Chapters On A Page

Stumbling when you're trying to get somewhere no doubt makes it just a little bit harder, and about fifty percent more embarrassing than walking really ever needs to be. Constantly tripping over your own two feet to the point where falling is inevitable and landing on your knees is a given is going to lead to things being ultimately more difficult and it's all as embarrassing as it could possibly get. But when you're drunk, the biggest difference is that you just don't care at all. An hour into the new year, and this was me. I simply wanted to get to the bathroom. I couldn't remember anymore why I wanted to get there, I just knew that that was the room where I wanted to be over all others. I was making slow progress and my knees were probably aching even if I couldn't feel it, but I was getting there. When I finally did after ten minutes -which was a full nine minutes and fifty seconds longer than it should have taken me- I felt along the wall to find the light switch and shut the door before the room was even illuminated. I looked half a mess when I glimpsed myself in the mirror but of course it only made me giggle, and I had more important things to move on to anyway.

My hands were slick with sweat as my fingers worked at my belt buckle. I felt like I was overheating and the easiest solution to this in my addled mind was to get my jeans off. My fingers slipped on the metal resting on my hip a couple times before I finally got it, but then I was free to wiggle out of the denim. I threw myself down on the rug between the tub and the counter, yanking at the ankles of my jeans until they were free in my hand and I threw them, belt and all, at the door. They made a thud and a metallic clank that I barely heard.

This small effort had me feeling exhausted and wishing that I had been seeking the comfort of Gwen's bedroom instead. But I was already here, drunk and lacking pants, so I was going to make do with what I had. Standing back up was out of the question. I wasn't even sure I still had two feet to stand on anymore. I twisted to the side so that I was facing the large, empty bathtub and gripped the lip of it in an attempt to hoist myself over it. But that only led to being reminded that my palms were sweaty. I ran them roughly along the rug I was sitting on before trying again, this time being successful. I slipped clumsily into the tub, knocking my knees -once again- against the fiberglass bottom and hitting my head on a low shelf lined with half filled shampoo bottles. None of this hurt, thankfully, and I rolled until I was comfortably -or at least as comfortable as I could get- on my side. Somehow, I dozed off.

I was looking for a way out. It seemed logical at this point. I didn't need to be here anymore. I tried to climb the fence first, because it seemed like the easiest way. I would always want to be with Emma, but that wasn't my goal this time around. As her child self sat there giggling at me and telling me that it wasn't going to work, I knew I didn't want to be with her then. I persevered though, hooking my fingers through the metal links and finding sure footing between them without even having to think about it. It took me a while to admit that I was getting nowhere, that the fence just appeared to grow a foot with every inch I climbed. When I eventually gave up, I descended only to step right back on the ground with one step down and I saw that the fence was the height it had always been, though my arms ached with the effort of attempting to jump a monstrously tall fence.

I cursed it with some very colorful swear words before moving on to another way out.

It only took a quick glance at the dead milling about nearer to the house to decide that that wasn't the way to go. So I spun on my heel and headed to the thin patch of woods that marked the end of my backyard. I knew the fence continued on into it, but it had to end in there, too, right? Just one step in, and I knew that what, in reality, was just a simple line of trees and bushes was a thick forest in this dream. I could practically see the land expand in front of my eyes. I stayed determined and kept my head up as I followed the line of the fence, running my hand over the top of it every once in a while as I went.

"Where do you think it ends up?" Emma asked suddenly, appearing out of nowhere and causing me to jump at least ten feet in the air. It wasn't until then that I noticed that she was no longer the five-year-old that I had been talking to in my dreams for months now. She was just a little older, seven or eight, definitely no older than ten. It shocked me more than her being next to me had.

But I shook it off and decided not to question it. Instead, I shrugged in answer to her own inquiry. "I don't know. But as long as it's out of here, then I could care less," I admitted, keeping my focus ahead. I knew in the back of my mind that if I looked at her longer than just a glimpse, I would forget that I wanted to leave, to find a way out of the Hell that these dreams really were.

Emma laughed at me again. "Out of there? There is no out of there. Not unless you get out the way I did," she told me, still smiling away even though our sorry excuse for a conversation had taken a grim turn with just a few words.

"I don't want to die, Emma!" I yelled defiantly, stopping abruptly to turn to her and stamp my feet against the bare earth as if it made my point more clear for her. I was unsure of this sometimes. There were times when I wanted nothing more than for everything to just stop. But deep down I knew I wasn't ready for an ending just yet when there was so much living still to be done. I thought about reminding her that that was not at all what I had meant, but she interrupted me before I got the chance.

"The scars look like they say otherwise," she stated, giving me a skeptical look.

I was confused now and I followed the lines of her gaze to see what she was talking about. I was in just my t-shirt and underwear, just as I was outside of this dream at the moment, and on my thigh were the faded pink scars that I always wore around on my pale skin.

I woke with a gasp that echoed off the sides of the bathtub I was still lying in. I was soaked in sweat but I couldn't say if that was from the dream or the alcohol still working its merry way through my veins. My vision was still somewhat blurry and spotty, so I didn't even consider risking standing up. I did push myself so I was sitting up though, my palms flat against the smooth floor of the tub. I shoved my hair away from my face when I was straight, having to pick off a few locks stuck to my forehead with perspiration, and then I tried to focus on getting my breathing back to normal. I couldn't keep my gaze off of my right thigh though and I was hyperventilating after a silent moment. I struggled to lean forward and twist the cold water knob until water trickled out. I cupped my hands under the weak stream and splashed what gathered there onto my face, calming down with a few more handfuls of the freezing water.

The water had creeped its way halfway toward me but I didn't have the energy to care. I sat back again, my spine slamming into the hard curve of the bathtub. I was continuously hurting myself tonight because of the alcohol I had for some reason consumed, and each injury was starting to make itself known. My knees were bright red and bruises were clearly already starting to form in the middle of each of them, a lump was growing beneath my hair where I had hit my head, and now my back was screaming at me in agony. All of this, but all I could see was the cause of old pain. The scars on my leg were the same pink as they had been in my dream, as they had been for two years now. But it just seemed as if the color was in stark contrast to the ivory of the skin that surrounded the healed cuts.

Just looking at them made my stomach twist into knots that tied themselves tighter with every passing second as my head was flooded with memories I would have done anything to erase. I didn't like to think about the times that had been tough enough that I had turned to self-destruction. I always wanted to be tough for my baby sisters. But there had been times I had missed our older sister too much and I hadn't been tough enough for myself, let alone them. They had never known it though, and neither had our parents. I had perfected the masks I had needed around them, letting them believe that there was nothing awry that they needed to worry about. And I was careful, always careful, with my cuts. I was ashamed of them to begin with, starting with day one. They weren't very big and they had all healed in no time at all, but each had brought more disgrace than pain or relief.

One stood out amongst the others. It was longer and thicker, the result of a particularly rough day that had just happened to be Emma's birthday, which she of course would never get to celebrate again. I had always been so cautious up to this point. I knew where not to cut to avoid my femoral artery, and I never risked it when anyone was home. Everyone had been acting as if the day was like any other though, like we wouldn't normally be doing something big if we weren't short a family member. My hands had been shaking with anger, twitching to take care of the sorrow that was slowly building up in my chest. It was because of my unsteady fingers and the feeling of being rushed that caused the worst scar. It certainly didn't help that Trix had walked in on me and caused my hand to slip when I had whipped my head in her direction. I had never been certain if she was angrier with me for feeling like I couldn't talk to her about my feelings or because she had had to throw out a perfectly good towel thanks to the bloodstains.

Remembering all of this was tough, especially since I had vowed to try not to think about it these past couple of years. I hated that it would come back to me when I was drunk, something I had honestly never wanted to be any time in my life, when I felt like I couldn't exactly control my emotions. I felt tears well up in my eyes as I ran the pad of my thumb over the stretched, shiny skin of the largest scar and I tried to wipe them away with my other hand before they even began to fall. That never worked though, and this time was no exception. Tiny drops trailed down my cheeks and landed on the flesh of my bare legs.

"Oh shit, I'm sorry! Sorry!" someone exclaimed out of nowhere, and it was plain that they had walked in on me. I hadn't even heard the door open. I looked up just in time to see them turn away as if to head back out the door. "I knocked, ...but… there was… no answer," they explained, but the words came slowly as if they were distracted and I could tell that whoever it was, they wanted desperately to turn back around. "Val?" they wondered, though they had to know already that it was me. As they hesitantly turned their head back in my direction, peeking out of the corner of their eye, I saw that it was Alex. I felt stupid for not having realized it sooner, but I could blame that on the emotions.

If I was in my right mind, I would have been scrambling to find something to cover my legs so that Alex wouldn't see the scars I had hid from him time and time again. But, despite having sobered up quite a deal since falling asleep, my reactions were still slowed and I simply stared at him instead of moving at all. "Yes?" I questioned when he was silent for what felt like entirely too long. I could tell that he was staring at my thigh, something that would have normally made me uncomfortable, scars or not. All my worries were nowhere to be found in the moment though.

"Why are you in the bathtub? Are you okay?" he asked, concerned, as he took the few steps to kneel in front of me. He made sure to close the door behind him, locking it as I hadn't, so that no one would be able to interrupt us. As he sat on the floor outside of the tub, I saw his eyes rake over the sight of my scars once more, but then they connected with mine, waiting for my answer.

I waved it off like it was no big deal, but it wasn't anymore. It would have been more convincing if I didn't still have tears streaking down my face. "It's fine. I'm five-by-five," I assured him in an unconcerned tone. "I was just a little bit intoxicated… And then I got tired. I can't remember why the hell I came in here in the first place, but I didn't see any reason I couldn't just turn it into my bed for the night," I informed him with a shrug. One small glance back at him let me know that that wasn't at all the question he had wanted the in-depth answer to.

"Val… what did you do?" he questioned, almost frightened to ask the question. Tentatively, he reached a hand out and touched one of his fingers to a point where two of my scars met and intersected.

I had thought that I was all right, but I had put up one of those fronts I had gotten so good at. I was so good that it had fooled even me. One light graze from his fingertip and I was bursting into tears. They came faster than they had before he had come into the bathroom and I was sobbing before I even had time to think about how to stop. I felt his arms go around me and I instantly buried my face in his shoulder, grateful that the sounds of my erratic blubbering were now muffled. Alex was trying his best to calm me down, rubbing soothing circles into my back and telling me that everything was going to be okay. Even so, it was still several minutes before I allowed any of it to take effect and I began to regain my composure. It took another few minutes before I decided that I wanted to lift my head from its comfortable spot on his shoulder and pull away from him. "I'm sorry," I mumbled, ashamed. I immediately began to rub at my face with the backs of my hands, hoping to erase every single trace of the tears I had shed.

Alex shook his head, his way of letting me know that he didn't mind and that he wasn't judging me. But he still wanted the answer to his question. "Why do you have so many scars?" he wondered again, his voice soft and low to ensure me that I could take as much time as I needed and he would wait patiently.

I had told him he would know one day. I just hadn't expected that day to come so soon or for it to hit me square in the face. But I decided that I had to go with it because there was no way to shrug it off and make the promise of another day. So with a deep sigh to gather my control, I began the story. No tears came with the words, which I was deeply thankful for. I wanted to know if I had simply cried myself out, or if talking to him was just that effortless, but I knew that finding out the answer to this would be impossible. Sometime during my recollection, he had taken my hand and gave it reassuring squeezes every so often to remind me that he was there. The gesture seemed to cause the whole mess to melt away. The weight that had been pressing down heavily on my shoulders since I had jumped awake floated from me bit by bit, and I felt compelled to tell him the trouble that had ensued. "I spent two weeks in the psych ward, starting the next day," I admitted, tracing shapes on the back of his hand that held mine. "I had told my mom I would go to make her happy, but I knew that I needed it. I needed better ways to deal with everything I felt because of Emma's death." This was a truth I had known all along, but something I hadn't been sure how to word to let my mother know.

Alex said nothing for a length of time that I could swear was stretching on and on. I wouldn't have been surprised if he had decided I was a basket case and that he no longer wanted anything to do with me. But when he cleared his throat, I knew that he had just been collecting his thoughts. "I… I still always feel honored that you choose to tell me things about your sister, because it was such a tough loss for you. And I know that I don't always have the right words to comfort you, Val, but I don't want you to do anything like that ever again. No matter how hard you feel it pulling you, please don't. Your family and your three best friends that are sitting out there right now, there will never be anyone more important to you, I know. But you do have me now, and I will listen to everything you have to say," he promised, determined to get through to me that he was someone I could count on.

A light smile formed on my lips at this, but there was little chance that he saw it since I responded to his pledge by pressing my lips to his. Being with him had made me begin to feel better, and now kissing him made me feel as if a fire had been lit within me. I could have stayed there forever, bringing him ever closer to me, almost making him to slip over the lip of the tub to join me inside it. But that of course wasn't an option, and I was reminded of that when the knock on the door came.

"Alex?" Lisa's voice questioned on the other side. "Are you in there?" she wondered.

He broke from me, turning his face away to look at the floor. I saw his jaw set as he clenched his teeth together, and he mumbled something that sounded like, "Seriously?" His irritation was as clear as a perfect summer day.

I was already thinking strategy though. I kissed him again, hurriedly, only catching the corner of his lips before I jumped to my feet. Unsteady at first, I found my balance at last as I jumped out onto the floor. My jeans had gotten caught under the door when he had opened it to come in and they were still there now, though they were fanned out diagonally from being forced back and forth. As I pulled them back on, I urged Alex to stand up. Confused, he joined me near the door. "Get in there," I demanded in a whisper, opening the door to the linen closet with one hand while the other attempted to get my jeans buttoned.

"Uh, I don't think I can fit in there," he assumed after just one glance at the shelves within. He looked at me anxiously when Lisa knocked at the door once more, asking for him.

I placed both of my hands on his shoulders and pushed down gently. "Sit down. You'll fit," I told him, and I gave him one last peck on the lips as he obeyed. When he had slid back so that he fit snuggly underneath the lowest shelf, it was hard not to lean in and kiss him once more, but I knew I had to go. I shut the door to the closet before redoing my belt and then reaching to open the door out into the hall at last.

Lisa looked taken aback that I was the one standing there and not her boyfriend. She was so shocked that she forgot to look angry with me. "Is Alex in there? I could have sworn I saw him go in…" she said, trailing off.

"Nope, just me," I replied, giving her a smile. "I was feeling terrible and ended up falling asleep, so thanks for waking me up," I told her, letting the truth dominate my lie. Without looking back, I flicked the light off and edged around her to get back to the living room where I could still hear everyone else enjoying themselves. I could feel her eyes on me until I turned the corner. I had to wonder if she could feel my own gaze on her when Alex made his reappearance some time later -surely with some lie- and they had their arms around each other.