was still that natural borne instinct to please her mother, as well as herself, and Shelley just could not shake that.
Still, out of all of the things that her mother supposedly 'did for her,' there was one that had truly enveloped Shelley. The others could be shaken, even halted all-together, should she so choose to; however, there was something that she just couldn't detach herself from. It had become apart of her, a habit; it had become hers. For a moment, she felt as though her mother no longer held the reins, and, somehow, Shelley knew that brief sensation was precisely the effect that her mother had intended.
"Shelley Anne, darling, come here," She had said, her slender fingers curling into a beckoning motion as she summoned her daughter from her place in their living room. Naturally, Shelley had obeyed.
"You know, dear, with that big audition coming up, I know just the thing to help you prepare for it." Her mother's eyes gleamed with satisfaction as she studied her young daughter's face.
Shelley watched her in silence for a moment.
"Mother, I've already scheduled to meet with Alexandra six times a week instead of five," Shelley stated evenly, her expression steady as she kept her gaze locked with her mother's. Though Alexandra had been Shelley's private dance instructor since a very young age, even she wasn't thrilled about the extra and longer practices. Shelley, however, didn't outwardly appear to mind too much.
"No, sweetheart, I'm talking about something different," She paused, as she stood suddenly. "something much more effective."
Shelley remained silent as her eyebrows furrowed somewhat in question. Her lips parted, but she closed them as she soon realized that she wasn't particularly sure how she wanted to answer her. As her mother watched her expectantly, Shelley crossed her arms over her chest and carefully narrowed her eyes.
"What is it?" She asked, though somewhat hesitantly. Shelley wasn't certain what else she could possibly do. Three, sometimes four, hour practices six days a week seemed to be plenty of preparation. Sure, she dieted, on occasion, but that wasn't really necessary for a singing and dancing audition, so long as she remained physically fit.
"It's something that my mother taught me, Shelley Anne. Now, follow me, and listen carefully," Anne instructed, as she began toward the downstairs' nearest hallway. Shelley almost reluctantly followed her, inwardly deciding if whatever this was would actually wind up as beneficial.
She had her doubts.
Much to Shelley's surprise, their final destination was outside of the downstairs bathroom. Narrowing her eyes again in a very uncertain manner, she allowed her gaze to fall on her mother once more.
"Why are we here?" She wondered flatly, obviously unimpressed.
"Shelley," Anne turned to face her daughter, her expression suddenly grim with solemnity. "I've told you how I've thought that you've really let yourself go these past few months, correct?"
Shelley's eyes narrowed further, and her chest abruptly stung with something that she had grown accustomed to all these years: absolute, unadulterated fury. Not caring to string a thorough reply together, the redhead vaguely nodded her head.
"Well, due to your lack of attentiveness, or faulty level of concern - whatever it may be, we no longer have the adequate amount of time to put you on a suitable diet. Therefore, I decided that now is the perfect opportunity to introduce the method of cleansing," Her mother told her, as Shelley looked on with a lackluster gaze. When Shelley failed to respond, Anne's expression darkened to a glare.
"Tell me, dear," She started again, her voice low. "When was it that you last ate?"
"I made dinner just as you asked me to about an hour and a half ago," Shelley replied, almost mechanically.
"Good," Anne turned, and then effortlessly pushed the bathroom door open. "Now, come in here, and do as I say."
on a tightrope,
on a wire,
i'll attempt to jump through the ring of fire.
i'm waiting all the while,
for a glimpse of something to bring us higher.
one little foot in front of the other,
don't you know i'm afraid of thunder?
That was it. That one moment with her mother, though unbeknownst to her, would become the one thing that defined who she was, and who she would be.
That day, the fresh thoughts that her mother had placed in her head stayed with her, persistent with their fervent, mental persuasion. A whole new world and a new way of handling things had been introduced to her, and it was somewhat overwhelming, yet still endlessly intriguing. At her age then, she thought little to nothing of it. It was just an option, something that would be advantageous to her whenever she called upon it.
However, it wasn't until later that night, after her mother had already retired to her room for the evening, that Shelley took her mother's words to heart and found herself kneeling on the cold, tile floor before that very same toilet.
The feeling was indescribable; it made her feel more or less indifferent. The acidic feeling in her throat, the taste of sickness in her mouth and on her lips: it almost didn't feel real. It was odd that, though she didn't think too much of it that first time, Shelley did feel a certain twinge of satisfaction and accomplishment afterwards. She felt in-control, and she distinctly enjoyed the thought of finally having control over something; whereas, her mother did not.
This was hers.
there's a fine line between love and hurting,
and knowing just when to walk away.
She was fourteen-years-old when she was introduced to the act that indirectly and unknowingly shaped and molded her entire character to the headstrong, domineering seventeen-year-old that she was at the present.
It was strange, but: the only thing noticeably different from where she was then, and where she eventually ended up, was that past sense and rush of satisfaction. The once-satisfaction had since morphed into a feeling of confinement, a feeling of inescapable portions. That previous feeling of being in control of the situation had long since crumbled, and she came to realize that she had never really been in control in the first place.
It was her mother. Her mother was her captor of which there appeared to be no escape, of which Shelley had absolutely no control whatsoever.
And it was her mother, not the obsessive sickness that she had bestowed upon her, that was slowly, but surely completely destroying Shelley.
when you fall apart,
when you have no heart,
i feel everything.