The driver door opened. The man slid in and the car rocked with his weight. He didn’t say a word as he turned the car on and drove slowly through the crowded streets.
As we continued, the screams and cries petered off.
We entered a quiet void.
I lay tense on the leather seats.
It was crazy because the fear brought with it a huge wave of nostalgia. I remembered the cabin and the snow, and suddenly I was hearing Nixon in my ear.
“Time to look back on it, don’t you think?”
“I’m scared.”
“Don’t be. I’m your villain, isn’t that right? Yet I have a feeling, if you stopped and remembered, you might be surprised what you’d find.”
My breaths slowed.
I couldn’t keep running.
I couldn’t keep pretending it didn’t happen.
Because now I was in the back of a car, bound and frightened, and the opportunity to confront the past was slipping fast.
Taking deep breaths, I told myself to be calm. I told myself it was alright. It was alright to be afraid.
I took deep breaths.
One deep breath.
Two deep breaths.
I shut my eyes.
Shut my eyes and breathed.
And then I remembered.
Part Two: The Beginning
25.
Victoria…
I woke up to the soft patter of rain hitting the roof. The second my eyes flew open, I felt the walls closing in on me. The days were the same and endless.
I threw the covers over my head and shut my eyes, trying to breathe through the tightness in my chest. I wasn’t sure I could get up. To face yet another day of the same bullshit. To feel my soul dying.
Sleep was such an escape. It was just…silence. I was finding myself going to bed earlier and earlier every day, longing for the blackness to swallow me.
Depression hit me like a pile of bricks every time I opened my eyes. Every time I had to accept that I needed to get out of bed, I needed to go to school, go to work, pretend to give a shit.
That was the hardest part.
Pretending.
Smiling while you were crying inside.
And for no good reason, either.
People had it harder than me, I knew that. They lost more than I ever would. So, on top of feeling depressed and apathetic, I felt guilty for feeling depressed and apathetic.
Everyone liked to remind you to count your blessings. To be aware of how fortunate you were. To just be happy that you’re living. Because God forbid you feel like you’re hurting on the inside, and God forbid your reasons aren’t sufficient enough to warrant these feelings. Because that’s wrong – it’s so wrong to be human, so wrong to be stuck in a loop that you can’t break. Because, goddammit, be positive!
And they wondered why you didn’t want to talk about it.
Pfft.
I threw the covers off me and rolled out of bed. I grabbed my phone off the desk on the other side of my room. I kept it far from my bed so I wouldn’t be tempted to turn it on in the night and scroll through my many different social media apps.
It…didn’t work as well as I’d hoped.
I got only a few heart likes on my Insta post. I thought I’d get more, but whatever. I supposed people weren’t interested in selfie pics anymore. I needed to show some more ass or boob. I glanced at my reflection in the mirror and turned side on, looking a little disappointed in my lack of assets. I snorted at my own pun – this was what my life amounted to at twenty-one years old: depressed and making puns alone in my bedroom at – I glanced at the clock – 6:33am in the morning.
My hair was still damp from last night’s shower, so I threw it up in a ponytail – no fucks given. Half-asleep, I quickly grabbed a change of clothes, crept out of my room and tip-toed to the bathroom down the hallway. I held my breath passing Aunt Elayne’s room. The last time I’d made a sound, her boyfriend John had lost his shit. His meltdown involved screaming his lungs at me for being a loud fucking idiot followed by a series of doors being slammed shut. By doors, I meant one door. He literally opened it and slammed it, over and over again.
It was really fucked up.
I made it safely to the little bathroom with the yellow tiled wall and sticky white floor. Closing the door and locking it, I stripped my clothes off and gave myself a quick body rinse in the shower stall. I was sweating too much in the nights – anxiety and crying until your heart ached was hard business.
I scrubbed my face with the last of the First Aid face wash Kimberly had slipped into my bag when I’d broken out last week. God bless her. Money was tight. Minimum wage was a bitch.
I dried off and slipped into…I paused, glancing horrifically at the change of clothes I’d quickly grabbed from the drawer. A thin white sweater with a yellow stain on the tit area (I’d eaten taco that day and what a fucking mess), and…a black, breezy skirt that ended above the knee.
Shit.
Fuck.
This wasn’t going to keep me warm.
It was the start of December. The forecast predicted snow – fucking snow in December in Vancouver. Not that it didn’t get cold here or anything, but snow just wasn’t that common in the land of rain.
My bus stop was three blocks away.
And I had to be there in…oh, fifteen minutes.
I quickly grabbed my bottle of foundation and brush and nope’d the hell out of the bathroom. Now that I was more alert, I needed to go to my room for a better change of clothes and –
“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME, VICTORIA?!” John screamed from the bedroom.
My heart seized in my chest.
Change of plans.
I turned swiftly in the direction of the staircase and flew down the steps just as I heard him stomping out of bed. The door whipped open – the tiny house vibrated with the force of it – just as I reached the landing. In a panic, I threw on my gumboots – GUMBOOTS with a SKIRT on a day that forecasted SNOW – and yanked my backpack and black jacket off the hook.
“You don’t have any fucking respect for those sleeping, do you?” John carried on, appearing at the bottom of the stairs just as I had opened the front door. He was still in his too small briefs with his junk practically hanging out, and his brown long hippy hair looked extra fucked this morning. He was so ew.
“Well,” I quickly said, throwing a salty smile his way, “when it’s all you do, it’s kinda hard to care.”
His already dilated eyes widened. “You little bitch –”
I slammed the door on his face and ran for my life. I couldn’t miss this bus. I had like two others to catch before making it to campus. I was in the middle of finals and unprepared and these fucking exams were worth 6498342% of my grade.
It was raining a shit ton, and the drops were icy. The sidewalks were slippery, and I was so tired, and my make-up wasn’t done, I needed caffeine, and it was just one of those fucking days.
I was half a block from the bus stop when the bus came barrelling down the street. Shit. I raised my arms up in the air dramatically, pleading for him to stop. The bus driver didn’t slow down, even though he saw me. He drove on by, shrugging at me like, “oh well.”
Fucker!
Never mind my lungs were burning like…someone whose lungs were burning from a run like that. I stopped and bent over, sucking in breath after breath. The world went dizzy. I was so out of shape, and I just wanted to sleep and drink caffeine and have caught the bus on time.