I can't say I knew what was going on then, nor can I say I do now. It all happened so long ago, that the memories have a greyish haze overtop of them, causing me to confuse the smiles with frowns, the sorrow with joy and the kisses with slaps. The haze is not only darkening, but also growing into my adult years as I grow older. Some would say losing one's memories is a curse, but in my case, for the most part, it's a miracle.
Most of the memories I still hold to this day are too painful and too depressing to tell even you, my dear and most cherished friend. It's bad enough having them kept hidden in even the deepest crevice of my mind, where the light of reason never reaches. The dust that comes with age has started to settle upon them, of course, but they are still there. And so are you.
Do you remember the house we grew up in? Remember how we used to think it was the most beautiful house in the whole world? It had that large Victorian porch, painted the whitest white imaginable, sort of like the fresh snow on the hills which surrounded our home during the cold and lengthy winters. I can still remember the smell of Mother's fresh baked bread and pies, Father's overpowering aftershave, and your potent medicinal scent. In the backyard, do you recall our immense tree? The one that Mother would sit with us in, on one of the lower branches, and read us stories about Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh, and your favourite, Robin Hood? I can still picture you smiling down at me, your bright face framed by the tree branches and flower blossoms. Your soft strawberry blonde hair surrounding your face, only your small pointed nose protruding from underneath it's waves.
Laura, they never told me how you passed away. I was only 5, I know, but I would have like to have known. Of course it would have upset me greatly, but I think I had the right to know, don't you? You were only 7, but even then you were everything to me - my best friend, my big sister, my accomplice.
Mother didn't handle your death very well. Grams told me that she had to get away from your memory, but I never quite understood that. If you really loved someone, why would you want to get away from them? If anything, I'd want to stay and remember you like you were in the carefree days before your death. But this was not possible. Father decided to divorce Mother a month after your death, and became engaged with his secretary a week later. Father's fiancee was never nice to me, and I made the tough decision to move in with Grams and Gramps when I was 10. I'm sure you would have respected that decision, but they sure didn't. You're not like them, Laura. You understand me for me.
I lived at Grams and Gramps for some time, in the same room that we had shared several years earlier. Your pillow still smelled like your hair, you know. I know it had been washed hundreds of times and all, but it still did. Sometimes at night I'd talk to you, but I'm sure you didn't hear me. You were too busy doing angel things, with our old dog and Mother's little brother up in heaven, to stay with me in that stuffy room and talk in the middle of the night.
After you left, I didn't get too close to anyone. I didn't want to get hurt all over again, like I was being set up for another difficult loss and another grieving period. I used to walk slowly down the halls at school, my head high even at 10, surveying the area for foes. I had many enemies, I can remember. Their faces have been long erased, the situations even more corroded, and at times I even wonder if I had any at all. Were they just my imagination? It's times like these I wish I could remember the little things in my past, but the fear of knowing always seems to scare me into forgetting what it is I wish I remembered.
I was a slave; my hormones and PMS controlled me. I have no shame in admitting it now. I'm sure that you would have laughed at me, although I'm sure you would have looked down upon me also. I guess they called me very rebellious teenager, possibly a wild child, but it didn't matter. I needed the attention, I thrived on it. It wasn't right, I know, I was being awarded with popularity under false pretenses, but I needed friends. The naughty, and sometimes very false views of me were actually compliments. Noone guessed how lonely and alienated I felt, noone could see how terribly plain I was under the surface.
I never really felt that I belonged anywhere, though. That's one thing that really frightened me: I was always the odd one out. My hair was always just a bit shorter than the rest, my eyes a bit too suspicious, and I never could seem to hide my horns. In the forest of life, where the cedars and oak flourish, I'm the maple. I'm held back, aghast at the sights, and stay the same. I never grow. I remain a sapling in the overgrowing woods. I always had craved the sunlight, but the cold shoulders of the trees around me were all I saw. I was stunted by these shadows, and my feeling of self-worth diminished into nothing with time.
I guess this lack of self-worth made me slit my wrists late at night. I set candles on the side of the bathtub, all with tiny flames that seemed to reach the ceiling from under the burning water. I got the idea about slitting my wrists in the bathtub from my friend Connie, do you remember her Laura? The girl that lived next door to Grams and Gramps? With the long black hair and the fingernails that never seemed to be clean? Anyway, she read in some article that it wouldn't hurt as bad if you did it under burning water, and I guess I believed it. I guess that goes to show that you shouldn't always believe what you read. Honestly, it hurt a hell of a lot. But I guess I'm a glutton for punishment. I think Connie told Grams and Gramps about my little late night escapades, because they drove me out here almost right away. They said it was only a temporary thing, just until I could control my actions. I guess I hadn't learned, because they haven't come to pick me up yet. I've accepted it, and now I wonder why. Quite possibly they died before they had the chance to come rescue me, but that didn't help me get over the feelings of immense abandonment and scorn that I had towards them and society as a whole. |
