Broken Within..Ch 2

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Chapter 2
When I got home that night, I went to my room and stayed there for what seemed to be a century. It could have been a day, a week, or even a month for all I knew. I remembered family members coming in and out, but I barely remembered a conversation. My mom came in one day; she repeated my name until I gave her eye contact. She told me she understood my pain and we were all in this together as a family. She told me I could no longer lie in my bed and I needed to continue on with daily life. She didn’t expect me to fake it or act like it was okay. I was only expected to pick myself up and move forward one step at a time.
I agreed that this was what I needed to do as much as I hated the thought of it. I came out with the rest of my family, and then it hit me, my two younger siblings still had each other. Dustin and Destiny had been born nineteen months apart to my mom and stepdad. Destiny was a beautiful girl with hazel eyes. I was jealous of her beautiful dark curls. Dustin resembled my step-dad more than Destiny did but he still shared the dark eyes that Levi and I had. Both of them were olive skinned and tall for their ages. I was jealous of that too.
Dustin and Destiny were both much younger than I was, by seven to eight and a half years. They were like Levi and I had been. They were always together and laughing about something only they got. Although Dustin was the youngest he looked after Destiny the way Levi had done with me. It pained me in a way that made it impossible to talk to them.
My mom and my step-dad Tom were serving dinner, my mom’s famous and delicious potato soup, or, as we called it, potato poop. It was childish and silly, and the soup was nothing like poop at all, but the name still stuck. I kept to my soup and felt that making it this far was an improvement, but no way was I ready for conversation. I finished my dinner, told my mother thank you, and took my bowl to the kitchen.
My mom touched my arm as I was at the sink. “Selene, I want you to try school tomorrow.”
I felt the clump in my throat and felt like I wanted to cry. I knew my mom was a persistent Italian woman who would not take “no” for an answer. I faced her and saw into her caramel eyes. She was wearing her red lipstick on her thin lips. She was much shorter than I was and she had the same tight lock curls that Levi had. I wish I got the curls instead of this frizzy wave. As I considered my response I thought about my obsessive desire to please my mother.
“Yes, Mom, I will try.” I said it as I looked to the ground. I went to my room and put on Levi’s obnoxious vintage Grateful Dead T-shirt. It still smelled like him. I hated this shirt when he was alive, he wore it all the time and I always told him I was going to burn it someday. I had taken several things to keep him close, including his pillow, which I rested my head on and drifted off to sleep.
-First Day Back-
Today was the day I dreaded. I knew it would be bad. Yet I was nowhere near prepared for how it would make me feel to face all the happy teens around me. Or, even worse, listening to other girls whine about their stupid problems. I hated the pretty pink shirts and the rosy cheeks the girls around me so confidently sported. Even through my olive complexion, I had a pale and so not rosy look. I didn’t really do my hair. I had on baggy jeans and a comfy hoodie covering my brother’s Grateful Dead tee from last night. I just couldn’t take it off.
I had walked into the front doors after sitting alone on the bus. It was nice that no one talked to me. They didn’t look at me, and they didn’t even seem to notice I was there. I liked that feeling. I carried my invisibility with me and held onto it until Bailey found me at lunch. Actually, I stayed outside the lunch hall in fear. I had just passed the very payphone I had used to call my mom and find out that my brother was for sure dead. I was frozen in a nightmarish flashback when Bailey tapped my shoulder. I looked up out of my daze and gave a nod of acknowledgment.
“Selene, come in with me so you’re not alone.”
I followed her, still feeling odd and thinking she didn’t know anything about being alone. What did any of these ungrateful kids know about pain and loneliness? I knew I was being a little melodramatic and judgmental so I just got in line and went through the motions of lunch. I didn’t really eat the disgusting lasagna they called food. I was happy when the warning bell rang and I was able to dump my food in the trash and go to my next class.
I was practically running, and I smacked right into Brice, a boy I had had a crush on since last year. He was average height and solid muscle and made a great addition to our football team. Great! To make things even better, I must have looked like Night of the Living Dead right now, and I felt like a fool. Brice grabbed my arms and helped me not fall to the ground. I looked into his ice-blue eyes and felt the smallest little spark, like that of a match that didn’t catch and just flickered for a mere second. Although my heart was dead and there was no emotion, I felt for a tiny moment that there may be hope.
Then Brice said, “Hey, are you okay?”
Oh, I was still standing there like an idiot. “Um, yeah—I mean, yes, I’m okay. I’m really sorry. I wasn’t really watching where I was going.”
Brice frowned and looked deep into my eyes. “Selene, I am sorry to hear that Levi died, and it’s okay that you tried to bulldoze over me. You can run into me anytime.” He flashed a sweet smile.
Had Brice ever meet someone with a great loss in his life? I would have to say no. He totally pissed me off. Didn’t he know you shouldn’t bring up people dying? You also shouldn’t flirt with the dead girl. Grr! I normally would have been gushing to all my now non-friends about Brice talking to me. Now I hated that he flickered something in me. I hated that he could never understand me. And I hated more than anything that now he chose to flirt with me. I was broken and worthless now. I had pain and sadness, anger and hate that seeped through my eyes and burned from my lips. How would anyone in their right mind want to talk to me? I didn’t even want to talk to me. I didn’t want to exist.
I just walked away and kept walking in my own world. I came up with several things I would like to have said. But I didn’t even care to put the energy into it. I got into my desk in English class, and I did the only thing I have ever known to help me get out my thoughts: I wrote.
– Unknown Soul Willing to Be Free –
My eyes stare at me
To figure out who I am
My thoughts just glare at me
I hate, for they can’t win
Nobody knows me
No one really could
Even if they think they should
I sit alone in my life
For I am trapped on the inside
My outer core is all for show
But in my mind I hide
Who would even know
Darkness is where I weep
I walk through the valley of me
Screaming myself to sleep
Lost from all reality
Not knowing how to be free
I fight each night my crying
I struggle to peacefully dream
My soul deep within is dying
Nothing’s as it should seem
Held prisoner by my pain
Afraid to move
Wanting to break the chain
Afraid of what it will prove…
I picked up my pencil, shocked at my own words. I used to be happy and bright. It felt as if a stranger had written those words. I didn’t even know me. I felt so lost and so dead. I knew I was alive. I knew I had a heartbeat, but everything had changed. It seemed impossible to talk to people. I could never walk up to Bailey and say, “So, yeah, I think I died or something. I’m not sure who I am. Want to go get a taco?”
To add to the confusion, I didn’t even know who was a friend anymore. I had pretty much ditched all my friends when Levi was missing months ago. I really didn’t feel like hanging out with the crazy drunkwads. Although it seemed as if Bailey and her friends liked to party and drink too. Was this really what middle schoolers did? Was I just a prude? I knew through this weird bond that Bailey was loyal to me, but would her friends even like me? Was her friendship just temporary till I got my footing? Did I even care?
Before my darkness came, I would have died to be in Bailey’s group. They were the stereotypical image of beautiful, preppy jocks and cheerleaders. They were always walking around in a large group with their heads high and smiles across their faces. Plus the boys were all hot. Bailey had made her way through several guys in the group and almost the whole basketball team.
Bailey was a mean and nasty hateful garden tool. This made her my nemesis prior to Levi’s disappearance. She had made it more than clear that I didn’t belong. It didn’t matter if I had minded my business or not, Bailey always made fun of me and called me “dirty” every time she passed me in the halls. Yet I still dreamed daily to be a part of her world, to be cool and amongst the pretty. I had been envious and shallow.
Now, ironically, inside I had died and I felt closer to her than anyone. I was not too sure what this said about Bailey. I knew she did things only for selfish gain, so why the charity case with me? Did she care, or was she going for the medal of befriending the dead girl? I didn’t really expect anyone to talk to me, and at the moment, I didn’t care if Bailey was using me or not. I was using her in a weird way, and I was happy not to be entirely alone, even if it wouldn’t last.
I seemed to have this trend in my life. I didn’t get to keep people. When I was younger, my father had taken off. He abandoned my mother, brother, and me. That was when the brokenness inside first began to crack. I was hoping that over time it could be mended. I learned to trust my brother as my male role model. I did have my stepdad around since I was five, and he wasn’t a bad guy. I was truly thankful that he had taken us in, but he wasn’t the fatherly type.
Tom wasn’t the one to take you to the park or go on family outings. He was a busy body and always had other things to do. I could always tell the difference in the way he favored Dustin and Destiny. They were sneaky and would set me up to get into trouble and Tom always believed them over me. Oddly enough, I understood it. I never expected him to be like my own dad, because he wasn’t.
In elementary school, I found my best friend Alex, and then she was sent to a different school when her parents were arrested for meth. She moved in with her uncle Trip. It was good for her, and I was glad she was in a better place. But the distance made things harder, and our closeness had died out more and more over the past two years. We were still friends but no longer best friends. I missed our old friendship even more now.
That brought me to losing Levi, the deepest hurt of all. I truly felt like I was not allowed to have love or protection. No men loved me, no boys liked me, and I had no close friends. I felt like it was my curse. I knew I was fifteen, so how could I have been cursed? I always thought about the Old Testament and how family lines were cursed from the deeds of those before them. So maybe the first daughter of Samson August Seele would never be able to know love. Maybe it was a bit ridiculous, and I knew things were supposed to be different because Jesus gave his life for my sins. Heck, I went to church, so I knew all the right answers, but this curse seemed to direct my life a lot more than what they preached. I had only my mom to love me. I wished it could be enough, but the love I craved wasn’t the kind she could offer me.
My next class was science. Hopefully it would be boring and I would have the chance to take a nap. School had never been my strong point, and now I couldn’t care less. If it hadn’t been for my mom telling me that I needed to be the first person in our family to graduate collage, I wouldn’t try to stick with it.
As I walked in the door, I sat in the far back corner at a double table. I put my books down on the floor and then crossed my arms on the table and laid my head down. I was facing the window and watching the rain drizzle down. I felt comfort in the rain. It matched me and my place in life rather well—cold and dark, steady and somber, mysterious and sad. I was lost in the steady beat of the rain tapping the window when I was halfway jolted out of my seat because of books slamming down on my tabletop. I started to yell, “For crying out loud, who do you think you are slamming your boooooo…”
“Really now”? Brice was smiling down at me.
“Brice, who do you think you are? You nearly plowed me over in the hall, and now you are really gonna cause me to want to hurt you.”
Brice laughed. “Selene, you’re like five foot nothing. What do you really think you could do to me?”
That was a great question. What could I do to this arrogant guy who thought he was all big, bad, and tough?
For starters, I glared a death look at him. “You are the lamest guy I have ever met. You are a disgusting excuse of a man, and even though your cheap monkey butt dad goes around telling everyone about his star football-playing son, you suck and you are nothing!”
Brice’s jaw dropped and I blushed, I couldn’t believe how easy it was to be so mean.
Everyone had stopped their conversation to stare at us. Brice laughed at me, but everyone knew his laugh was more of a nervous laugh. I had gotten to him, and I hurt him. I was so tired of guys hurting me. It was time not to let them get away with being such jerks. Brice sat down next to me. I was sure he wanted to sit elsewhere, but our teacher, Mr. Sands told him to sit as the bell rang. Brice kept looking at me.
Finally he whispered over to me, “Selene, you bulldozed me, first of all. Second, are you completely oblivious to a guy flirting with you? The first rule is not to humiliate said guy.”
I was shocked he had the B. A. double L’s to talk to me after that.
“Brice, why would you want to flirt with a girl like me? My hair’s all frizzy, I have no makeup on, and I look like I just crawled out of a tomb. I couldn’t even promise you that I brushed my teeth this morning. My brother just died. Do you really think I want to shack up with some jock?”
He was smirking at me now. “I didn’t ask you to ‘shack up’ with me.” (He air quoted with his fingers when he said “shack up.”) “And if you ask me, so many girls wear too much makeup. I bet you feel all dead inside, but I saw a spark in your eyes earlier, and it just drew me in.”
Shikes! Why couldn’t people just let me be, and why, oh why, did he have to see the spark?
“Okay, fine, I am a terrible liar so I won’t lie about the spark, but I have to really question your sanity, superstar jock falling for the gloomy dead girl.”
“If you haven’t noticed, Selene, every girl around here is all peppy and in love with me. I can say and do what I want, and they just smile and grin at me. That just isn’t much fun. I think I can safely say that you won’t be all starry-eyed and dreamy about me.”
I muscled up a small smile. “You got that right!” They were the first light-hearted words I had spoken in a very long time, and it seemed very foreign. It almost hurt to feel anything. I almost hated Brice for making a part of me feel. I was even feeling guilty about thinking about hating him. My mom had always taught me what horrible sin it was to hate. Plus how could I hate the one person who brought feelings to me?
Although we had had this whole mushy encounter, I let our conversation die, and after class I went out in a flurry. Okay, so I felt something. That didn’t mean I wanted to be all into him or that it made sense to me. Truly, the minute you were no longer all into a boy, he liked you. I just wanted to get through my day, get home to my empty room and my empty life, and go to sleep. I carried on through the day with my invisibility, thankfully, and made it home.
Our house wasn’t much, just a tiny place that barely fit my family, but the roof didn’t leak and the fridge had food in it. Dustin and Destiny shared a room, but I assumed Dustin would eventually take over Levi’s room. That would be when we all could handle going in there. I had the smallest room in the house, and I was convinced it had no insulation. I had a bed and a dresser and enough floor space to change my clothes. I also had a closet that had to fit my whole life in it. It was my space, though, and truly I wanted to spend the rest of my life in my bed anyway. I threw my backpack down by my dresser and a pile of dirty clothes. I unlaced my ever-so-famous and favorite lace-up boots and tossed them into my opened closet door. I crawled into bed and covered up.
I was just about to fall asleep when the annoying ring of my cell phone went off. It sounded so happy and chipper and totally not me. I hadn’t changed it since I died inside, and I needed to find a more fitting ringtone. It was an unknown number. Normally I would have hit “ignore” and gone back to falling asleep, but I was intrigued as to who would be calling me. I hadn’t had a call in over a month. Most of my conversations were through text or IM.
“Hello, house of dead.”
Okay, it was lame, but it felt like the appropriate way to answer.
“Seriously, Selene, is that how you answer a phone? That isn’t even funny, and it is highly inappropriate.”
Crap! My mom’s voice rang through with hurt and disgust. I felt like the biggest schmuck alive.
“Sorry, Mom, you’re right. Won’t happen again.”
“That’s right it won’t happen again, and if it does, you won’t get the privilege of owning a phone. I know you are upset and today was probably a rough day. That’s why I snuck onto a reserved line at work to call you.”
I was a jack. It was really sweet of her to risk getting in trouble at work to call me.
“I am upset, Mom, but thank you for calling. I just really want to go to bed and be done for today, okay?”
My mom got her mommy voice and was all soothing and went on about how this was hard for all of us and how I couldn’t just sleep it away. She told me that she was glad I made it through day one, but tomorrow was day two. Ugh, I could not stand how she was just up and ready to move on. Couldn’t we all just be okay with dying inside? How was she even managing? I listened to her speech, and I knew as much as I wanted to be mad and yell at her, she was all I had left. I wanted her to be happy even if I couldn’t be. If us moving forward was how she thought she could find her happiness, then I would do it for her.
“Okay, I get it, Mom. I will get out of bed and do something normal kids do, okay?”
She let out a sigh. “Selene, I’m not asking you to fake it through life. Remember, one step at a time. I just need you to try and push yourself a little at a time. You’ll see. It will get better. It hurts, but WE didn’t die. We are supposed to honor Levi by getting through it and becoming stronger.”
I could hear her voice crack.
“All right, Mom, strength—I will find my strength. Love you. Bye.” I hung up as she was telling me she loved me. I understood what I must do, for Mom. I needed to pick my chin up, find my strength, and go on with daily life.
I didn’t think she understood how dead inside I was, but I couldn’t hurt her even more now by telling her that. I might not ever heal. I couldn’t seem to find the light no matter how hard I looked for it. I was trapped deep within my broken dark and damp soul. If my mom was finding the way to heal, I was happy that she could, and I would not be a burden. I could do this much for her. I could fake it through and find a way to go through the motions.
I went out to the kitchen and did the dishes. This was the chore that I hated most on the list of things to do. After that task was complete, I decided to do homework. I more just stared at it and tried scribbling mumbo jumbo in the spaces. It got done, but who knows about it even being close to right.
I heard my mom’s car pull in the garage, so I stayed in my spot, pretending to double-check my answers. Mom, Dustin, and Destiny walked in. D and D were both talking at the same time, telling Mom about their day at school and aftercare. I noticed that Dustin would say something and then Destiny would follow. One of them would make a joke that only they got, and then they would giggle. They were smiling, actually fully smiling and laughing. How could they laugh?
I started to feel like I couldn’t breathe. I felt my esophagus tighten. Why was God so mean? Why? So they got to keep each other. They had their dad, they had each other, and their life wasn’t so empty. Why did everything have to be taken from me? What was so wrong with me? I thought I was a good person. I didn’t go get drunk or high like the other kids. I was a virgin. I even loved my mother. I treated people nice. I went to church and to the teen’s group. So what? What did I ever do wrong that would bring such misery to me? How was I supposed to be all, “Thank you, God, for destroying my life and taking what mattered most to me”?
I had heard the lessons growing up, how God damned the wicked and uplifted the good. What did that make me? What did my God think of me? I really felt like it didn’t matter anymore. I had a place inside me that couldn’t deny that God existed, but really, did it matter what you did with your life? I had tried to do it the right way. I was a rule follower, and I even told my friends they were wrong and never gave into peer pressure. Then I saw girls like Bailey. She was a nasty, jerky, skanky girl, but she still had her daddy, she had her mom and her brother, and she came from money.
To make matters worse, not only did I have all these things taken from me, but also I now had to endure watching my younger siblings have what I didn’t. They were already rude and mean to me, and now they got to dance around and giggle together.
Okay, I needed to breathe. I needed to fake this for my mom. Ugh, I needed to go to sleep. I got up and walked over to my mom. “Hey, I did the dishes and my homework. That’s all I can handle. I love you, but good night.”
She gave me a sad but understanding look. “Selene, I love you too. Do you want me to wake you for dinner?”
“No, I’m not hungry.” I really wasn’t hungry at all. Food just did not seem important now.
“I will excuse you from dinner tonight, but I really want to start doing family dinners. Dustin, Destiny, say good night to your sister.”
Their little snickering and silly banter was interrupted. “Night,” they said at the same time and then went back to being all buddy-buddy.
“Night.” It came out more of a snarl than I intended. I realized that they annoyed me before, but now I didn’t even like them.
I walked off and couldn’t help thinking that a family dinner sounded horrible to me. We normally ate dinner and all, but not like formally at a table as a unit. How could Mom seriously implement an actual “family dinner” when our family was not complete? It was like she just wanted to continue on as if life without Levi was just a different day. I knew I was invited and all, but now I was going to be the outsider. As if life couldn’t get any crappier, now I really just needed to go to sleep. And that was just what I did.