If I weren't eighteen

cw: use of alcohol, mention of death

Last night I was arrested. For the first time. And I am unusually relaxed. Happy? I don’t know. Perhaps surprised. I spent the night here. I didn’t sleep. The smell of metal bars would make me frown almost every time I would take a breath.

I turned eighteen a year ago on today’s day. Prison smell is the perfect way to end, and describe the past year. I heard people are looking forward to their eighteenth birthday. Legally they can drink, go to clubs, marry. On my eighteenth birthday, my grandma asked me, now that I’m an adult, will I ever take work and relationships with other people seriously.

For four years now I have been working for a local seamstress. After school I basically sprint over there and work until my shoulders are slumped with tiredness. One of the workers said that isn’t appropriate for young women like me, and slapped my back in hope I will straighten up. I sighed and went to get more thread.

My aunt also mentioned my loneliness, and sad how one pretty boy could maybe get me out of that depression of mine.

Two years ago, Lu asked me out. And the day after that. And the day after that. On the fourth day I was sitting opposite him in a coffee shop. During those two months, I even smiled a couple of times. On the 62^nd day of our relationship, Lu robbed me while I was asleep. I worked for six months to earn that money. When I got my grandma nothing but a card for her birthday, she gave me a weird look.

My grandpa shook my hand and said depression didn’t exist back then. But back then it didn’t exist for me either.

My grandma caressed my head and said my mom is going to be happy if she sees me smile, at least on my eighteenth birthday. I left the house.

20.3.2004. was the day I was born.

14.5.2011. I got the best present ever. A golden necklace with an angel shaped pendant.

17.8.2015. was the best day of my life.

18.8.2015. my mum died.

On the eighteenth of August, at 3:15 pm, every colour in my life took on a shade of grey. Even the blood that was dripping down my knees when I fell, trying to follow her lifeless body.

My grandma likes to pretend that she is still here. She talks about her and her wishes in present simple. When I got a D in psychology, the first thing she told me was that my mom is crying right now. My mom would wipe my tears and take me to get ice cream. I talk about her in the past, because that is the truth. I don’t like pretending. In my heart, her name is the one carrying erythrocytes through my blood, my body. Because of the memory of her I am still alive. But I don’t want to pretend she is still here, or that she is watching me from heaven. Her warm eyes are forever closed, and her hand will never move my hair out of my eyes again. But our kind will never be sophisticated enough for me to find out if her soul, ghost, or spirit is still around me. Because of that possibility I’ve always tried to be happy. Since she can’t wipe my tears, I’ll try to make them gone, so she can feel sparks of happiness around me, the trace of my smile. That gives me hope.

Not for a better tomorrow, like my father used to say, but for today. For being alive when the clock ticks midnight, awaiting for the next one. 365 days before today, it was kind of working. And even though I hate it, sometimes I pretended.

I was technically still a child. Following the rules my mum taught me. Ignored my aunt’s snarky remarks, like she always used to warn me.

Eighteen is different. She never taught me how to be an adult, but stay a child on the inside, like she did. I’m surrounded by typical adults. A frown wrinkle in between eyebrows, belittling young adults, ‘making ends meet’ because of the small pension they’re getting, as they always say.

My mum had wrinkles around her lips. Smiling wrinkles. She loved them. I’m afraid I’ll never have them. I’m afraid I’ll become an adult that’s nothing like her. I’m afraid that someone s going to see her picture in my wallet, and not know that once she was holding my hand and was bragging to the saleswoman that she is my mother. She would say that with pride, beaming at me.

At eighteen, everything I do is serious. Even smiles. You can’t give them out to anyone. Some might consider it flirt, some blackmail, some a bargain, some a bet, some a lie, and rare are those who’ll consider it happiness. Banks, clubs, jail and politicians see you as an adult, and family, court, politicians and cashiers consider you a child. Not the careless child, whom you’d give a chocolate candy, but the kind of child you don’t trust, the immature one that would rob you in the blink of an eye.

If someone attacks me, they didn’t attack a seventeen year old girl, they attacked an eighteen year old woman, who would get less trusted in court, than a fifty year old man would.

Nothing I do isn’t accidental anymore. Instead I’m cunning, a trickster, a thief. And all that changes the minute that numbers turns from seven to eight, and everyone looks at you with a different pair of eyes.

But yesterday I was arrested rightfully. A mixture of two carbons, six hydrogens and an oxygen often does wonders, and last night it made me jump into the freezing water of one of the deepest fountains in my city. When I hit the bottom I felt thousands of coins that superstitious people throw in for good luck. Not that I blame them. There are two things that make people completely superstitious and insane. Love and sadness. Everything else comes from that. Craziness, happiness, passion, jealousy. One of those emotions, mixed with honey like, burning liquid made me start throwing all those coins, with some sort of stretched out grin on my face, because of which my cheeks were hurting later.

A moment before I saw a woman in a blue uniform, everything got quiet. I didn’t hear when the coins would hit the ground wherever they’d land, and for a moment I was even happy with a smaller, but more sincere smile on my face. Because even though water was surrounding me, I felt as if my body was losing it, mum’s wrinkles finally staying on my face.

Now I am looking at the grey floor in front of me, waiting for my grandma to come with a worried look on her face, as if she is the one that won’t be able to afford nothing but the cheapest piece of clothing at any store until she pays of  her debt for ‘destroying public property and peace’. Like she is going to have to make eye contact with people who are looking at her the same way, with sorrow and pity.

Last night was the second best day of my life. And even though the consequences are big, I’m enjoying the simple, see through character of some people, and in my recognizing those. A few seconds later, a door opens in the distance, I hear squeaking of someone’s shoes and my grandma appears in a few seconds, with concern around her eyes, because she is afraid she’ll look bad in the eyes of God if she doesn’t help her granddaughter, even though she thinks I don’t deserve it. I look at her and the corner of my mouth lifts, until it is widely stretched from the pure irony of the situation, and I hope mum felt this, and that she is laughing with me.