I took off the remainder of my clothes. As I got into the tub and the water rose around my body, my muscles were still wound tight even at the coldness on my skin.
I let my head fall back to the tub’s edge, closed my eyes, and swallowed with effort as I tried to calm my breathing.
It wasn’t working.
When the tub was full, I let my body sink into it. My chest, shoulders, neck, and then my head until I was completely under. A soft kind of calmness claimed me, and I stayed that way for a while, holding my breath with my eyes closed—when I was at my limit, I opened my eyes underwater, and the silhouette of my mother leaning by the tub was what I saw next.
She was still in that black dress.
I was about to come up, but her hands came into the water, holding my shoulders down.
“It’s okay,” her muffled voice said with a smile as she held me down, grip strong, while I fought to come up for air. “It’s all right, Elio; you will be with me soon.”
Even though I struggled, my whole body felt like it was paralyzed. I couldn’t move, and she held me tightly, firmly. But somehow, I was still struggling—in my mind, I was still fighting to move, get up, and intake oxygen, but my body wouldn’t respond, and my mother wouldn’t let go of me.
I couldn’t hold my breath any longer and was forced to part my lips underneath the water, both my nostrils and my mouth filling my lungs with liquid—and I was drowning.
Suddenly, she let me go, and the paralysis slipped from my body as I emerged with a force that had water pouring out of the tub to the floor; my hands—shaking—gripped the edge of the tub firmly as I coughed out the water, taking air into my lungs, wheezing.
My chest and eyes burned, my body shook—and no one was there… I was alone… I had been alone.
My mother was not here.
My mother is dead.
When I’d managed to cough air back into my lungs, I lifted myself from the tub and grabbed a towel by the side, wrapping it around myself firmly as I carelessly stepped out of the tub, forgetting water had soaked the tiles.
One second, my leg was on the floor, and the next, it was slipping, and my body was plummeting right underneath my feet, and I met the ground with a forceful, sharp thud that sounded like a slap.
Something shattered, and a sharp pain sliced into my elbow. There was also a tingling burn inside my mouth.
For a few minutes, I remained in that position on the ground. My body hurt. My head, light—and my mind, still a void.
December 1st.
I hated every single fucking bit of this day. Bad luck always followed. Everything always went wrong. Even if I prepared myself the day before, something would ruin it. Something that would hurt me, either mentally or physically.
Even today, I still could not pinpoint what or who exactly had jinxed me the day I turned nineteen.
Was it because I had woken up on the wrong side of the bed that day? Would things have turned out differently if I had woken up on my right side? Was it because I did not eat with Elia on that day? Or was it my sister’s words, which still echoed in my ear if I stopped and listened for her voice amongst the chaos in my head? The last three words she ever said to me.
“I hate you!”
A sigh left my lips as I started to move, trying to inspect the damage on my arm.
I had broken some glass objects during my fall, which injured me.
Looking in the direction where the pain came from, the bite intensified when I saw the gash.
The skin above my elbow had been slashed—deep enough to need stitches. The ground was messy, stained with blood and water.
“Fuck.”
I managed to stand, tremors still in my hands, as I headed to the mirror to check the damage inside my mouth.
I bared my teeth; they were all bloody. I’d injured my upper gum, but it didn’t hurt as much as my elbow.
I spat the blood into the sink and rinsed my mouth and teeth until the water ran clear.
