Whispers In The Dark

Victoria

Victoria

My dad wasn't home. His car was missing, leaving the driveway looking like a ghost town. The light in the kitchen window told me that my mom was, though.

I closed the front door behind me quietly, as not to wake her if she was sleeping. When I walked by the kitchen to my bedroom, I saw her sitting at the kitchen table, nursing a glass of clear brown liquid and looking over papers.

"Hey, Vic," she said, looking up for a moment. "Good day?"

I nodded and forced a smile. "Just kind of sucks to be back, you know?"

She was already reinvested in her papers.

"I'm just gonna hang out in my room for a while," I mumbled.

She nodded, looking at me one more time and smiling weakly before resuming what she was doing.

I didn't remember much after that, not until I had locked my bedroom door and sat cross-legged on my bed, a disposable razor in my hands.

I picked at the plastic that held the blades in place and protected skin from being cut open while shaving. My nails weren't as long as they were a month before; that was the last time that I had resorted to pulling out blades. It kept my mind occupied and my fingers distracted. It was better than peeling away the skin of my lips and when, sometimes, the blade would slip and nick my finger, it was almost addicting. I had never actually used them on myself, but it was nice to know that they were available.

It was easy to break off the handle, and the outer casing wasn't too hard, either. It was when I had to break apart the thin metal and plastic bonds between the blades that my finger slipped. I ignored the bead of blood on my index finger and wrestled them out.

I stored them away in one of my CD cases, an old band that I didn't even listen to anymore. I hid it between other CDS; a place no one would ever look.

I plugged in my radio and pressed play, letting whatever CD was already in there play through once, twice, three times.

My dad came home late, not surprising. I thought back a few months.

My dad had had a job, a real job, not some shitty job selling newspapers in front of the cigarette store, and then doing god-knows-what for hours after the store closes. Jesse, my older brother, still lived with us, not with his girlfriend and their dog. My mom didn't drink more than the occasional glass of alcohol, and she didn't spend her days looking at overdue bills and notices. We may not have eaten together every night, like the picture perfect families that they showcase on TV, but we talked, and we spent time together, and we could laugh because everything in life wasn't so depressing. Yeah, we may have still been a bit dysfunctional, but that was okay. I don't think there is a single family in the world that isn't a bit dysfunctional.

We didn't hide away in our rooms for most of the day, only coming out for food and to use the bathroom. We didn't scream at each other over the dumbest crap, like why we couldn't afford something, and why my mom didn't know where she was half of the time because she was drowning in alcohol.

I let the CD play throughout the night. It was a band that had comforted me through the last few months, one that meant a lot to me. It was nice falling asleep with their music in my head.

If I dreamed that night, I didn't remember it in the morning.