Sanity Fleeting 3

Warning: Contains potentially disturbing self harm

My hands rested on the door frame, chewed and shredded cuticles freshly cleansed of dried blood by the steamy shower I just finished. For a few moments I linger there just outside the bedroom. Once I remember where I am I enter. Some habits die hard.

I ease down on my bed, a full sized without head or footboard, as I prefer. Years of sleeping on a couch in my nephew's bedroom in my younger years have made me crave space to stretch out. Not that I was ungrateful to Orchid and Leonard, my mother's older child and the man she eventually married. They had done the best they could for me back then with what little money they'd had. In the absence of a sane mother and interested father, I had been their part-time problem out of the goodness of their hearts for nearly half my childhood.

"Well what the hell else was I supposed to do?" Orchid had rolled her almond shaped brown eyes on the occasions when I had asked her why she bothered to put up with me. "You know you couldn't go back down south with Granny being too sick to raise a child full time and that white man too proud to acknowledge you most of the time."

Though it was our sole link to one another, our shared mother was never brought up. She had gone back to Georgia when I was not quite 10 and Orchid 20 years old, after a brief 4 month stint in North Dakota. Circumstances had necessitated that she go back without me. For all intents and purposes, she was dead to me.

A half scabbed two and a half inch long gash marked my right forearm, my latest handiwork. Now that I was a legal adult, graduated from high school with honors, and deemed capable of relatively independent living I could regulate my emotions however I wished. There was nobody here to monitor my every move, to make me remain standing at the bathroom door showered and dressed for bed, until they could look me over and watch me go to bed.

I sighed,closed my eyes, and instantly I was 10 years old under the scrutinizing eyes of an undergrad from the local university picking up week end shifts for extra cash. What could possibly be easier than crashing on the couch and watching tv all night while half a dozen throw away children slept in rooms outfitted with motion sensors? Even so, almost every weekend I was there, someone new was going through the routines.

"What happened to your arm?"

Freshly showered and in my pyjamas with my washed hair hanging in heavy black spirals down my back, I stood at the door of the bathroom with my hands braced on the door frame. By this time I had settled into the arrangement although I was not happy about my predicament and went through the routines of group home life without a second thought. My comfort level was such that I had started accepting the scrutiny of paid strangers as normal.

"Your arm, the left one." The stocky co-ed in Fighting Sioux sweatshirt and green leggings hustled over to me.

Instinctively I flinched away wondering what I had done wrong or stupid to have someone all aghast over me. It was in my casefile that I loathed being touched by anyone, but my caregiver that night was unaware. She wrenched my hand from the door frame, turned my arm over to expose the inner flesh, and tapped up near my armpit. Three discolored half moon shaped scratches marked my arm.

"What happened here?"

As brusquely as I could without getting into trouble for being aggressive with staff, I wrenched my arm from her grip and grumbled, "Nothing." To me, it was nothing. After all I was awkward and clumsy as all get out, forever tripping or running into things. In any case I strongly preferred to keep pains to myself same as I did my emotions.

"You know if somebody is hurting you then you need to tell me." The co-ed persisted.

"It's nothing." I insisted stubbornly my agitation level skyrocketing. Hand back on the door frame I tried not to have an attitude as I tried to continue the routine. "Can I go out now?"

After several more tense seconds finally with an exasperated tone, "Yes".

Under her probing gaze I walked across the hallway to my assigned bedroom and entered as if nothing had happened. Once there I quickly got under the double bed's yellow duvet and put my glasses on the nightstand. This announces that I am done talking for the night and the co-ed accepted my silence.

She turned off the bedroom's light and activated the door alarm before leaving me to sleep.

In the dark, under the covers I dig my ragged bitten off nails into the soft flesh of my inner arm until it no longer hurts knowing I will have still more marks to explain in the morning. Each and every mark must have an explanation even the smallest graze on the shin. Heaven forbid I have a bruise. Nothing went unnoticed in that place.

In the present I open my eyes and examine my arms. Nearly all of the scars have faded by now. On the outside I probably look as normal as could be, which is exactly what I crave with my dislike of pity being second only to my aversion of physical contact.

One thing is certain.

Though I am free of the institution I will never be free of those who truly raised me and if Orchid or Leonard sees the scabby slash they'll never accept the flimsy excuses that I insulted the intelligence of others with. Did I think they were born last night? Why the hell did I keep making my exotic cafe au lait skin ugly with all these cuts and scratches? And I wondered why they hesitated to leave even a paper clip within my reach!

Dismayed I force myself to quit scraping the scabs away from the scratch to make it bleed again. The reason I made it seems silly in retrospect. As the sleeping pills start to take effect my body enters autopilot.

19 years old I still rock myself to sleep every single night but cannot tell you the reason why.

I rock myself and rock myself until everything is right in my world or I fall asleep, whichever comes first.

Tonight, like every other night in memory, it is the latter.

Author's Note

Feel free to comment. It might help to read 'Sanity Fleeting' and 'Sanity Fleeting 2' as well.

Reviews

[SweetNutmeg]

This is very intense. I think a trigger warning would be a good idea because of the self harm element, maybe even a mature rating.

You are writing things in a more complex structure than your last piece and it works. And I really commend you for presenting us with so much showing and only a minimal amount of telling. You're doing fantastic with that. I feel much more invested in the main character than i did in Sleep My Angel. Partially because there were multiple characters in Sleep My Angel, but mainly because you're doing such a good job of letting us see her interior world.

This is painful to read, so I can't say I expect to enjoy the next installment, but I am eager to learn more about our heroine, and look forward to critiquing what comes next.

You are welcome to send me a private message so that I know you have a new chapter up sooner.

[MeratheRestless]

Thank you for taking the time to read. I am glad that you find the main character alluring. While I never considered a trigger warning since I write darker topics with such ease, I can see in retrospect how others might be disturbed. Let me know if anything else strikes you,