Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
But for some reason, the act of showering leaves me feeling depleted instead of renewed. I don’t get to wash away my anxieties in the hot scalding water.
I shake.
I dwell.
On the days I manage to bring myself to take a shower, I feel as if I’m going to pass out while my head is pummeled with the continuous assault of water. And then after I’m clean. After I’ve wrapped my flushed, damp skin in a towel, I sit and stare intonothingness. My eyes blink and I simply breathe. Energy at an all time low. Pruned fingers clenching the towel’s fabric as if it’s a stress ball. As if the act of being still on my bed will fix me.
It’s become so bad, that I’ve found myself avoiding the act of showering altogether until absolutely necessary.
The shower has become a reminder of how utterly broken I’ve become. And I hate it. If I could smash the porcelain tiles into bits with a sledgehammer, I might feel better for attacking it, the way it attacks me.
But it’s necessary. And I keep stepping into it, time and time again, hopeful that this time I’ll feel different. This time, I’ll be able to function normally.
I can hear my mother’s words pinging around in my brain.
“I just don’t understand. It’s simple.”
Yes.
So fucking simple, I scoff. She could never understand that just because something comes easily to most people, it isn’t easy for everyone. Another painful reminder of how much of a disappointment I am to her. To myself. She thought that if I just prayed hard enough, I’d magically be better. Be different. Be the daughter she envisioned.
That’s why she sent me to Kingston in the first place. Kidnapped by strangers in the middle of the night. Their hands rough and bruising on my body as I was dragged from my childhood home. My parents standing off to the side, looking so damn proud of themselves.
“It’s for your own good.” I could hear my mother say. The woman who was supposed to protect me, sending me off to be fixed.
Now, all these years later, I still haven’t found out what good came of that awful place.
I force myself to extricate my body from the warm cocoon of blankets I’ve wrapped around me and head into the bathroom.My skin pimples in the cold air, making my flesh a shield against the world.
My mind circles on the anonymous text messages. It has to be a prank. Someone who’s bored enough to look up my number. Or maybe they got it from my mom, though I’ve barely kept in contact with her. She’s always giving people information they shouldn’t have. I take my pills, sighing heavily as their effects take hold of me.
I could have my number changed. Or contact the phone company to see if I can get whoever it is blocked.
Stepping into the shower, I let the warm water cascade down my back, reminding myself to breathe.
I go through the steps of cleansing my body, almost robotically. Shampoo. Conditioner. Focusing intensely on what I’m doing as if it will make me feel less shaky. Dizziness ebbs along my temples, pressing in as my lathered fingertips rub the grease out of my scalp. Eyes clenched tight, my hamstrings spasm making me feel as if I’m going to collapse. Fuck. I don’t want to go out like this for some stranger to find me weeks later, sprawled out naked and bloated from the water. A tangle of limbs caught in the shower curtain. I rush the rest of the shower, the entire time feeling like I’m barely hanging on. The rational side of my brain tells me it’s just the anxiety, that I’m not actively dying. But the physical symptoms I’m experiencing make it difficult to bat away any trace of these emotionally charged thoughts.
What did Dr. Thurston say a few sessions ago? Something about remembering all the other times I thought I was dying only to have it just be the anxiety brain talking. I cling to that thought like a lifeline as I slink out of the shower, wrapping my body tightly in a towel.
As I turn towards the mirror, I let out a shriek, dropping the towel.
The words,I know your secret,are sprawled out in crude handwriting slashing through the fogged-up mirror.
If I was shaking before, it’s nothing compared to right now.
Someone was in my bathroom… while I was showering.
I look frantically around the room, wondering why I hadn’t heard anything. Are they still here?
A shrill ding comes from my phone on the counter, and I lunge for it.
Heart pounding so hard I can feel it in the souls of my feet, I look at the message from the same unknown number that had been taunting me last night.
Attached Image.
Quickly pressing the attachment, I’m met with a dark picture of myself sprawled out in bed, a large cock sitting right on top of my lips. I press my fingers to my mouth in horror.
