How it all began

An introduction of the protagonist, Alexandra Welsh.

St Mary’s Mental Hospital, located in a remote area in the hillside acts as a dwelling place for clinically psychotic children ranging from pre-adolescents to teenagers diagnosed with a plethora of mental disorders. Basically it acts as a dumping ground for parents with problem children who are tired of having to deal with them. And here I am standing at its threshold about to become its newest resident.

Perhaps I should start with the basics. Let’s begin with an introduction. My name is Alexandra Welsh. I am fifteen years old. My father is Richard Welsh. Unless you have been living under a rock until now, I can wager you’ve heard of him. Besides being one of the most acclaimed doctors ever, he also owns a huge chain of hospitals and pharmaceutical companies all of which are said to be the best possible. He is one of the most prominent, powerful, and respected figures in the land. So, that’s dear old daddy, the quintessential rich guy- a workaholic, a detached father and a man with money to burn. He barely even spoke to me, except when it’s absolutely necessary. I probably only saw him once or twice a week. My uncle said that he didn’t always use to be like this. He used to act like a completely different person when my mother was still alive, but he changed drastically after she died; when I was just five years old. Everyone says that she was a really kind and beautiful person and despite the fact that their marriage had been arranged my father and her were quite fond of each other. I'm always told I inherited her looks, and having looked at her pictures I must say I agree. My long and wavy brown hair and onyx coloured eyes coupled with my tan skin and tall and slender body made me look just like a younger version of her. Never having met my mother I guess I took a certain amount of comfort in that.

I do have a stepmother though. My father married her shortly after my mom died, I’m guessing for the purpose of acting like a mother to me, or maybe for business connections. She had never really cared much for me. She was too busy vying for the attention of her husband by spending large amounts of money in spas, expensive clothes and plastic surgery; or just drowning her sorrows in alcohol when none of it worked. She only spoke to me when required, or when she was all bitter and drunk and needed a verbal punching bag to abuse. So, like every other clichéd rich heir/heiress I spent most of my childhood being passed on from one nanny to another. Plus there was the added pressure from my father to be the best at everything.

While I may have mentioned that he didn’t really pay any attention to me he still made sure that I excelled at everything I did. Actually that was probably the only thing he even kept track of when it came to me. The only time he paid even the slightest bit of attention to me was when I brought home a trophy or a report card with straight A’s. I was probably nothing more than an asset to him anyway, the sole heir to his empire whom he had to condition to take over at the time of his departure. But nevertheless he was my father and like every other daughter, my father’s attention was something I had craved ever since I was little. I looked up to my father and wished to be just like him. So I tried to do whatever it took to please him. Hence the fact that I had a jam packed schedule all the time. Not only was I on the top of my class, but I was also student council president, played the piano, had a black belt in karate, and took part in the chess and debate clubs. My routine consisted of waking up at 4:30 every day, studying for some time, and then getting ready to leave for school. After school I normally stayed back for student council duties or club activities, after which I came home to my piano teacher, leaving for karate practice immediately after, and then after dinner, I usually retired to my room and studied till exhaustion finally overtook me and I passed out on the bed, only to wake up the next morning to do it all over again. At times I wondered how I hadn't keeled over from exhaustion already. I guess I'd simply grown used to it.

At school, everyone looked up to me. I was the golden girl of the exclusive Verdona Academy for the rich and elite. I was the girl who you could expect to stay calm even during the direst of situations. I was also the girl who had almost the entirety of the male student population running after her. I knew I should be flattered, but I wasn’t because I knew that more than anything; their attraction was just because of my popularity as the class topper and student council president , and my high position in society because of my father. It also probably didn’t hurt that I was quite easy on the eyes. Because of the naturally conventional looks I had inherited from my mother, I could easily be considered one of the most beautiful girls at school. But it never was something I was particularly proud of. My looks were something I was born with and I couldn’t really change them even if I wanted to. I never had been particularly inclined to spend a lot of time in personal grooming. I always preferred to spend my time in a more productive manner, and even when I had some free time on my hands I usually spent it playing the piano or curled up with a good book, instead of going to parties or gabbing with other girls about trivial things like the latest trends in fashion. My sense of style was aesthetically appealing, but not very fashionable; and my makeup was always kept to the bare minimum, and it wasn’t like I could do much with the ugly uniforms they made us wear. But, everyone still seemed to find me beautiful anyway. To tell the truth, sometimes I wished I was ugly just so I could get all the extra attention off of me. Every day, in the morning I would find my locker stuffed with love letters from male and sometimes even female admirers. I even got love confessions in person, and despite rejecting every single one of them, the regular onslaught never stopped. Apparently my cold and detached persona attracted them even more. I was pegged the ice queen- cold, beautiful, and completely unattainable. Though it’s completely exaggerated, I have to admit, that title suits me. I was known throughout the school for always being cold and keeping my distance. It wasn’t that I was mean; on the contrary, I was always nice to everyone around me, and I actually had a lot of friends. But I guess I just preferred to stay away, maintain a comfortable distance. I did not want to get attached; because I knew that if they stopped being beneficial to me I would toss them aside like yesterday’s garbage. It’s not like they wouldn’t do the same to me. We had nothing in common. In fact, the only reason we hung out together was because our parents were business acquaintances. They were insufferable people who had no substance and only talked about superficial things. I knew that if I ever really needed them, they wouldn’t be there for me. I never really told them anything important. I knew they would just use it against me later. We just met up at school, talked about vapid things of no actual importance, sometimes made plans to meet up on the weekends or sometimes they would force me to go to parties and then after school we went our merry ways.

So this was the way I lived my life. In this frigid and unhealthy home environment with false friends who would never be by my side I grew up to be a very reserved and guarded person. My only comfort were my books, my music, and of course…my razor blade.

And now we come to the thing that caused me to land in this mess in the first place.

The truth is I was anything but the person I portrayed myself to be. I wasn’t the calm and cool and confident person I pretended to be. I wasn’t the person who always seemed to excel at whatever she tried, and did so effortlessly. It was all just a façade, a mask I put on to fool the world. I had never really talked to anyone about this, about how broken I really was inside.I never told any of them. I never told them that whenever I couldn’t keep myself busy enough to literally pass out from exhaustion, I cried myself to sleep, overwhelmed by stress and depression. I never told them how numb I felt at times and that sometimes I cut open my own skin just to be able to feel something. I never showed them the multitude of scars; old and new; that were scattered all over my arms, thighs and stomach. No one knew about my scars, and I didn’t intend to tell anyone either. It wasn’t even that hard to hide. No one really questioned my wearing of long sleeves even when it’s sweltering outside. My blades were kept hidden in a locked box under my bed and none of the maids went snooping around my things so they never found them. I also took the utmost precautions to make sure that the cuts wouldn’t get infected or that I wouldn’t make a cut too deep for me to handle. It was my dirty little secret, the thing I couldn’t let anyone know. It was just a coping mechanism. I did it to cope with all the stress and uncertainty that came from pretending to be perfect when you’re so obviously not.

That word again…Perfect. Wasn’t that the reason I was in this mess in the first place? The desire to be perfect, the desire to be good enough for things you felt you didn’t deserve. What was perfect really? The dictionary defined perfect as having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be. I knew I wasn’t perfect, far from it in fact. I had spent all my life trying to be perfect, to be the ideal daughter, the ideal student, the ideal human being. I had tried so hard and yet no matter how hard I tried, I never achieved my goal. The word perfect, the word itself always sends me flying among a wave of bittersweet feelings. It’s as if life’s nothing but a race and perfection is always one step ahead of me. No matter how fast I run, I never catch up; perfection is always ahead of me. But I never stopped trying because I always felt like if I ran just a little further, if I held on just a little longer, I could catch up. That feeling of almost reaching your goal, that ecstatic feeling, filled with hope and desire. It was the only feeling that I could experience through the numb haze that always surrounded me; and that feeling, it was addicting. Yet, I couldn’t help but feel like I would never be perfect. Despite everything I did, my father never thought that I was good enough. He never ever told me he was proud of me. So obviously I could never tell him about my troubles. He had always told me never to let my emotions control me. He would just see this as a sign of weakness.

I was really grateful that no one had figured anything out, and yet I couldn’t help but hope that someone would, just so they could save me, save me from myself. No matter how hard I worked to keep myself busy, no matter what I tried, I just couldn’t be happy; and every day I felt like I was sinking just a little further into the depths of the darkness that dwell in my mind, that the desire to keep going was diminishing just a little bit every day. It alarmed me how apathetic I had become to most things, and I found myself thinking more and more frequently that someday even if the blade cut too deep, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

Well, the heavens decided to grant me my wish.

Reviews

[Arunima Nayak]

Thanks for the review! I will do my best to work on that.

[Connie Dai]

Interesting, but I would have liked it more if the paragraphs were smaller - it was a bit too hard to read.