Bury Me(6)

“Ravenna, are you okay? I thought I heard you scream.”

Her soft voice brings tears to my eyes as I gaze across the room at her, looking at me with so much love and concern. As I blink back the tears and swallow the thick lump in my throat, she rushes to the bed and sits down next to me. Her arm wraps around my back and she pulls me against her, using her free hand to gently pull my head down to her shoulder. She rocks us slowly back and forth and right when I start to close my eyes and relax, she begins to hum. After the first verse, the humming changes to the words that go along with the melody.

“The monkey thought ’twas all in fun, pop goes the weasel.”

Her softly sung words fill me with a burst of anger I don’t understand. I clench my hands into fists in my lap, the bite of pain as my nails dig into my palms pushing away the sudden urge to wrap my hands around her neck and squeeze as hard as I can.

What is happening to me? What the hell is happening?

Scrambling away from her, I bolt from my bed and rush to the other side of my room where my dresser is. Refusing to turn around and look at her, I yank open my drawers to grab some clean clothes.

“I’m going to take a shower,” I explain in a rush, clutching my clothes to my chest and hurrying into the small bathroom attached to my room. I scurry around the door, using my back to push it closed behind me. When I’m alone, I let out a relieved breath and drop my clothes onto the tile at my feet. Not wanting to dwell on what just happened in my bedroom, I move across the room and turn on the shower, hoping the hot water will wash away all of the uneasy thoughts and strange feelings coursing through me.

When I emerge from the shower fifteen minutes later, I feel lighter and more at ease as I wrap my towel around me and open the bathroom door. Steam billows out around me as I step off of the bathroom tile and onto the hardwood in my room. I jump in surprise when I see my mother still sitting on the bed where I left her. She turns away from me for a moment and I see her quickly swipe at the tears I noticed on her cheeks when I walked into the room. When she turns back around, she’s all smiles as she pats the bed next to her and holds up the brush she has in the other hand.

“Sit down and I’ll braid your hair.”

My feet move robotically across the room and I clutch the towel tighter to my body as I ease down next to her and give her my back. As she runs the brush through my hair and starts gathering pieces at the top of my head to start the braid, I close my eyes and let the feel of her fingers sliding through my wet hair soothe me. When she’s finished and has the ends secured with a hair band, she pats my shoulder and I feel the bed dip as she gets up. I get up with her and walk over to the mirror above my dresser to stare at my reflection. My mother comes up behind me and rests her hands on my bare shoulders. I hate having my hair pulled back, but I haven’t voiced this to her for some reason. It’s too tight and it makes my head ache, but each morning since I woke up disoriented, my mother has come into my room and insisted this is how I’ve always worn my hair. I do as she says, since everyone tells me I need to get back into my daily routine from before the accident, but I can’t stand the sight in front of me.

“You look beautiful,” she tells me with a smile, as I continue to stare at the girl in the mirror who I barely recognize.

“I hate my hair like this,” I suddenly admit to her with a burst of confidence.

Her smile falters for just a moment before it’s back, bigger and brighter than ever. “Nonsense. You hate having your hair in your face. I’ve braided your hair every morning since you were a little girl. It’s how a proper young woman should look.

My recent thoughts of wanting to do her harm make me feel anything but proper.

She turns away from me and walks toward the door as I continue staring at my reflection, wanting to rip the band out of the braid and claw at my hair until it’s a tangled mess around my face.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” my mother adds as she stops in the doorway. Trudy is stopping by to check on you today.”

I turn and stare at her blankly and she bites her lower lip worriedly.

“You remember Trudy, right?”

Trudy Marshall: eighteen years old, blonde hair, and my friend since elementary school.

Giving my mother a cheerful smile, I nod. “Of course I remember Trudy.”

I hate Trudy. She’s a snobby bitch who thinks she’s better than me and wants to take what’s mine.

The mean thought in my head makes my smile falter, but I put it right back in place so my mother will stop looking at me like I’m crazy. Trudy is my friend. She’s one of my only friends and she’s never thought it was weird that I lived in a prison, like so many others. I have no idea where that errant thought came from and I don’t like it.