Mirage(17)

I drop from myself.

I am the leaf, drained of color, crumbling, quaking, as it falls from the tree.





Ten


THERE’S HEAVINESS IN coming out of freefall. Gravity has such strong hands. The body is constricting, a corset that’s too tight. It’s hard to take a full breath. The beep-beep-beep of a machine assaults me as the world of color and smells and sharp, stinging pain wrap around me like a barbed-wire blanket.

All senses are go.

A baby cries somewhere, and I intimately know how it feels, thrust into the wide open where anything can happen. It’s confusing and scary. My body hurts. I feel like death, toasted on both sides.

It’s hard to open my eyes, but I fight to, and realize I’m in the hospital. My tongue bursts with pinpricks. When I swallow, it’s like nails raking down my throat. I attempt to push my voice up through the fire. “What happened?” Pain causes a hot tear to slide from the corner of my eye.

Someone’s in the room, but they don’t seem to have heard my raspy question. I try to move, but my body is concrete buried in gripping mud. Someone?—?Joe??—?notices me struggling and rushes over, wraps his arms around me. I wince but let myself be held because it feels good: physical, warm, and reassuring.

“Oh my God, honey, you’re finally awake. You wigged out on the acid is what happened,” he says against my ear. His prickly hair stings my face.

Acid? Oh, of course.

“I tried to tell you not to do it. We talked about this. Really, how high do you think you can raise your stakes before you lose?”

I point to my raw throat, noticing my heavily bandaged arms and hands as I do. “Why?—”

“You crashed right through the mirror like you were diving out of a plane.”

I blink hard, trying to recall. The memory hides behind a gauzy veil. I can see the outline of it but not the full picture. “I walked through the mirror?” I choke out. Every word cuts.

“Yeah, that was bad enough, but then you flipped, went completely berserk, flailing and struggling like you were fighting off an attacker. I could barely get you under control, and then you went unconscious. There was blood everywhere.” His kiss on my forehead is fragile. “I love you, you stupid, stupid?—”

“You ever scare us like that again, and I’ll kill you myself.” That’s my father’s voice coming from the doorway. Chills roll over my body. He doesn’t need to throw threats at me right now. I’m shaken enough. A father should be kissing my head and telling me he loves me. We stare at each other, and I suddenly remember: He’s locked inside himself. Numb. He can’t show me love.

Then my mother is against my side with tears in her eyes. She slips her palm gingerly beneath mine, trying to be careful of the cuts. “You lost a lot of blood. They couldn’t stabilize your blood pressure. It was touch-and-go for a while.” My stomach jerks. Can we stop talking about blood? I’m appalled with myself.

My mom is pale, her lips bare without bright color, like a bruised rose. I’ve frightened her, and shame warms its hands over the fire of guilt in my heart. “I’m happy you’re all right,” she says, “but I’m so disappointed in you. So very disappointed and astonished. How could you be this reckless with your life?”

“I’m . . . I’m not.”

She rolls her eyes. “Baby, what do you think you’ve got if you don’t have life?”

“Nothing. Emptiness.” It’s nothing but darkness. My voice is scratchy and flat, not my own. I feel like I need to break it in, but it hurts so much to speak. It’s easier to let them all talk at me.

My mother’s clenched fingers fly up to her mouth to hold in her sob. “You would take my only daughter from me!” She turns her back. Her words are a knife in my heart, and even now I appreciate the acute pierce of it, the evidence that I’m alive.

My grandmother shuffles over. Her tapered, wrinkled fingers hover over my skin as if she’s feeling something beyond the borders of my body. Maybe her hands see what her eyes can’t. Her hand suddenly pulls back to the breast of her flowered dress. She doesn’t say anything, just shakes her head side to side like there are no words. Side to side: a metronome of sadness.

I don’t feel like their child. Like anybody’s child. I feel like the ax that’s been slung through their lives. I guess I didn’t think at all. I simply acted. And now I have to deal with the consequences. People want to be angry or sad, and despite how bad I feel, the strongest emotion I have right now is gratitude. Gratitude just to be alive.

“Forgive me.”





Eleven


TWO DAYS LATER, I shield my eyes as I’m helped from the car to the house. My body feels alien as I move, but the more I do it, the more I sink into my skin. Being mummified in bandages from the numerous cuts isn’t helping to make me feel normal. I’m glad it’s summer and I don’t have to face all the scrutinizing eyes at school. I need time. I’ll have a lot of scars to remind me of that night. The only wound I cringe at is the one buried under gauze on my left cheek, which runs from my cheekbone to my chin. I will never look like me again.

“Thanks, Ayida,” I say to my mother as she situates me on the gray couch, bolstering velvet poppy pillows around me and handing me a glass of lemonade. She darts a look my way at my use of her proper name, but I can’t help it. Everything is suddenly changed. You don’t come back from where I’ve been unchanged.