It burned. The water plunging and splashing into the apartment’s small bathtub was nearly scalding hot, turning my skin red to the touch, but I let my hand sit there under the feel of it, rushing to fill the tub, heat biting at the skin and spreading a hot warmth. It wasn’t the worst it could be, and strangely, I enjoyed the nibbling pain of the heat and the little warming comfort it provided.
Another day. It was a day like any other day but perhaps a little different. Sure, it was a weekend, but what did weekends matter? Sleep all day, let that emptiness consume my body, shroud it in a pit of nothingness. Dread the arrival of a husband of little over a year- a foolish, childish mistake.
God, I was only nineteen, yet I thought the very idea of marriage with a high school sweetheart was possible, and at first, it seemed like things were well. Now, I climbed over a tub of steaming waters and entered first by my feet, then my legs, and lastly, the rest of my body up to my chin.
I turned red, painted pink by the burning touch, but I remained sitting, letting the steam and heat of the bathwater raise my temperature as it would. I quietly wished it would somehow make me sick or ill, giving me an actual excuse to cancel current plans.
Every weekend, my high school friends tried to make an effort to all get together. “In order to keep from drifting apart” apparently. I didn't have much of a problem with it at first, but these days, it’s become so hard to get up and go out, trying to have fun when everything felt so hollow and played.
I’ve made too many excuses the last few times, and I had no desire to lose the friends. I planned to force myself out- to see my friends regardless of that worthless feeling biting at the lining of my stomach.
Worthless and guilty. The worthlessness came first, but the shock of a betrayal plagued me with guilt. The guilt was so heavy and so burdensome that I couldn’t shake it- couldn’t ignore it- and each day, I wondered if I should even breath when that woman could not, blood seeping from a deep cut at her neck, spewing from her desperate coughing and choking for air.
I winced, not from the heat but from the reminder of it, and closed my eyes tight, ending the sight of an ugly blue tiled wall and blue shower curtain, a small, white polished sink stained with toothpaste and a shoddy mirror that fogged without so much as effort. My bathroom was small, and when I closed my eyes, it felt like nothing, it felt like I was in a vast land of pure empty space, alone and safe.
Hardly ever was I alone and safe. Alone, maybe, but safe? No, I was never safe under this roof with a man who snuck into a home and took a kitchen knife to a throat. God, God, God! How couldn’t I have seen? How couldn’t I have known?!
I just watched it happen. I pulled my ginger hair back into a ponytail and pulled over a hoodie, sneaking my way out and following after my husband. I suspected adultery from his strange behavior- the way he often spoke of other females- but never would I have ever imagined I would peek through a convenient open area in a curtain and see... So. Much. Blood.
A fool. I was an utter fool. Foolish enough to go out and investigate on my own- take matters into my own hands. I wished I had been someone more passive, more let it happen as it happens, but I wasn’t, and so, to ease my messy mind and hollowing heart, I decided to prove to myself that my suspicions were either truth or false, and if they were truth, I would leave, and if they were false, I would stay.
They were false, and I stayed, but I didn’t want to. I hadn’t hit a low at that point, and I was scared. I was scared that if I tried to leave I couldn’t, and I didn’t know what to do. He was dangerous. My husband was a murderer, and I did nothing. I let it happen. I watched as she died, hands holding my gaping mouth, and I ran off before he would leave.
The news reported her missing. She wasn’t even found dead, but I knew very well that she was.
It was awful, and then I thought it would be a good idea to follow him again. A second time? Disgusting, awful, and horrible. It was sickening, and I couldn’t stomach the sight of it. It was one of the few things that could even invite a response in me, cracking at the emptiness I held so dear.
My eyes were still shut, clenched as tight as possible as if someone were trying to rip them open and I couldn’t let that happen, and the water still caressed my skin with its heat, but no longer did it hurt even a little as I adjusted and sat. The only thing keeping me to the world as I entered the emptiness of my mind was the touch of water on my flesh, the steam sticking to my face and fogging up the already fogged mirror.
Suddenly, the images flashed back into my mind- the two women dead. I shook my head, trying to force it out, letting the water wave with my jerking movements, but they plagued me and replayed over and over, and that guilt festered to the surface. The heat no longer felt like a comfort and relaxation and became a closing burden, a tightening wrap of closing walls, and each breath became rapid and quick, but it felt like I could breath.
Air was coming in and out, breathing in quick successions, but I. Couldn’t. Breathe. I shot open my eyes and glanced around, shooting forward to emerge my blazing red torso from the water, pale skin dyed red.
My flailing hands became desperate, so I snatched the shampoo bottle and held it tight against my chest, squeezing it like it was some sort of stuffed animal, and the cool touch of the plastic bottle felt relieving with each rising breath, but I began to choke out, a strangled cry, and all I could do was stare at those ugly blue tiles, lined with white.
I was so glad they weren’t red.
For what seemed like no time at all and forever all at once, I sat in that tub, half of my body chilling with the feel of the air, much cooler than the bath’s water, and I stared, eyes wide as the moon. I went to that place I always went when I didn’t want to be here. I went to my past, imagining all of the moments with my grandmother that I could recall, and then, I tried to see what she’d tell me now. What sort of advice she would have.
But there was a wall there. I mentally blocked myself from letting her see this part of me, telling me what she’d think of me now. I watched as two girls died and did nothing to stop it. Just how disappointed would she be? My grandmother would roll over in her grave if she knew, and the sort of words she would say… I was too afraid to hear them. Too afraid to even imagine them.
No better. I’m no better than he is, I thought, every part of me turning bitter, the self loathing multiplying and breeding faster than rabbits, and I began to shake, my body trembling with the frustration and hatred over myself. I tried to believe I was empty, and often I felt so, but sitting here in this bath, I knew that I wasn’t empty.
I was just devoid of anything good.
And so, with all of my self hatred, guilt, and disgust swirling and biting, nibbling and churning, at my very being, forcing me into a frustrated tremble, I tightened the grip of my fingers around the purple shampoo bottle and squeezed, forcing out nothing through a closed top, and it didn’t calm. I squeezed and squeezed, using it like some sort of stress ball, but all the stress did was continue to build and rise within me until I could stand it anymore.
I turned and threw the shampoo bottle towards the cluttered sink and cried out, crying desperately into the emptiness of my apartment, and when the bottle slammed into the wall and my cry reverberated through the tight, closed space of a tiny bathroom, I watched as the idle candle beside the sink’s handle flared up into a small burst of bright orange flames, burning and smoking in the air.
Despite the hot water, my body went cold, and I stared at it, blinking, and it was, in fact, alight. The candle had lit itself before my very eyes, and when I closed them for a few seconds and opened again, it was still as bright as one would expect.
It was ridiculous, but I could have sworn I never lit it, despite there being a light on the other side of the sink. A few more blinks, and I started to realize that maybe it was always lit. I could have forgotten with how absent minded and faded I’d been lately, and when I turned and threw the bottle of shampoo, letting it clunk to the floor and thankfully not explode out in light purple goo of cleanliness, surely I must have been too out of it to see things properly.
Staring into the flickering of the flame, I leaned over the edge of the tub, my bare torso pressed up against the cool, smoothness of it, and I gazed at it as if it were a lava lamp.
Then, I started to laugh.
It was a soft giggle at first, my hand pressed against my lips to contain it, but it gradually grew into something louder, rowdier, and the subtle breath of it turned into a delirious shout of horrified laughter, frustrated at my own self and pushed beyond boundaries of sanity.
And when it was done, it died just like that, and I saw staring in silence at a vanilla scented candle, lighting the already bright enough room.
The water was cooling off, smoothing over into a soft warmth, merging with the temperature of the room. I’d been in the bath too long, and I hadn’t even bathed. I tried, at least. It had already been three days, and I knew it would be many more if I didn’t do it before this dinner with my friends, but now, time was too short.
It took me a while longer to will myself to even leave the bath, finding it just as useless as this dinner. I couldn’t enjoy my life when I had become such a person, too afraid to stop a madness. Maybe I could have moved on, find my path back to the light, but it was it felt impossible when I was trapped in this web of fear.
Forcing myself to get ready for the evening, I prepared for an inevitably dull night in which I only concerned friends further.
As I always had.
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