Shadows

Warm against my skin, the sunshine makes me curious.
What would the sun feel like against my skin if there weren’t a layer of glass between us.
Would my skin be golden instead of white as snow?

A scream breaks the peaceful silence I have found in the sunroom, I’m not angry.
I am envious. I am envy a toddler screaming in terror, afraid of the vacuum cleaner.
My fear is much greater and when faced with it, I cannot scream as badly as I want to.

I travel toward the sounds of my niece’s screams and cries from under the dinning room table.
I pick her up and take her upstairs to her playroom. I sit in the rocking chair as she cries into my shirt.
All I can do is hug her, wipe her tears, smile, and rock her. I can’t explain that the vacuum it’s a monster.
I can’t tell her it’s nothing to cry about. I can’t tell her that I won’t let anything hurt her.
I can’t tell her anything because I can’t speak.
It’s times like these that make me want to speak and it hurts knowing that I can’t.

Lily stops crying and crawls off my lap to play with her toys. I look at the clock.
Fifteen minutes past three. Alex would be walking by soon, on his way home from the last day of school.
I need to watch. I need to know that he hadn’t disappeared.
I’ve never met Alex but I have grown attached to him.
This might be the first stage of stalking, but I can’t stop.

I push back the pink curtains of Lily’s playroom and watch a family of robins in the tree outside the window.
Happy. The birds are happy to be together, like a family should be. Together and happy.
Perfect...alive. I stare at these birds, enjoying their normalcy. I feel the need to get closer to these birds.
I press the palms of my hands against the glass.
I smile as the old glass creaks from the pressure of my hands.
I want to break through that window. I want to face the world.

Smash, the shatter of glass.
I close my eyes tightly and jump away from the window as glass showers down against my face.
Something heavy hits above my right eye. Was it a bird? A happy bird?
Did I do it? Did I break through the barrier keeping me from the world?
My body shakes while I imagine being outside.

I am outside. I try to wrap my head around it.
Keeping my eyes shut I move my fingers in a brave attempt to feel the wind.
I feel glass against my palms. I open my eyes, body still shaking.
I drop onto the floor. A baseball sits on the white carpet surrounded by glass.

The door to the playroom flings open while I stay immobile and shaking.
The pain finally sets in. The spot above my eye throbs.
I touch my hand to my face. I look at my hand spotted with blood.

Lily is screaming.
Vivian is kneeling in front of speaking, but I can’t understand her words.
The world is spinning. I am overcome with fear. The world isn’t safe.
I am not safe in my own house.

Vivian forces my shaking body down the stairs while tears spring from my eyes.
I don’t feel safe. I am never safe. Life is not safe.
I hold onto my sister’s hand, it’s the only safe thing I know.
Even holding onto my sister’s warm hand doesn’t make me feel safe.
Because at that very moment all my eyes can process through the tears is Alex.
Alex in house, in my safe place. Alex holding a baseball bat.

While Vivian cleans my face up, pulling out bits of glass and telling me it’s not that bad, I listen to the exchanging voices. One voice belongs to David, my brother-in-law, who is insisting that Alex pays for the window he broke. The other voice, Alex, agrees but with disrespect and annoyance heavy in his voice. His voice which is deep and rough, nothing like I expected it to be like. Nothing like I wanted it to sound like.

I block out the boy who isn’t what I want him to be and stare at my reflection in the mirror.
My skin is so pale that I could go unnoticed against the white paint on the walls if it weren’t for the shock of brown hair on my head.
If my eyes were less blue and I bleach my hair, maybe I can hide out in the bathroom for.
Unnoticed and unharmed, where there are no windows to spy on the boy who no longer interests me.

I will not look at Alex.
Ever again.