Scars

Whether it be from falling off our bikes, or tumbling from atop the monkey bars, most of us are left with the ridge of pale, hard tissue to remind us of our spills, our lapses of sanity that lead to injury. We are all damaged, but some scars run deeper than those on our faces… or our wrists.

 

It’s early Saturday morning. In any other household everyone would be sleeping, but Dad left for the hospital at quarter past five and Mum and Lacy, my little sister, have already started the two hour trip to the mall in the nearest big city.

 

I sit on the window seat in my bedroom, staring out into the gloomy half-light. It’s raining, how appropriate. The only noise is the steady drum of the raindrops colliding against the windowsill. I’m left alone in the last place I want to be - my mind. 

 

Odd as it may sound, I’m not really alone. Some voice in the back of my head is chanting six months, six months over and over again. It’s almost as if a malicious little boggart is sitting on my shoulder and whispering into my ear to remind of the milestone that is six months.

 

Six months ago was the last time I washed Prozac down with absinthe. Six months ago was also the last time anyone called me December and not Ember or Essie. Six months ago was the last time those eyes did not see my guilt. Six months ago was the last time I saw my best friend alive. 

 

We were a funny group of kids - the cyber dork, the music nerd, the jock who suddenly refused to compete because he was afraid of what the drug tests would show, and me, the kid who wasn’t sure if he was a boy or a girl. Nothing obvious connected us until someone looked closely and noticed that our pupils were almost always the size of dinner plates; but because all of us were silver spoon children, nobody bothered to say anything. Nobody would have believed them even if they’d tried.

 

The four of us were hanging out on the back edge of the property line of Mercedes’ farm, where you could still see the stakes left by the surveyor. I was spray painting the brick fence we were sitting on because Mercedes had asked me to make sure everyone knew it was ours. I liked to paint that way. It was harsh, and edgy, but just as permanent, if not more so, than the other mediums I’d meticulously learned to use over the course of thousands of dollars worth of classes. Weather could tear at it as much as it pleased, but it could never eliminate the power that came with those moments of creation.

 

I was halfway through painting my tag across the side when Bowie offered me a pale blue tablet with a butterfly stamped in the middle. I declined - I wasn’t in the mood to wake up tomorrow morning with not just a sore jaw but finding out I’d been all snuggly with one of my friends again. Besides, I was at peace enough painting.

 

The girls said no, too. Nobody paid any attention to the little pills until Bowie collapsed, slumping sideways and onto the wet ground before anyone could register what was happening to catch him. Nobody approached him as his muscles contracted and released sending him stiff as a board one moment and looking every inch a fresh corpse the next, his eyes rolled back into his head and foam flecked around his mouth. It took us a few moments after his seizures ceased to realize he’d stopped breathing. I dropped to my knees beside him, trying desperately to recall what I’d learnt when I had still been taking swimming lessons (is it two breaths to thirty, or thirty breaths to two?). When I shook him he didn’t respond, although his skin was practically on fire. There was no chill like that of a dead body’s. Mercedes grabbed my cell phone from my back pocket and called for help. But he was already too far gone to call back.                                       

 

They closed his eyes for the funeral, but we had waited for almost half an hour with Bowie staring straight at us. At me. All because I didn’t take it with him. All because it was my fault. I couldn’t remember what to do. And I couldn’t have joined him in those feverish last moments.

 

Three weeks later Dad announced I’d better end my ‘habits’ as he called them on my own, or I’d be shipped off to rehab. I opted to quit on my own, or at least to try to. Mum was sympathetic throughout the first few months until she assumed I was back to normal. She held my hand before I said the eulogy, thinking that I was swaying because I was upset and not realizing that if she were to check the wet bar she’d notice a bottle of gin missing. Once I started leaving in the morning again, seemingly to go to school, she put her focus back into her committees. I put my focus back into a bottle and long sleeves.

 

Lacy played obedient puppy dog and trailed me everywhere, certain she had her big brother back and not the stranger I’d been for the past two years. Together we drew pictures the way we used to. Hers were of her ponies. Mine were of eyes. Or, rather, one set. A brown pair with that familiar mark that looked like a mistake but was the result of a gummy bear to the eye in grade school. The ones that watched me every night when I slept. The ones that watched me every moment I still lived.

 

None of them know what was really going on in my head. They guess I’ve gotten over Bowie’s death. They don’t know I woke up last night and sobbed until I made myself throw up because it suddenly hit me that he wasn’t coming back. The only times I will ever get to see his stupid grin is in memories or the few pictures I’ve collected over the years. But the memories only come at night. And they are not of the dazzling smile that sat framed on the table dedicated to him at school. They’re of a flushed face and heavy lidded eyes, and those same eyes staring at me, blaming me for everything because it was all my fault.

 

Now as I stare once more out into the rain, I wonder if they’ll miss me. I’ve learned the hard way never to trust a dealer. So I wonder if they’ll ever be able to trust the memory of me, or if they’ll realize that they painted over my face, making me what they wanted. Seeing only the little prince they wanted and not the one who turned into a princess with track marks and a pair of dead boy’s eyes watching her. The princess who shall soon carve evidence of all past mistakes away.

 

It really doesn’t matter though. Nothing does. Not the look on Lacy’s face when she realizes that I’m the cause of my own destruction. Not the feeling of happiness that Bowie’s mother will feel when she learns that the person at fault for the death of her son is gone. Not my mother deciding that the task of heading the annual fundraiser for substance abuse awareness should probably go to someone else. Not even my father being upset that he will have to find a good carpet cleaner on a weekend.

 

But Bowie is watching me again. That matters. I’m beginning to wonder if I will welcome the darkness, and if Bowie will be there when I do…

Author's Note

I stumbled across this in my notes for a larger work I'd planned back in grade nine. Initially I had considered returning to this idea (although I'd since forgetten), so as it stands, this is a stand alone piece.

Reviews

Nice story! Interesting princess side, makes me really want to know more. There are a couple of odd extra "'s in the first few paragraphs, not sure if they were intended or not, but there you go! I was only able to find one other thing- when he stops breathing, it's a little confusing regarding whether he has the chill of a corpse or the burn of a fire. Overall, this story would definitely be something that would hold my interest as long as something incredibly unexpected happens to save it from monotony, but really, that's just my (possibly fantasy-overloaded) opinion. Thanks =)