...And How I Ran

By; CompulsiveLiar

My eyes were staring at the water that ran from the faucet into the bathtub, making a loud rushing noise that drowned my ears. I cocked my head to the side and squinted as I laced my fingers through each other. I held my arms around my knees, keeping them hugged tightly to my chest, and sat as stilly and silently as I could will myself to. I barely allowed myself to breathe.

The tile floor beneath me was cold, and I could feel it through my shorts and feet enough to send a shiver up my spine. I briefly closed my eyes, then immediately opened them to stare back at the water. The water, and how it ran from the faucet like darkness chasing the sun away. It was almost like I couldn't look away from it, and my ears most definitely couldn't tune out the thrumming of the water against the base of the tub.

I can't even fathom how many times I had found myself in this position, with my knees brought up to my chest. I can't tell you how much it distracts me from how painful any situation might be, how amazing it is to just sit and listen to the constant. It is constant that keeps me stabilized, because if I don't have a constant, then I don't have any support. And even this constant, the unending pulsing of the water slowly filling the bathtub, can distract me. It doesn't take much.

From outside the locked bathroom door, I could hear my mother pounding on it. How couldn't I hear it? She was such a loud woman, always obnoxiously doing outlandish things to get attention or to express her point. Usually, she got like this when she was angry; I didn't like seeing my mom angry, because it was usually me who she was upset with.

Mom always had been cold to me. It never helped anything, and she knew that, but with my condition, she didn't think anything could make this worse. It can. It can, and it does. It has my whole life, but I won't dare tell her. She won't listen.

"Open up this door right now," she barked.

I just tuned her out as best as I could and watched the water. I watched and listened and, in one sharp movement, I felt it. I felt the rushing of the water splashing upon my left palm, the feeling of warmth comforting and soothing my icy skin. And as the water ran, I coaxed the goosebumps on my arms back down into the flesh so I could sit on the icy floor for just a few moments longer. My eyes were wide, but I couldn't help that. All I could do was watch as the hot liquid thrust against the base of the tub, and how it filled quicker than I had intended it to.

My mind didn't wander, because it was so far occupied on this instant in which the water ran. It ran with a purity that, as it seared at my fingertips from the heat, my body shook with a raw intensity that nothing could quench. Nothing but the water.

Both of my hands reached to the faucet's knobs, turning them to the left and shutting off the water all in one blow. Slowly, I stood, my gaze never once leaving my hazy reflection in the steaming water. My eyes looked glazed, but I knew that wasn't the water's doing: it was my own. My eyes always seemed a bit off, but that wasn't my fault. Never was it ever my fault, that was something I had been told many times.

But not by my mother.

She still was pounding on the door, and my forehead creased when I noticed that her thrashing was causing ripples to erupt and disconnect the peace that had once grazed the face of the lake I stared into. I felt like never talking to that woman ever again. I felt like she had taken my life and destroyed it, ripped it up into tiny pieces, and thrown them out the window. And all because of those small ripples. I couldn't stand those which disrupted the calm, the peace. I loved the serenity, and she was ruining every second of it for me.

I pulled my t-shirt over my head and stared down at myself. Not my reflection, but my honest skin. A thick scar ran from the bottom of my stomach up toward the middle of my chest; I traced it with my finger, and shivered from the water that dripped down the pale whiteness. That scar, as well, disturbed the quiet, and I felt like it was screaming at me. It kept screaming, "Here I am! Now, watch as I sear the soundness and tranquility like flames to the wings of a moth!"

That scar, how I wished it had never appeared. I wished I could take it back, but forever it would be there to haunt me of the darkness that now left my life secluded and desolate. I scratched at the skin it occupied with my sharp, unclipped nails, almost as if I believed I could rip it off if I dug hard enough, if I dug deep enough.

My pants came off next, slowly sliding them down my legs as I felt the rush, the need of the warm water crashing down on my bare skin. A tingling sensation of yearning clawed up my body, and in doing so, I tore off my underwear as the feeling climbed. Once it reached my neck, I knew I couldn't hold it inside of me any longer, and I jumped inside the bathtub.

A soft sigh escaped my lips as the heat engulfed me, pleasure building from my toes to my chin. It shot through me like a jolt, splashing my skin silkily and as smoothly as water had flown from the tub upon my surprise entry. The floor, I knew, was coated in droplets of the fluid that now encased my body in ecstasy.

Nothing else mattered in that moment. Nothing else mattered but me and that water. Even my mother, the center of my discomfort and the pain that cried into my world through her, didn't seem to matter. I dreamt that he was here with me. He, my best friend in the entire world. I dreamt his arms were swirling around me with each drop of water that cascaded down my body. I dreamt that, instead of this heat, it was his body providing this warmth, and that I could stay with him forever that way.

"Opal, you will open up this door for me right this minute!"

Briefly, I let my mind flutter upon the fact that my mother's fists must be sore by now. I wondered if she noticed, or if all she could focus on was how furious she was with me. I couldn't see what I'd done all that wrong; certainly, she might get a bit grumpy if I returned home from his house an hour later than I said I would be, but she didn't trust me. She didn't trust my condition, and she didn't trust him. I didn't see the reasoning behind that, either; we had been friends my entire life, and I loved him with all my soul. He had been there for me when even my mother hadn't, but she couldn't see past the fact that he was a boy and I, a girl. She didn't think it right.

When I had returned home, she had called me names. Names I didn't like thinking of. I wanted nothing more than to be with him once more, and to forget all about this night.

But this night wasn't going away, and all I had in his place was this clear, warm, delicate water that reminded me of him more than anything.

And so, with one deep breath, I succumbed.