CHARLOTTE
Charlotte paced her room, trying to calm her breathing and keep her rising anxiety and guilt at bay. She listened as Dani walked to her room and gently shut the door. The soft click of the latch was like a fist around Charlotte’s heart.
She knew Dani was uncomfortable with loud noises, she knew yelling and slamming the door would send Dani into a sensory panic.
The cruelty of what she’d done settled onto her chest, cracking her ribs and constricting her lungs.
Why am I like this? Why do I do this? Charlotte sat on the edge of her bed with her arms around herself gently rocking as she started to cry. The truth was, it was the only way she knew how to protect herself. Hurt them first, before they hurt you.
When Dani had pointed out her behavior over the past weekend Charlotte panicked. She thought Dani must have put the pieces together, she must’ve somehow known that Charlotte had deeper feelings than just friends. The fear gripped her head and roared in her ears. She attacked Dani to shut her up before she could say it, before she could tell Charlotte how weird and uncomfortable it was that she had feelings for her.
Greasy shame coated her stomach and threatened to upchuck its contents. She should have let Dani confront her, facing unrequited love is easier than thinking about the verbal stones she threw at her best friend.
After about an hour, she heard Dani finally shut off the shower. She wanted to talk to her, she needed to apologize for what she said. Her mind was screaming, Dani will throw all the hate back in your face. Do you really think she wants to see you after that? You’ll be lucky if she still lives here in the morning. You’re a mean ugly girl, wouldn’t it be better to be alone?
She pushed back, forcing her mind to think rationally. Dani is too kind to spew hate the way I do. Even if she doesn’t forgive me, I know she would appreciate the apology. This isn’t about me, it’s about the fact that my friend is hurting.
She finally gathered her courage and steeled her nerves. Quietly she crept across the hall and tapped on Dani’s door.
No answer, “Dani?” She said softly as she cracked open the door.
There she was, in bed with wet hair and bare shoulders showing above the blankets. Charlotte thought of the first night she met Dani. She still looked just as beautiful and innocent as ever. She was in a deep still sleep, Charlotte missed her opportunity. Tomorrow she would have to gather her remaining bravery and try again.
Charlotte closed the door and gently turned the knob so the latch wouldn’t click and stalked back to her room. She laid on her bed and tried to convince herself everything would be okay. Someday, she and Dani would move on from this and they could pretend it had never happened.
Charlotte grabbed her journal from her nightstand and started to write. Putting everything on paper helped to keep her from overthinking. It was one of the only ways she could sort out her thoughts, almost as if they completely left her mind once she wrote them down. She spilled everything in the pages, without any particular order. As a negative thought raced through her brain it was captured and released through her pen.
Once she had trapped every thought in the notebook she started writing down her swirling emotions. She struggled with those more, she could feel them, but naming them was nearly impossible. If she couldn’t identify the emotion she described it, she’d become an expert in metaphors and similes this way.
She wrote “I feel as though my head has doubled in size and grown green warts, like if anyone looked at me they would run away screaming. I feel like I should gouge out my eyes, sew my mouth shut, and spend the rest of my life in a shack in the forest. That way no one would ever have the misfortune of meeting me.” Shame, contriteness, abasement… none of the words held the weight. None of these words demonstrated the depth of this feeling.
By the time Charlotte finished writing it was 1 am and she had covered four pages, front and back. She felt better, but she knew the relief would be short lived. She studied the pages, her tears had smeared some of the ink, and her shaking hand didn’t help the legibility. She closed the journal and put it back in its place.
Even though it was late, Charlotte was no where near ready for bed. So she lay, sprawled out on her back watching her ceiling fan go round and round, trying to keep her mind empty. By now the water heater had probably recovered from Dani’s long shower so, Charlotte decided on a bath.
She tried to read to stay distracted, but the words just weren’t sticking. She knew better than to close her eyes and try to relax, she knew her brain would immediately jump on the opportunity to make her cringe over her most recent mistake and every single one proceeding it. They would march through her mind like a parade, every float being an embarrassing outburst, lie, or awkward social interaction. A celebration of Charlotte’s stupidity.
Instead she decided to focus on cleaning. Sort of like a ritual. As she scrubbed the loofa over her skin and rinsed in the water she imagined every adverse thought, emotion, and memory was inked on her body. She envisioned the soap and water washing them away.
She stepped out of the tub and watched the water whirl down the drain. Putting on some dry pajamas she plopped back down on the bed. Her bath hadn’t done much to make her sleepy, and she knew she would feel it in the morning. Not that it mattered, with the events that had unfolded this evening, she had almost immediately decided to skip classes tomorrow.
Meditation it is. She thought. She didn’t care for meditation, she’d never really been good at it, her mind was just too busy and she was powerless against the tidal waves of thoughts. Dani always told her she just needed to practice it more, but Charlotte felt that writing was her own form of meditation. Why does it have to be sitting still and emptying your mind?
She gave it a shot anyway. Maybe she’ll fall asleep trying, that wouldn’t be a bad outcome. She laid on her back, under the covers and made herself comfortable. Closing her eyes she starting counting her breaths, in for four seconds and out for four seconds. She focused on acknowledging incoming thoughts and letting them go. Easy enough if your the kind of person who only has one thought at a time. She thought crossly, and immediately reminded herself to let it go. She didn’t keep track of how long she had been meditating, but eventually the thoughts weren’t overlapping, the space between them stretched until finally she was just breathing.
Somehow, Charlotte was blessed with the presence of sleep. Fitful, unrestful sleep, sure, but sleep nonetheless. She tossed and turned, kicking the blankets off only to cover herself up again.
She dreamt that she was running. At first she was only aware of the sensation of running, then she felt the ground beneath her feet. Hard, damp, leaves and twigs littering the ground. She saw the trees racing past her, the branches reaching out to claw at her and hold her back. The air was humid and heavy, sweat dripped down her face and back, why am I running? she thought.
The sounds crashed into her. Yelling, screaming, the sound of boots running after her, covering her footsteps. She risked a glance behind herself and saw human silhouettes, flames, and pitchforks. What kind of medieval bullshit is this? Her foot snagged on a root, the ground was coming up on her face, but slowly as if falling through jello. She met the ground and went through it, the earth disappeared as if it was nothing more than smoke. She came through the other side rising back up on her feet.
She quickly looked around to assess her surroundings. She held her breath, listening to see if the swarm of angry shadows was still coming for her, nothing. The air smelled musty and damp, she was in what seemed to be a one room cabin. There was a rotten bed, stuffed with hay in one corner, and an old cast iron stove in another. The walls of the cabin bowed in as if it was barely able to hold the weight of all the rot and dust. She continued turning, and came face to face with a mirror.
The mirror was large and oval with a tarnished brass gilding around it. She could hardly make out a reflection, the mirror was dark and spotty from years of abandonment. She stepped closer, suddenly, as if commanded to come to life the reflection cleared. She stumbled back at the site of the monster, and the monster stumbled too. She studied the creature and it studied her. It had green bumpy skin, a large hooked nose, a hunched back and skinny limbs. The monster’s bulging eyes met hers and brought a long crooked hand to its face. She watched realization spread across its features and turn to horror.
That’s me. It’s me. I’m the monster. There was a scream she couldn’t let out, she couldn’t get in enough air to shout her dread. She stood there feeling the hot tears stream down her ugly face, her insides trembling at the sight before her.
“Yes.” a snake-like voice hissed. “Look at what you are. This feeling? The dread, the horror, the heart-stopping panic. This is what everyone feels when they make the unfortunate mistake of looking your way. You are disgusting.” The voice spat out the last word like it was a bitter taste in its mouth. “Stay here, make yourself at home. It’s not so bad, Dear. More than a beast like you deserves, wouldn’t you agree?” The voice said snickering.
Charlotte’s head was spinning she was studying the walls around her, searching for a source to the voice when her back made contact with the cold mirror. She whirled around and saw the monster, saw herself, grinning wickedly. The monster made a motion with it’s finger as if beckoning her. Charlotte didn’t dare make a move, the face twisted with anger and lunged, leaping through the mirror grabbing her with it’s twig like fingers. Gnashing crooked too-big-teeth in her face and pulling her to the mirror.
She fought, kicking and screaming, begging the monster to release her. Despite the slenderness of its limbs, the monster didn’t even seem to be struggling with Charlotte’s thrashing. Screams tore through her, unbridled terror gripping all of her senses as her feet slipped through the mirror like stepping into a pool. No one was coming to save her, even if they heard her who would feel that she was worth rescuing? She’s a waste of human being, a disgrace, there was nothing in her worth salvaging.
Her shoulders slipped through the mirror, Charlotte let out a final whimper.
Gasping she sat up in bed. Her pajamas were soaked in sweat and her lashes were wet.
Just a dream. She thought and wondered how much of that she had acted out in her sleep. Her throat felt raw and scratchy. Did she really scream? She looked at the time 9:30 am. She got out of bed and tore off the sweat covered sheets to be washed and went to the bathroom.
She kept her eyes down away from the mirror. She knew it was a dream, but the fear was real. On her way out of the bathroom she stopped in front of the vanity with her head bowed. She saw her very normal looking feet with pink painted toenails. Her normal legs, though they were long and slender, they were nothing like the monster she dreamt of. She looked at her hands, normal fingers and thumbs with pink nails to match her toes. Hesitantly, she raised her head and looked at her face. Blonde hair and blue eyes, a pale oval shaped face with pink full lips. Normal.