I was in my old bedroom from the house on Talbert Avenue, the mustard-yellow one across the street from the Catholic church and the cemetery. Brother and I had traded bedrooms; I took the smaller of the two because it had a closet that I wanted to turn into my computer room.
I was laying on my bed, on my teal sheets with the purple ink stain from when I fell asleep writing in my journal, and I was kicking my shoes off and one of them was really, really hard to kick off, I didn't unlace them all the way and my left shoe clung stubbornly and tightly to my ankle. From the corner of my eye, I could see someone climbing through my low window.
There was a little girl, maybe 5 or 6 years old, in a flannel nightgown (white, with tiny pink roses and eyelet lace on the hems; long sleeves with pearly buttons. I used to have one just like it; Gramma made it for me). Her hair was the color of corn silk, eyes as big as saucers, but her mouth was as tiny and as red as they come.
I jumped off my bed as soon as I saw her and punched her as hard as I could in the face; it's like slow motion. I watched her face crumple as falls backwards and her tears came. She was screeching and sobbing in that frightened way only children can while I continued to lay into her. She threw her arms over her head to protect herself, and squeezed her eyes shut tight.
I was holding her blonde hair in both of my fists and smashing her little head into my window sill. I grimaced and, bared my teeth as the sickening smack of her head against the sill becomes deafening and eventually drowns out all other sounds.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thudthudthudthud.
There was blood spattered on my face, I felt the warmth of it pooling around my knees, I could taste it, bold and coppery on my lips. I was breathing heavily, and when I
She wasn't crying anymore. Not moving, not screaming. Her blue eyes stared blankly at some point past me, one of them half closed, like a beat-up baby doll. I stand up and my feet slap and splash as I step out of the dark, crimson puddle. A child's body holds a surprising amount of blood.
I am out of breath.
I sit back down on my bed and take off my other shoe.My hands are sticky. I pull the covers up to my chin and curl up under them so that I can feel myself shrinking and getting smaller and it feels good, so I curl up on my side and pull my knees all the way to my chest and hug them there. Delicious, hideous laughter is spilling out of me and the only thing I can think of is that no one will ever believe that I killed that little girl...
because you can't kill yourself and still live, and that little girl was... me.
Meanwhile, I look at her blond hair, now almost a shade of auburn, as the blood leaks across my wooden floor and under my TV stand. I wonder to myself if it will stain the hardwood.
I woke up in a cold sweat, sobbing. I had bitten through my own lip.
Mama said we had to move again.