Swallowed in the Sea

Unsteady

"Summer, come on...let us in," Arizona said and I pushed my back further into the bedroom door.

   I sniffled, "No, leave me alone."

"At least open the door enough for us to give you your dinner," Callie tried compromising but I was stubborn.

"I said leave me alone," I leaned my head against the door, heading the small thump as it hit the wood, "I don't want to talk."

   Arizona sighed, "We don't have to talk...just at least let us drop off your dinner plate. You can eat alone if you want to."

"No, just go already," I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and when I heard no movement, I snarled, "I said go!"

   The moment I heard the shuffling of feet moving down the hall, I pulled my knees up to my chest and buried my head into my arms. I stayed in that position for a while, rocking back and forth, trying to find some sort of comfort. 

   After a while though, my back began to ache and so I shakily stood up, stumbling towards the bed. 

   I collapsed onto it, turning around so that I was laying on my back and staring at the ceiling. Beginning to feel my eyes water, I bit my lip and fought against them.

I wasn't going to cry over this. 

   It was a horrible feeling...whatever this was, and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. My heart thumped loudly against my chest and every breath sent an agonizing chill down my spine. I felt cold, but it wasn't a physical sensation. 

I hated being cold.

   Clearly mind over matter was real because soon I felt goosebumps rise on my bare arms and I sat up so that I could tug parts of the comforter around me. I swung myself around so that I could see out the window and crisscrossed my legs.

Was there a place in the world where there was no pain?

   I doubted it. Deep down, I knew that we all needed pain. We needed to hurt, and as much as we hated it, there would be no life without it.

   There was no such thing as the perfect life. There was no such thing as a life without suffering. Was there?

   I tried to think of people who seemed to have a perfect life but I quickly realized that I couldn't judge their lives based on what I knew. Even with the people I considered closest in my life, all I truly knew was just a snippet and it wasn't fair to base decisions on that.

You never really know what goes on in someone's life.

   To my dismay, my mind involuntarily began to drift towards my mother. How much had she suffered? I knew that she had a few encounters with pain in my lifetime. She fought a hard battle with addiction. Both of the fathers to her daughters left. Her daughter had died from overdosing on her prescription pills.

   And that was only since I was born, and that was only what I knew. Who knew what else had gone on? What else had happened that I didn't know about. 

I sometimes forgot how hard it was for her too. 

   I often forgot how difficult it must be for her to even look at me. Was it fair for me to just assume that my mother should act like everyone else's mother? Was it fair that I wanted her to read me bedtime stories and make me special birthday breakfasts when she was dealing with her own monsters?

   As hard as I tried to forgive her. As hard as I tried to understand my mother and her actions, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. 

   Selfishly, I automatically compared my mother's issues with mine. I thought about how I was able to take care and raise Stella. How I was just a kid too when I did that. I pondered that, even though I knew that not everyone reacted to their problems the same.