My fault.

Sensitive content warning. This story does contain the following trigger warnings;

Substance abuse

Physical violence and gore

Suicide attempt

She sat there, staring aimlessly at the infomercial playing across the screen. The blinds were pulled tightly shut, blocking out even a glimmer of light, suffocating me in its abyss-like darkness. I didn’t want to be here. I shouldn’t have gotten here first. I wanted to peel out of my own skin, let my soul slither across the floor and through the crack at the bottom of the front door. Her darker skin seemed sickeningly pale against the red couch. It had been bright crimson once. She had bought it to bring some kind of colour into the lounge room, into her life I suppose. It was stained now, splatters of spilled coffee and darker rings of rum and coke cocktails. She sunk a little heavier into the cushions, her body caving in on itself. I wanted to feel some kind of empathy or sympathy, some kind of compassion for her. But I can’t.

I don’t understand the Molotov cocktail of emotions swirling and churning within me, but I knew I was choking on them. Choking on the bile that been lodged in my throat for hours now, its suffocating pressure ever-present. I couldn’t swallow it down, couldn’t utter a word around it as I stood there, dumb and useless. The crushing urge to fill the silence was at war with the instinct to stay quiet and invisible. Filling the silence with idle chatter was like walking across a war-zone and hoping you didn’t tread on a landmine; the room would explode and take me with it. Remaining quiet meant safety; if I wasn’t there, there was no reason for her to implode.

“It’s your fault you know,” she muttered, her unfocused gaze still remained on the TV. I knew this trap well. I hadn’t uttered a word but I’d found the trip wire; she had pushed me into it. There was no way I was coming out of this room unscathed. How naïve and pathetically stupid of me to think otherwise. Still, I frowned at her sentence.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered, barely audible above the cackle of the morning news hosts now babbling on the TV. She didn’t look at me, didn’t even acknowledge that I had spoken, that I also existed in this hell-scape.

“You wouldn’t speak to me. It’s your fault.” Those words were said with such finality, the mortal blow given by a vengeful god. If it hadn’t been for the lump in my throat already inhibiting my ability to breathe, I would’ve been winded by that sentence. I would have clawed at my throat as I gasped and suffocated.

My fault.

It was my fault that she had scavenged the sedative pills for our anxious Labrador out of the cupboard, throwing anything in her way to the floor, unaware or uncaring for the broken objects.

It was my fault that she had washed them all down with her trusty enabler Jack Daniels, throwing back an entire litre bottle like it was a shot of tequila at an 18th birthday party. My fault that it fuelled the anger and self-hatred to the point of destruction.

It was my fault that she trashed the house, throwing the microwave through the kitchen window and shattering every dish and glass against the floor and walls. My fault she threw every object within reach until it shattered or broke.

It was my fault she got into the car, so inebriated she could barely fucking stand and tore out of the driveway, breaking a tire, mail boxes and neighbours’ bins in the process.

My fault my little brother called me in tears, his voice so shaky I could barely understand him. His words so saturated with fear that I was still nauseous from the residual taste of it coating my tongue.

“There’s an old barn out of town, near where we lived. That was the place. Google said carbon monoxide was a peaceful way to do it,” she continued on, completely unaware, or uncaring, of how I was currently drowning within my own flesh.

My fault she was going to kill herself.

The despair threatened to crush me then and there. Its weight was so unbearably heavy, the taste of it so thick it coagulated in my lungs. My fingers trembled with the urge to tear at my chest, to crack open my ribs to relieve the pressure that built up and up within my body. I blinked back the tears, refusing to let them spill; if they did, they would never stop flowing. What a way to confirm that I was just a useless husk of flesh, unable to be anything but a waste of matter and consciousness. A pointless existence that is nothing more than a waste of resources. Nothing more than a piece of life that should’ve never come to be.

But I had been brought into this world, this life. By her.

She did this. I’m just the existing consequence of her unbearable need to not be alone. My fault? Fuck that, this was her fault! She did this!

How dare she put the weight of her existence upon my shoulders. How dare she shove the responsibility into my hands and act like it was a beloved gift for me to cherish, to hold dear. I am her child, of course I fumbled that responsibility! I glared at her from the shadows of the lounge room, those tears now burning and boiling within the depths of my eyes. My hands shook with the violence surging through my blood stream, feeding my muscles with enough oxygen to act and move with surgical precision.

She desired death, how poetic that I deliver it with my hands, the hands she had pre-emptively stained red. I could do it. The wrath within me painted the picture perfectly within my mind. I’d pick up the bokken that forever lived in the corner beside the front door. A wooden sword my mother used for protection; how ironic that it shall be wielded for her demise. I’d walk to her, block her view of the screen so she would have to look at me and she would have to see the rage tinting my vision a bright red. And she would stutter and splutter as she tried to merge with the couch, a last-minute and pathetic attempt to save herself. Fear would cause her to cower and I would smile, a sense of relief would ooze through my body.

No more. No longer would I suffer by her hands. I was an adult now, I didn’t need her to survive, didn’t need her to provide shelter and food. She sure as shit never provided anything else, just the bare minimum, the scarce basics required by all beings to survive. I’d raise that wooden sword, my hands perfectly placed, that knowledge passed down by my martial arts instructor would move my body unconsciously. And I would stare at her, my mother, my birth giver and all I would feel is the rage, the pain and hurt morphing into this hot, blinding fury, and I would smile again. Wider. And with an alarming number of teeth.

“Fuck you,” would spew from my curled lips and I’d bring that sword down, again and again. I’d watched as my hands turned a human being into a pulp of unrecognisable flesh. I’d watch as her brain matter stuck to the curtains and her muscle flung across the crimson couch. I’d watch my skin become decorated with splatters of her blood, the tacky feeling almost euphoric. I’d watch as my mother become nothing more than a useless hunk of flesh, unable to be anything but a waste of matter; nothing more than a piece of life that should’ve never come to be.

As much as the anger fuelled that desire, the pain within me fought back. They faced off within me. Anger dressed in camo, crimson war paint smudged on their face and weapons, traditional and modern, held in both hands. And Pain, holding its ground despite the tatters of clothes draped over their twisted and contorted body, tears leaving mascara tracks down their white cheeks.

And while they waged war, while they spewed profanities and threats, while they drew blood and pounded bruises into each other’s skin, I remained here. Unable to move, staring at my mother’s profile as the TV painted her skin with flashing colours. I remained in the corner of the dark room, sinking into the numbness, into the iced water of the abyss. And I would remain there, sinking below the surface, my limbs frozen and unable to move, my last breath fossilised into my lungs.

Soon, I may physically leave that place. But my soul and consciousness would remain there, for quite some time. My mind forever stationary in time, unable to defrost or budge from that frozen-over hell scape.