More for Solace:
Warning: This scene contains slight gore and violence.
“You know Revlin, that’s an awful big promise,” Adelle was playing with my hair, lifting it up and letting it drop the way a breeze would do. “Cross your heart and hope to die…” She spoke slowly, in a whisper.
I ran the knife across my chest, tearing into a skin and forever scarring myself with an x.
“He won’t commit. He’s too chicken-s**t,” Atticus ridiculed.
“I know. But now he’ll at least have a nice battle wound.”
“That’s hardly a worthy battle.”
Their bickering grew wearisome. Adelle vanished into the other room as I cut into my arms.
Some were just scratches, some were gashes, but all of them were invisible to the world. Only I could put them there, only I could hide them, only I could feel them, and only I knew what each of them meant. Anger, frustration, hate, regret, sorrow, pain, depression. All of them would scream at me for days afterward. The skin would pucker around each one, raised and pink from irritation. They would welted up, angry and hollow, scabbed and sore. Once a day or so passed, they calmed. Each one would itch in its last breath, a way to ask: why? My arms burned in fury. Screaming, screaming. Never to be seen. It was so painful that it hurt to move my arms. Spanning al the way from my wrists to my shoulders and chest, the gaping wounds mocked me.
It probably wasn’t as bad as I remember it being, as almost Hollywood, but there was blood everywhere. Annika was asleep in her bedroom, as were my parents, but I was still awake-and bleeding. A trail was leading from the bathroom to the foot of my bed…pools of that gooey crimson liquid surrounded me. Adelle walked with care, gracefully avoiding each splotch on the mock hardwood.
“You sure made a mess this time,” She muttered.
“What do you want?” I was sick of looking at her, but I could see her small feet standing before me.
“World peace?” She said with a small giggle.
“Adelle, not right now,” I said, referring to her presence.
“Why not?” She bent over to look me in the eyes. “Now is as good of time as any.”
“Just go away,” I mumbled as I reached for my cigarettes.
“You heard him Adelle. Leave the boy alone,” Atticus said slyly.
Atticus was disgustingly clean and proper, like he was shot out of some other century and was just trying to adapt in his appearance. His dull brown hair was cut short close to his head, but he wore a stubby kind of top hat, and held a very expensive looking cane. Adelle was the complete opposite. Her hair was long and kind of curly as it hung in tangles touching her hips. She wore sundresses, and was barefoot all the time. The two never got a long. Atticus outstretched his cane to poke me in the arm.
“What?” I snapped, still not looking up. I was more concerned with the persistent blood flow oozing out of a gash in my arm.
“You should get that checked out,” Atticus informed me with a very mocking tone.
“It’ll be fine.”
Adelle dropped a dirty-cream colored towel at my feet, telling me to “at least clean it up.”
“Will you both just leave?”
“Where is there to go? If we leave we’ll just end right back up in your brain and you’ll still be yelling at us to leave,” Adelle said sweetly. It was that forced kind of sweet, nervous even.
“Go wherever you do when I actually take my medication.”
”We’re still there you know,” Atticus said as he handed me my father’s gun.
“What are you doing Atticus?” Adelle screamed, and for a moment I saw a bit of true compassion in her. “We’ll die too!”
Suddenly, a three-year old, Annika came in without knocking. I plunged the gun under my bed, put out my cigarette and looked over to her, forgetting that it probably seemed like I was talking to nothing.
“Revelin,” she said shyly, “ I had a bad dream.”
“Go tell mommy, or something then.”
Almost like she didn’t see the blood, she walked over.
“I don’t want mommy. I want you.”
“Aw, how ******** adorable,” Atticus hissed. Annika grabbed the towel and put it on my arm as she sat in my lap.
“You’re all messy. Did you fall?” I nodded. I waited until she fell asleep, ignoring the jeers of the other two, to put her back to sleep in her room. Dave grumbled something at me to keep quiet because of the creaking floorboards, but I ignored him.
“Goodnight, kid.” I said, returning back to my bedroom.
Things were getting difficult to grasp. I paced around the room, not sure of how to handle myself. I would usually get drunk in times such as that. After a brief livid search for anything to drink, I sat back down against the wall, looking out over my ravaged room. It’s one of those points where you don’t know how you got to it. You don’t know how you ended up sitting on the floor of your bedroom, where you got that dreaded little object, or even how you came to be in that mindset. All you’re confident you know is the feel of that cold barrel resting against your temple in a threatening manner. Every time you get those little moments of self-loathing, your mind wanders to the very comforting possibility of its own impending removal.
Cold, isn’t the best word for it, but it will have to do.
My father came into the room, and for whatever reason, my mind fell into the possibility that he was apologetic for leaving me battered and bruised that night. Before he said anything, before he could scream for me waking him up again, he noticed my position: in the far corner of my bedroom, resting against the wall, with on arm up for support, and the other clutching the gun he used as supposed home protection. The bed had been flipped onto its side in a fit of rage on my part, searching for anything of the alcoholic nature.
Drunk comes to mind. A word shared by more than one person in the family.
My father stared down at me in disdain. It was a look of utter disgust, and while it appeared on his face frequently, I couldn’t help but get surprised. Dave noticed what I had in mind, what I was about to do. He saw the blood coating my arms, the breaking of the pact. He saw my arms and chest, weak and burning from the lacerations, and he didn’t wince, or frown. He saw the gun and he said,
“It’s about damn time,” and slammed the door.
And I put the gun down. It’s not like anything I did was to please him.
This was a few days before I got arrested.
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