She’s back. I’d forgotten about her, almost, thought she’d left for good. But she came back because she knows. She always knows.

Things work backward, now to then. The door is locked, the lights are on, SVU on the computer posing not anything near the distraction I’d hoped for – though on second thought, it seems even counterproductive by nature.

She taunts me, on purpose. I’m cracked by not shattered and she needs me broken. “It’s the same story, every time. tsk tsk Don’t you ever learn?”

I thought, if she ever came back, I’d be able to handle her now, keep the new traits that I’ve learned and use them to control her. But I can’t. I’m too frazzled, uncertain, scared. I know he’s out there, on the other side of this wall.

I’m wearing the long flannel pajama pants that Esther let me borrow once (months ago) and I’ve never returned. Socks on the feet that no longer belong to me, sleeping in my bra – even though I always swore I would never do that unless I wanted to. I zip up my jacket and crawl underneath every single part of the covers even though I know I will be much too warm inside; not just pulling them to my chin but all the way up and over my face so he won’t be able to see me, fooling myself into thinking he won’t catch it. That it will be enough. I need as many barriers around me as I can get, no matter the cost.

I want to ask her to go away, I want to scream it, but I can’t. In some strange way she feels like protection, another hurdle to jump. “It’s not the same,” I say. “I didn’t do anything. I never did.”

“Yeah and that’s the problem, isn’t it?” She knocks my bag onto the floor. “You never did anything.”

It strikes me that she can spit my exact same words back to me and yet give them such a twisted new meaning, all with just a slightly different inflection. It always ends the same. I put my hands against my ears and pinch my eyes shut, simply waiting. Waiting to be overtaken, violated, destroyed.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Time moves back. Steam has filled the room, blurred the mirrors almost completely, but not enough. I’m sweating yet still fully clothed. Adding her breath to the moisture in the room, she sits at the base of the door – which I noticed not for the first time doesn’t have a lock, no way to ensure privacy and I suck in haltingly – rubbing her feet absently, as if deciding her thoughts about what just happened. I want to cut my feet off.

Shaving my legs in the shower is tempting as HELL. I am so close… But beneath her watching eye, I take my soap and I wipe it directly across my own, desperate to erase any reminder of the make-up that brought about compliments just like I’d changed out of my concert black attire ASAP.

And then – grabbing my feet (what started it all), crouched in the shadows at the back of the shower as the hot water threatens to burn my skin – when the tears begin to fall, I convince myself the solution is stinging my eyes. She helps convince me of a lot of things.