Untitled Story 2

TW: Graphic Mentions of Murder, Abuse 

"I don’t even know why I’m here,” I say, looking around at the sterile white room I’m in. It’s a sickly shade of white and the fluorescent white lights don’t help. “You called me one week ago talking about how you feel liminal, how you didn’t feel like you actually exist. I need you to tell me what’s going on with you,” she says. “I don’t even know where to begin,” I say, trying to comb through decades of memories. “Start at the beginning,” she says hesitantly, like she was trying to figure out if I knew that or not. “When I sleep, I’m transported to an old room with wood panel walls, rusty brick red shag carpet, a sickly yellow light. One single yellow light that casts pallid shadows on its walls. I feel trapped there. I’ve never been there, but it feels like I have.” I pause. ‘What am I even talking about?’ I thought. “You know what? This is silly. How is me talking about being in a room I’ve never been in going to explain not feeling real?” I spoke angrily. “I don’t understand. You said you went there before.” ‘I did, but only when I was asleep.” I look around the room, trying to avoid her troublesome questions. They were troublesome for a reason and she knew that. She was smart like that. Shay could read the room and in one instance, could have all the information she needs to figure out what’s going on. But therapists are trained that way. “Why do you think you go there,” she asks. “What?” I half listen to what she’s asking because I'm lost in thought. “What are you thinking about?” “Nothing,” I say. That was a lie, and I knew it. “Michael, the only way i can help you get through this is if you are 100% honest with me. I don’t think you’re crazy, but you do need help. So, if I can be that help to you, you have to be honest.” I nodded. I told her about this song i listen to when I’m sad. “Think of me once in a while, take care”. I don’t just listen to it when I’m sad, I listen to it when I’m empty. The gritty violin, the stagnancy, about how i only listen to that song when I need help accepting the inevitable, accepting what I can’t control. I tell her about what it reminds me of. The house on the dirt beaten path that Alex and I paved ourselves. The abandoned one on Cherry Road on the outskirts of town with overgrown weeds, the kind that smell like cinnamon on a hot summer day. The ones with the white flowers on top. I tell her about how he and I used to go there every day and stay there until sundown and then it was back to the abuse. It was the ‘80s after all. The family that lived there before left everything. They left their entire lives to decay in rot and sadness. The drywall rots now, mold spreads and you can see the entire outside from the living room, and you don’t have to look out a window to see it. When he and I used to go there, sometimes we could smell the rotting flesh of dead animals that hunters left behind. They knew it was illegal to kill animals and one time we saw the dead girl that belonged to Old Man Albert and his wife. Whoever killed her, shot her dead in between the eyes, just grazing the bridge of her nose. Wasn’t more than 15 that summer. Not a girl anymore, but not a woman. The age of limbo. She was the first girl I ever loved. That was the first time blood was spilt on my hands. Pa made me. It was the dead of night, the July heat still seeped into the night, sticky and damp, and moist. Pa made me do dangerous things and I complied out of fear he might do somethin’ awful to me. Wouldn’t be the first time. I noticed her eyes inch closer. I knew what would happen next. I felt it in my core. The question I dreaded the most. “What other things did your father make you do?” Those nine words made my skin crawl. I didn’t want to remember anything. I just wanted to go back to the way things were before. Before all of this. Before the nightmares, before Pa… honestly I just didn’t want to exist at all."