The Locked Door

I watched her movements carefully, it wasn’t much to look at: her sitting there in silence, staring at that blank page in her diary. Silent and poised, pen in hand, waiting only for the words to write, for the right way to express them. A few minutes pass, and she gives up. Slowly, haltingly, she closes the book once more. 

She’s been staring at that blank page, the first page, the one that’s been screaming for something–anything–to be written, for over a year now. I’ve stolen glimpses into her journal before, its spine worn and soft, swinging obligingly open to that first blank page she always looks at. I try to read between the lines, maybe see if the page has held onto her feelings, but there’s nothing there. Just a pale, cold page of blinding white. 

And every time, I close it, having found nothing to tell me of her thoughts, her emotions. Every time, I stroke my fingers across the soft leather cover, following the little trails left behind. My fingertips trace over the deep trenches carved into the surface by clenched nails. They slide through the wide, shallow bowl left by a fist, an elbow, a chin. They float over tearstained lakes and trickle-stains. The valleys, the canyons, the oceans, permanently marked across this map of her mind. 

And every time, I carefully replace it in its hidden nook behind her bed. Every time, I leave no indication that I have seen anything. No indication that I have seen a glimpse into her mind. Nothing to show that I care, that I want to see more, to learn more…to help.

I watch her go about her days. I see that smile on her face, and I wonder, always, whether it’s real. I watch her eyes, I note her posture, her gestures, her tone of voice, but she never gives the slightest indication that she is suffering. She never gives us any reason to think that she might not be as happy as she seems. 

The closest she ever comes to showing the undoubtable mess inside is when she is alone. When she is alone, she stares off at a place, nowhere in particular, and she does nothing else. Just stares. 

She might be looking at a book, a painting, or a table. She could be looking at her hands, the floor, or the ceiling, but one thing is for certain: she sees none of it. Her face, her eyes, are blank, empty, staring inward at something only she can see. She stares and stares, longer than any would think possible, and slowly, her eyes begin to fill. They flood with pain, with the things she never shows anyone. Spirits float behind the glass of her eyes. They mist, they fog, and sometimes she’ll whisper aloud. She whispers two words: “I should.” 

Those two words are explosive. They hurt. They sting. They stab me in my heart. No matter how quiet, no matter how far I am, they hit me, and pierce me like an arrow.  Sometimes I’ll walk up to her, or call her name, but the moment she realizes that she isn’t alone, she snaps back to reality. Her face wipes clean, not a trace left behind of the things she keeps so carefully locked away. 

Sometimes I try to reach out. I try to see if I can’t pry that door open just a crack, to see if anything pours through. I hug her, I take her hand, and I ask her if she is okay. Most of the time she smiles sweetly, and she says that of course she is, and why would I ever need to ask, but other times she’s quiet. She sits there in silent thought for a minute or two, and then looks into my eyes, judging, weighing, wondering how I would react to her words. Then she simply looks away and says that she’s fine.

That’s all she says:  “I’m fine”, and those words rush through me. They ring in my ears, the sound of her heart slamming firmly shut, the sound of her thoughts screaming as they beg to be released. It’s all I can do to keep from crying, for her, for her unshed tears, her unspoken words, the pressure she feels, the things I can do nothing about. 

I want to shake her, to yell in her face that she doesn’t have to be alone. I want to scream in her ear that she has me here to help her, that I’ll always be here to help her. I want to kick her doors down and tell her that she’ll never push me away, that her troubles will never hurt me if I could just help her with them. I need the unspoken words to make their way into her mind. I need it desperately.

I need her to, for once, look into my eyes and let me in instead of looking down at the floor. I need her to listen to my voice, to hear the words I say, instead of letting them pass through her. She needs to let them in, let them take hold and wedge that door open, so she can finally speak the words she needs to. The words that weigh so heavily on her mind, dragging her down into the ocean of sorrows she tries so hard to stay afloat in. 

I’ve tried so hard to slip my message under her door, so this time I decided to knock. I reach out tentatively. I raise my fist to the door, and I tap. Once, twice. I get no answer. I turn to leave and try again another day, but her shadow is there, waiting, wavering, just inside the door. 

I turn and reach up again. Gently, warily, I knock one last time, to let her know that she can open up. Still I get no response, just the flicker of her shadow through the crack. Then, just as I begin to give up, to finally give her the space she’s always wanted, I hear the squeak of the hinges behind me.