Over the years, Rose has learned how to be self-reliant. Her childhood had been lonely and unforgiving to Rose. However, she survived coming out the other end as a strong-willed and intelligent young woman.
After a series of bad choices, Rose's fami...
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There are ten units of blood in the human body. Ten units are ten pints, and ten pints is one point five gallons of blood. I guess you never realize how much of it there is until all of it is displayed in front of you. The once clean and pristine socks on my feet are now drenched in warm blood. It seeped into the fabric, and in between, my toes covered my hands and my knees, the shock bringing me to the ground. It felt like time stood still.
The door closed with a loud thud, and no one came for the body; instead, they let me sit with her. I crawled towards the center of the room where her body lay the blood now all over me, but I couldn't find a single part of myself to care. To care that my heart was beating behind my eyes, even though tears didn't bother to sprout, there was nothing to blink away. It was either the shock or the fact that I didn't know what to feel.
I should be enraged, should be dragging her murderer back into the room, making them pay. They, I don't even know their fucking name. They didn't bother to introduce themselves in the midst of blowing my mother's brains out. Someone has to be really fucked up in the head to do that or had to suffer some out-of-this-world trauma to think that inflicting this special kind of torture was okay.
I had wondered why I was cleaned and changed into a new set of clothes, and the thought didn't even dawn on me that someone changed my clothes. Everything and nothing was racing through my mind. My mother's head was in my lap, the blood still seeping onto the concrete floor.
Cruel fate and this twisted world had to be some fucked up dream. I thought if I pinched myself, it would bring me out of this haze, but I couldn't bring my hand towards my forearm to pinch myself. I knew this wasn't a dream; the feelings are too real, my body is too real her cold hands in mine are too real.
I wasn't floating out of my body looking down on myself like all of the movies say. I was still me breathing at a steady pace, not an inch of panic in my body. Because I wasn't scared, and I realized I wasn't anything. I don't know how long I sat there with her head in my lap. Her hair combed through my fingers. I couldn't tell you, but the only thing that told me that time went by was the cold blood that now tainted my skin.
Hours it must have been hours until that door opened again. There were no windows, just the stark light hanging above. Surprisingly the room was clean and smelled of bleach, now with the tangy stench of blood mixing.
With the brief seconds that the door was opened, I saw that we were on the end of a hall that led to a staircase that would hopefully bring me to ground level. First, I needed to find a way out, and everything is starting to feel hopeless. A man with a tray of food came in and slammed the metal tray onto the puddle of blood, spoiling the food in the process.
I was so out of it, and I couldn't possibly make a plan to get out, so it's now or never. If I die trying, then at least I would be with my mother. At least I would have someone. But I have so many things to get back to. With tragedy surrounding me most of your life, you seem to forget that there is a place outside of pain. Outside of the misery that smothers you. I spent these past months creating a life for myself, and I wasn't going to leave that. Leave him.
