Creative Nonfiction

By Aubrie Shrubb 

The attic was always my escape from reality and the living hell of each day. My pink and white Little Tikes Victorian Princess Bench Toy Box was propped open, toys scattered throughout the darkened room. I knew I would be yelled at later when my father walked up to his PC to play whatever game he was addicted to that week.  

My toys ranged from the girly ones my parents so desperately wanted me to play with to the masculine ones I craved and desired. Whenever we’d play together, I’d force myself to pick up that princess Barbie that always looked untouched and attempted to play a role I was not born into. I’d twirl her around so that her dress spun with such elegance and her long blonde hair that resembled my own flowed alongside it. My father tried to transform one of my favorite G. I. Joe figures into a dreamy prince for my Barbie to fall head over heels for. I never dared to tell him that he wasn’t using his proper voice. I was already nearly deaf and feared losing more hearing from his bellowing screams so close to my ears. 

When I was alone and could play in my own world, I felt most alive. I raced my Hot Wheels cars against one another around the makeshift petting zoo that I’d constructed with Lincoln Logs to hold my Pokémon figures captive. I reimagined my giant dollhouse meant for the purposeless Barbie dolls as a castle inhabited by my G.I. Joes to protect my almighty yet creepy Furby from those evil blonde devils that started the wars I was forced to face, both in my imagination and real life.  

In a different corner of my playroom, a new pile of toys was slowly beginning to form for my newborn sister to play with once she could crawl and hold herself up. She was only a few weeks old, and I so desperately wanted to play with her and teach her the ins and outs of imagination.  

I can recall the day my parents told me I was going to be a big sister. Instantly I lit up with excitement that I would finally have a baby brother. I’m sure my parents tried to explain to me that it might or might not be a boy, but I couldn’t hear them over my delighted screams. Later that day, they threw a shirt over me that said “Big Sister” in a rainbow of colors before we visited all our closest family members and friends to share the big news. At each stop, I was instructed to run up to them and show off my new shirt. Each time I was lifted up and bounced in their arms as they squealed excitedly.  

I went on for months imagining what it would be like to have a brother and all the fun we’d have together. I couldn’t wait to show off all the cool toys I’d gladly share with him, and to have someone to relate to who’d finally understand me. Then the day came when I was told I was having a sister and I sobbed. My parents thought it was the normal reaction kids have to disappointment, but I was the only one who knew the real reason behind my broken heart.  

I wanted a brother who I could relate to, not a sister out of fear she’d feel the same as I did. I knew there were girls the opposite of me who were strictly girly, fitting the picture-perfect idea of what a girl was meant to be. I was terrified that my sister might be like that, that I wouldn’t understand her and that she wouldn’t care for me. More than that, I was terrified of her living in this hell and feeling as I did.  

The day they were to finally bring her home, I sat in the throne-sized armchair in our living room. The design reminded me of the static that appeared on the TV whenever the movie I was watching was over and needed to be rewound. I was cozy in my pink robe, waiting as patiently as I could, until I heard the garage door opening and closing. My body itched with anticipation and nervousness as I waited for the door to open up from the kitchen and for our cats to meow at my parents to greet them.  

I twiddled my thumbs and focused on counting all ten of my toes until my parents made their way into the living room with the car seat that cradled my new baby sister. I sat on my knees, stretching my arms out to wiggle my fingers as I asked to hold her. “You have to sit down nicely,” my mother whispered to me.  She made her way over to where I was readjusting myself on the armchair and kissed my head. She had taken hold of my arms, shaping them into a strong, tight oval. My father lifted the tiny and fragile baby I would now call my sister and brought her over to me. “Be careful now,” my mother added. “Her name is Alyssa Belle.” 

Once she was laid in my arms, my body felt calm and relaxed. My nervousness melted away as I focused all my attention and love onto her. I couldn’t stop staring at this beautiful baby girl who was safe and trusting in my tiny arms. “Hi Alyssa, I’m Aubrie. I’m your big sister!” I snuggled in closer to her, her head pressed into my chest as I gently rested my head against hers. Maybe having a sister wouldn’t be as bad as I had thought.  

By Emily Miller 

When I was young, my mother decided that pink was my favorite color. She decorated my room from floor to ceiling in the prettiest pink she could find, the same shade as her carefully applied nail polish. She told me that it reminded her of the way my cheeks flushed whenever I threw my head back in laughter. To me, pink was the color of another sunrise on the way to the children’s hospital, the color of the medicine with the taste of pseudo bubblegum, the color of rashes found underneath bandages that went unchanged for too long. To her, pink was the color of a new baby girl. To me, pink was the color of embarrassment.  

When I got a little older, I decided that I preferred purple. My mother told me this was a good choice. It reminded her of the sunsets we watched from the kitchen window. It reminded her of the grapes she’d bring me—“A good source of antioxidants,” she’d say. It reminded her of the lilac plant in the back yard, how nice the house smelled when we brought a branch inside. To me, purple was the color of the capsules that made me dizzy, of bruises hidden under sleeves, of veins that could be traced along my skin like spiderwebs. To her, purple was the color of refreshment. To me, purple was the color of mysteries. 

After a few years, I decided red was better. My mother told me this was okay. It reminded her of the fresh roses that I’d leave in her vase every week. It reminded her of the strawberries we’d eat together. It reminded her of the red lipstick she’d worn with a smile when she was younger and bolder. To me, red was the color of bloody bandages, of ambulances, of bloodshot eyes after too many nights spent wide awake. To her, red was the color of passion. To me, red was the color of anger. 

When my favorite color shifted again, I felt that green was better suited for me. My mother told me that there were worse colors to choose. It reminded her of the trees that gave us shade along our property. It reminded her of the garden hose she used for our flower bed. It reminded her of the cucumbers we ate to cool down on sweltering summer afternoons. To me, green was the color of the dewy morning grass that left hives on my skin when I slept outside, of stomach-turning tea meant to make me healthier, of dirty money needed to pay hospital bills and loans stretching back years. To her, green was the color of energy. To me, green was the color of envy. 

When I became a teenager, I told people that black was my favorite color. My mother told me this was a poor choice. It reminded her of quiet, still rooms. It reminded her of nights of peacefulness. It reminded her of cups of bitter morning coffee. To me, black was the color of burning ashes, of cold and unexpectedly heavy guns, of trash bags filled with belongings. To her, black was the color of serenity. To me, black was the color of everything and nothing at the same time. 

After I grew through that phase, I thought that yellow seemed like an appropriate favorite color. My mother thought it was a bit vibrant but was relieved to see the change. It reminded her of warm sunshine dancing along her skin. It reminded her of the dandelions I used to bring her from the yard. It reminded her of the sweet lemonade I’d make when she could have it. To me, yellow was the color of the raincoat I wore when I walked to and from school, the color of pale sticky notes left inside textbooks, the color of vibrant highlighter throughout my notes. To us, yellow was the color of hope. 

As I approached adulthood, I decided that blue was my favorite. My mother was relieved to hear this, as it was hers too. It reminded her of flowing water. It reminded her of clear skies. It reminded her of my eyes. To me, blue became the color of the nightgowns I had to clear from the hospital drawers, of the prayer cards that people carried around at the funeral, and of the abundance of condolence flowers that I was allergic to. To me, blue became a color of sadness. 

I’ve found it difficult to move on from blue. It was the last color I was able to talk to my mother about, so it’s stuck with me over the last couple of years. I’ve found the time to appreciate other colors of course, like orange, which reminds me of citrus room spray, of goldfish, of butterflies, of the color of excitement. Or white, which reminds me of clouds, of toothful grins, and of dandelions that I blow wishes into, the color of safety. But blue isn’t always a color of sadness, sometimes it’s sentimentality, or nostalgia. I know that colors mean different things to different people.  

Maybe it’s hard to choose just one, and maybe we don’t really have to. All the colors remind me of different memories, and I hold all of them close to me, even the difficult ones. So, choosing a singular color seems almost unfair. But if anyone asks me about it, I’ll simply say blue. It reminds me of flowing water. It reminds me of clear skies. It reminds me of my mother’s eyes. 

By Emily Miller 

I both admire and pity the kiwi. How unusual, to find a bird confined to the forest floor. I wonder if they ever look up to see their brothers and sisters soaring through the sky, gliding on the winds that they’ll never get a chance to feel. I wonder if they look down at themselves, their tiny, weak wings, their fur-like feathers, and question whether they were ever really a bird to begin with. Or perhaps a kiwi is simply too busy surviving to entertain such abstract speculations. 

When I was young, my health was poor. I missed more school than I attended and was much better acquainted with doctors than classmates. When I was actually able to be with my peers, I wasn’t sure where my place was. It was obvious that I was treated differently from them, and they noticed right away.  

While they got to go out for recess, I had to sit under the pavilion. “Stay out of that sun, won’t you?” my mother chastised me regardless of the season. Whenever I came home with the fresh glow of a light sunburn, she could tell right away. She fussed over the scar around my neck that stuck out even more whenever my pale skin was tinted pink. 

I’d sit under the pavilion and watch as the kids played tag or hide-and-seek or any of those popular schoolyard games that I was discouraged from. The other kids weren’t monsters, so of course they’d invite me to join, but they weren’t interested in hearing why I couldn’t. Like any kids, they were eager to get back to their friends to play before the teachers blew their whistles and wrangled us all back inside. 

I’d often have a book, any book, something that could teleport me away from the moment so that I wasn’t in a world where I was the quiet kid who never came to school. Instead, I was in a world where there were princesses taming dragons, or pirates conquering oceans, or wizards waving wands and magically fixing everyone’s problems. This, I think, is where I learned to treasure good books like good friends. To this day, I feel anxious traveling without one, just in case. 

There’s an old Maori legend about the kiwi that has fascinated me forever. Long, long ago, Tāne-Muhata, a god of the forest, noticed that his children, the trees, were dying and being eaten up by bugs. To save his children, he called upon his brother whose children were the birds of the air.  

Tāne-Muhata spoke to each of the birds; the tui, the pukeko, the pipiwharauroa, and the kiwi. He told them that his children and their home were in danger, and that he needed one of the birds to give up their life in the sky and live on the forest floor in order to save everyone and everything. He asked them one by one, and one by one they gave excuses as to why they couldn’t. The tui told him that they were afraid of the dark, and couldn’t give up the sunlight that the roof of the forest provided. The pukeko told him that the forest floor was too damp, and that they simply didn’t want to get their feet wet. The pipiwharauroa told him that they were too busy building their nest to help. Finally, he asked the kiwi. The kiwi looked up to the warm sunshine that filled the roof of the forest, then down at the cold and wet ground, before finally looking around at their family. At this, the kiwi told Tāne-Muhata that they would come down to the forest floor. 

Tāne-Muhata and his brother were ecstatic that this little bird was willing to save the forest but wanted to warn them about what they’d be sacrificing. If the kiwi committed to this, they’d have to grow big, strong back legs, and they’d lose their colorful wings. This would mean that they’d never be able to return to the roof of the forest. They’d never see the light in the same way ever again. Explaining this, Tāne-Muhata asked the kiwi once again if they were willing to do it. The kiwi took one last look at the other colorful birds that filled the sky and the way the sunlight danced through the treetops and said their silent goodbyes before confirming that they would. 

Overjoyed that this small bird would give up so much to save the forest, the Tāne-Muhata decided to punish the other birds that had come up with excuses. For the tui who was too afraid of the dark, he put two white feathers on their chest, the mark of a coward. For the pukeko who didn’t want to get their feet wet, they were sent to live in the swamp. For the pipiwharauroa who were too busy building their nest, they were forbidden from building their own and could only lay eggs in other birds’ nests. The kiwi, on the other hand, for its outstanding bravery, was promised to be the most loved and known bird of them all. 

I’ve always thought that the sisters of fate had a twisted sense of humor. It’s the only explanation I could find as to why when my health finally became manageable, my mother’s turned for the worse. I was in middle school when I noticed the switch. I was fresh out of a wheelchair and excited to finally start experiencing all of the things I heard about from my peers. But while the other kids were worrying about band or sports, I found myself rushing to and from school to make sure my mother had taken her medicine and to prepare her meals.  

I often wondered if it was payback for being an unhealthy child. I wondered if I had tried a little harder, if I had pushed myself a little more even when I wasn’t feeling well, if I hadn’t made my mother sick with worry at so many turns, if then she would be healthier now.  

I wasn’t magically cured, so of course I still had to work hard to manage my own health. There were days that were difficult to handle. But regardless of how much pain I was in myself, my priority had to be her. I’m not an only child, but I am the youngest and was the only one left living at home during this time. I have four older siblings, and they each gave their reasons as to why they couldn’t help. They were too busy with work, or their own families, or they simply didn’t get along well enough with my mother.  

I never blamed them, and I was more than willing to take care of my mother by myself. She provided food and shelter, and she’d taken care of me when I was younger and couldn’t take care of myself. I considered taking care of her as a sort of compensation because I was certainly not an easy child to bring up. But sometimes I would look at my siblings living their own lives and wonder if I would ever get the chance. I missed out on a lot of the normal milestones that come in the teen years, many that I still haven’t caught up on. I watched them fly through life from afar. 

Sometimes I had negative thoughts about this. I wished that I didn’t have to take care of my mother anymore. I wished that I could worry about learning a new song in time for a concert or practicing a technique in time for a game or who was coming to a sleepover where we’d talk about who liked who in our grade, all things I had to sacrifice unlike my classmates. I never meant to wish my mother away, only to wish her better. I wanted her to see my prom and my graduation and my wedding and my children, all the important life events that mothers should get to see. Sometimes, when I’d get frustrated, I’d use these things against her. When she forgot to take her meds while I was at school or didn’t want to go see the doctors, I’d say, “Don’t you want to see me graduate, Mama?” It always worked. If I had known then that she would never actually get to see those things, I wouldn’t have said it. 

When kiwis hatch, they’re basically tiny adults. They already have all their feathers, and their eyes are wide open. Their parents don’t even need to feed them. In a couple of days, it starts to move around the burrow, and after a week it starts to venture out into the world. Because they’re so young and vulnerable, less than 5% of kiwi chicks live to be adults, and the population is rapidly declining. 

When I was young, a lot of people told me how mature I was. They’d say I was lucky that I was more mature than my peers, or that I held myself very well for someone with so much responsibility. I used to thank them, but now I’m not so sure how much of a compliment it was. I feel like I missed out on most of the traditional things that kids get to do. My mother’s friends would joke about how I was an old soul and how she was lucky she didn’t have to worry about me. I wonder now if “old soul” was really just another way of saying that I didn’t have the chance to be a kid while I still was one.  

Because my reputation was always as the mature and responsible one, I’ve often wondered if I’ll have a tipping point. I’m no longer responsible for anyone but myself, and I don’t have anyone else that I need to impress or make proud. People have told me that my “wild years” will come in my twenties. I’ve just turned twenty, but I don’t feel any wilder than I did when I was nineteen, or fifteen, or twelve, or seven. I wonder if people feel it coming, or if it just springs on them.  

I think maybe my teens were wild and chaotic, just not in a way most people my age can understand yet. I spent them trying to survive and taking care of others. Looking back, it’s a miracle that I have actually managed to survive this long. The odds couldn’t have been very high. Navigating the world when I turned seventeen was dangerous and exhausting, and I’m still not sure if I’m doing it right. There isn’t exactly a guide to life. But if I take it one week at a time, one day at a time, one breath at a time, I think I can make it. 

By Amelia Rodriguez 

One moment I was tossing and turning, my fevered legs stuck in my felt wool blanket. Sweat beaded down my forehead and between the creases of my flesh, and the next moment I stood barefoot outside. I blinked slowly, my feet scraping against the broken sidewalk, but I felt cool again in my thermal pajama pants and tank top. 

Across the road stood a large, jumbled house as if a child had shoved together different Lego parts willy-nilly. The edges of the house were fuzzy, only coming into sharp focus when it pieced together in my mind. This was King Street, one of the earliest houses I’d stayed at with my mother. But this house wasn’t the same: the stairs went up a whole story high, enclosed by beige walls, and opened into a porch. The porch was faded wood with many splinters, and from the street, I could see a tattered couch on the side.  

I looked both ways down the street, but there were no cars. There weren’t any people or moving curtains or baying dogs, no man coming down the street on an old bicycle. The road should have felt hot against my bare feet, but it didn’t, so I crossed and peered at the dark staircase. It was the staircase from the alleyway apartment we’d had over the printer shop. Those three or so years I was constantly hooked up to an asthma machine because I couldn’t breathe from the printer fumes. 

The enclosed stairs opened abruptly to the rundown porch, and I could feel the splinters against my toes. There was red peeling paint, old like rust, on the door. The 4 in 14 was torn away in pieces, only slivers of the number to indicate the address. My heart began to beat a palpable tempo against my temples, thudding against the thin skin of my throat like a trampoline being barraged. A loud keening cry broke the air, huffing into smaller sobbing breaths of a child. I pushed the front door open. 

Immediately cigarette smoke hit me like a wall, threading through my nose and mouth like a worm, and I coughed. My eyes watered from the smell, the inside hazy with dense smoke and the lack of light. The cry reverberated through the mishmashed house, warping the walls like a living lung, and I stepped into the living room. 

The old couch against the wall had holes that spewed its cotton insides. There were burn marks on it from lit cigarette ends. The outside light was the only source helping me to see until my eyes adjusted, my lungs pulling in the polluted air. I stepped further inside and almost tripped over a wooden table. Papers scattered to the dirty floor, its surface crammed full of letters, bills, pens, my mom’s foldable jean-textured phone case, and so many cigarettes. They were piled like ant remains. 

I lurched to the side, and my hand pressed against an old TV screen, the ones that buzz when you turn them on. My weight rattled and moved the stand it sat on and the small dirty aquarium, the polluted water knocking against the black lip and shaking the dead red betta fish inside. I stared at its belly-up form and tattered fins a moment. Then the cry came again, broken up by inhales. I had to steady myself so I didn’t fall against the stand again. With a shallow breath I stepped further inside, sidestepping a newspaper with dog shit on it, the stench making me cough again. 

I was at the edge of the living room now. I could see my mother’s plump figure moving like a translucent ghost in the kitchen, dressed in her blue nightgown with the zipper down the middle. I watched as she fell and her head hit the tiles. Rod’s slim figure was there too, hovering with his greasy rattail pulled back, open mouth and hands, and I was reminded of how my mother’s face would bruise. No matter how many times I chased him out with a knife, he’d return, and my mother would smile with her yellow grin, jagged and crooked with missing spaces. 

I turned away and moved up the new staircase. The carpet was scratchy, and I naturally stepped over the threadbare places where the iron nails poked out. I had stepped on one when we’d first moved here. The nail had gone right through my foot, but it wasn’t my mother who’d cleaned it. I gripped the gritty metal banister harder, the steps oddly spaced and easy to trip on. Willy, the man who rented the attic, had apparently tripped and died on these steps a few months after I left in middle school. He’d been a nice man, with his jaundiced eyes and grey hair, one of the many people I couldn’t quite remember. Like Kath, with her dark green nail polish and oxygen machine, watching The Wizard of Oz. I don’t remember when Kath died. I reached the top of the stairs, my feet planted solidly when the walls rippled again. 

There were three doors side by side, indistinguishable from each other. I chose the middle one at random and stumbled against its concrete sill as the door closed behind me with a bang. The smoke here was different, rolling and choking against the concrete walls, mixing with a distinct burnt-wire smell. I pressed my thin shirt against my nose, squinting in the hazy darkness, and the painful thud of my foot gave way to dirt. The very air enclosed around me in the dirt basement while a singular yellow bulb sputtered its light. 

Fear shivered down my spine and sweat broke out on my forehead. I held myself tighter in the darkness, reliving the moments when I’d been “accidentally” locked inside as a child. Except there were no rickety stairs to climb to escape, and the door behind me disappeared into the concrete wall. My hands shook against my mouth, my gaze jerky as I searched the darkness. I quickly walked into the weak light, which revealed the dingy washer and dryer and a lawn chair set to the side with an ashtray next to it. The concrete walls warped again, urging me to move the piled-up boxes behind the lawn chair. Various things fell from the boxes— children’s dresses, a yearbook, and plates that smashed as they hit the ground. I shoved them all into the chair my mother used to sit on when she smoked cigarettes and crack cocaine. The bare space behind the chair revealed an old trap door like the ones in those hick horror movies, sticking against its wooden panes when I pushed. 

The wooden trap door finally broke open with a hefty push, and the grimy wood fell to the side, crushing bright sunflowers underneath its weight. I crawled out into the wide yard, the grass wet with dew, and forced the clean air into my lungs like a forge. I was kneeling in my grandmother’s large yard, the side of the warped house covered in a blooming flower garden. The sun sank in the sky, promising a few more scant hours of light, and crested against the many deep green trees like lace. The sky glowed softly but there was no breeze, the dew and my sweat seeping through my thermal pants. A child’s sob broke the calm reprieve, and I looked up into an opened window half-covered by pink curtains. 

I patted dirt and grass off my pants, once again compelled by the heartful suffering the child let out. There were three long concrete stairs that opened to two doors, the doors from where I lived with my father, the wired screen and white one. They opened easily with a soft creak, revealing a different kitchen. It was small but brightly lit, with counters and the washing machine side by side, but I passed through it into a cramped staircase which opened into a long hallway. My heart jumped at the sight of the first door with the light that seeped from the bottom. It was my father’s door, and I scuttled past with sweaty hands. I passed the small bathroom to the only other door, the piercing cries as loud as when a child breaks a bone. Shrill. Uncontrollable. Sorrowful. 

This door opened easily. There was a small child sitting on the floor of my old bedroom, surrounded by glossy pictures, some crumpled in an arc. I stepped inside, closing the door behind me, and almost ran into the twin bed. The child looked up with soft plush cheeks dotted with freckles, almond brown eyes puffy and red, almost closed with their rolling tears. Her hair was a curly mess around her ears, and she was hunched over in a pink and brown camo shirt with the words “I don’t have to be good because I’m cute.” The words rolled and creased around her small body, hiding the monkey on the shirt. She was so tiny and round, the eight-year-old me. 

“I’m here now,” I told the child-me, and she wiped her snot on the collar of her shirt. “I’m sorry it took so long.” 

I wished suddenly that I could have appeared differently— not in thermal pj pants, rumpled tank top, and hair bonnet— not wide with many rolls everywhere like the Michelin man. But she didn’t seem to care as she reached out her small hands for me. 

I sat down in the middle of the photographs. The eight-year-old me sat between my legs, pressing her head into my chest. I held her there, feeling our heartbeats pound in sync, and wiped the tears and snot from her face. 

“Tell me what’s hurting.” I ran my fingers through her hair, carefully undoing the knots that I encountered, while she picked up one of the many photographs. Her nails were bitten down, her fingers pressing deeply and creasing the picture’s image: a hazy image of Peter Pan and a birthday cake— one of my earliest memories, my birthday where mom and dad screamed, so I had watched Peter Pan in Spanish. I’d had a fever that day. I was always sick as a child. I gripped the other side of the photograph, feeling her head bounce against my collar bone, and together we ripped it to pieces. 

Next was a picture of Bill, with his leathered tan skin and bright hazel eyes. He was mom’s boyfriend and made peanuts in salty water, but he was always touching us. Watching us. Crawling into our bed naked, but Mom didn’t do anything. Didn’t do anything until he had climbed through the window with his hand bandaged up after trying to saw it off. We ripped his hazel eyes and toothy smile into bits. 

Next was a picture of Mom, Dad, and me. We all stood together, my mother with her eyes dazed from constantly bottoming out from her type one diabetes, the blue in her eyes flashlight bright with wide-open pupils. I was in the middle with hunched shoulders and a scowl that was mirrored in my father’s bushy eyebrows. His face was thick and dark brown, with a rat-toothed smile that lied. We ripped them apart. 

We ripped apart images of Mom on the floor with an IV in her thick arm. I used to be afraid that whenever an ambulance would come that it was for her. I had stood at her hospital bedside month after month, staring at the wrinkles around her eyes and her greying brown hair, being told she’d never wake up again. But she did. She did and screamed, those yellow teeth appearing, until her words and our thoughts were intermingled. 

We tore apart a picture that was only in our mind: Mom sat at the steering wheel of the blue cube car. She had promised that it could be mine someday. The streetlights cast half her face in shadow.  Her thin greying hair was ragged against her shoulders, those dazed blue eyes looking at us while sweat beaded against her pale clammy forehead. I held my swollen wrist in my lap, having begged her to take me to the hospital, something she only did after dad threatened to fight for custody. My arm was wrist to elbow full of deeply scabbed cuts, one for every word she had shouted: “You’re a bad daughter. You’re a bitch. I wish I never had you.” That was the day I’d made another mistake, I told the X-ray nurse about the men who had come and the wire-smoke, and just like that, I lived with Dad. 

We tore apart Dad’s picture. Dad and I stood side by side in white, our hair covered with white headcloths, our Orisha beads brightly colored against our shirts. His mouth was half pulled into a smile, thick eyebrows low over the eyes that matched mine, his arm wrapped around me. Rip! His face torn in half. Rip! The horror of his machete. Rip! The way his eyes grew crazy from the voices in his head. Rip! The way he’d promised to kill me and others. Rip! “You’re a dirty whore. I had to clean you up, can’t you see? You dirty bitch, I have to kill you before you kill me.” 

The child-me shook in my arms, round tears still falling down her cheeks. I held her tighter, pressing her to my heart as she cried. The child-me cried so loudly, hiccupping so hard that she shook the walls and shifted the pictures on the floor. I patted her hair as we rocked side to side together and cried too. With those tears, we ripped apart many more pictures. 

Pictures of the first forever, I’ll love you to infinity that had lasted four years. Ripped his brown eyes apart for how scared he’d made me, the way his arms had wrapped around my throat until I saw stars, the way I stared at the popcorn ceiling because he hadn’t listen to my “no”. Or maybe I hadn’t been strong enough to say no. Ripped him apart for the way his brother had hit me and the way his mother had screamed at me. Ripped him apart for making me think I couldn’t live on my own. 

The child-me picked up one more picture and I shook my head. “Not this one.” 

“This one, too.” Her tiny voice was firm, her bitten fingernails pressed down on the glossy surface. 

I stared at it, the way the sunlight had transitioned his glasses to black, the awkward way his lips were pulled against his teeth, his red beard eclipsed by my head. How could I justify the same actions? The painful arguments that had torn me apart, the constant guilt-tripping and touching, the gifts to make up for the way I said no? The way I kept pushing his hands away from my thighs, but they kept pushing back until I couldn’t fight back from fear or guilt? Maybe those two concepts were the same. 

The door opened again, revealing an older me in black satin pajamas. Her glasses were pushed up the bridge of her nose, her bonnet secured atop her head, and she sat next to me. All three of us took a side of the picture and ripped his smile into small pieces. 

The older-me picked up different pictures from the pile. 

A picture of my two friends who held me from opposite sides against the backdrop of a hiking trail, one with a dimpled smile and the other with faded hair dye. There was a marble-designed photo album with “Every picture tells a story” scrawled across it. I held the corners open while eight-year-old me placed the glossy picture into the plastic pocket. The future-me handed me another photograph. 

 A picture of me and Sab from the future, holding the door to my new apartment, her fluffy brown hair curling around her forehead and on her glasses, her mouth open in her signature smile, bright white rows that brought her dimples out. 

Thomas, my white-and-cream cat, basked in the sunlight on a window seat. His round eyes were closed, and his white paw opened softly under his furred chin, perfectly content. 

A picture of me wrapping my arms around my smaller cousins with their blonde hair and slim shoulders. Vic had finally caught up with Anna’s height, and she slunk her shoulders down in her hoodie.  

Snapshots of laughter that were all teeth and crinkled eyes. 

Dappled sunlight pierced dense treetops. 

Pictures of my future apartment filled to the brim with the people I care about: my two cousins, Sab, Joan, Giselle, and even Em around a table stacked high with my first published book. There was cake on the table with blue frosting that spelled out Congratulations! Vic was looking at it slyly, waiting to smear our faces with the sugary paste. 

Pictures of my brother and me riding matching bicycles, our mirrored faces wide in quirked smiles, our similar brown eyes squinted against the sunlight. We were on the trail of the White Cliffs of Conoy, the first trail we’d ever walked together after we reunited, having been separated for twenty-one years. His hand was up in the air, waving to the picture-taker. 

The older-me and child-me hugged me tightly after we filled the last album pocket. They wrapped their freckled arms around my waist. Those arms were warm, their heartbeats echoing my heartbeat and promising a better future. Future-me stood up and held her hand out for me. 

“It’s time,” she said. I took her hand, our fingers cold, while the eight-year-old me grabbed my other hand, pressing the filled photo album to her small chest. 

Future-me walked with her chin held high as we passed the bathroom, the one I had contemplated slitting my wrist and drowning in. It was just a bathroom now. She didn’t shrink when we passed my father’s door, and I held tighter to the younger me as we made a conga line down the narrow stairway. Through the kitchen and out the door, letting it bang against its panes when we stepped through. 

The outside air was warm, the sunset making the treetops glow in orange and pink hues. Eight-year-old-me rushed past, reaching out to grasp the flickering fireflies. Out of the woods came two familiar figures: the soft-tempered buck, Baby, that I had raised as a child; Kikky, my orange cat who was born two weeks before me and died shortly after my twenty-first birthday. 

Kikky was small and purred her deep rumble as I cupped her into my arms. She rubbed her small chin against my face, an “I missed you. I love you.” I held her close and watched as the two versions of me danced and pranced around the yard with wide smiles. Baby pressed his wet snout against my forehead, his large eyes seeming to say the same thing. 

Surrounded by love, with the flickering fireflies, I blinked and opened my blurry eyes from the dream. I blinked again up at my wall with the plastic sunflowers and pink roses. Sweat beaded in the crease of my elbows as the morning sunlight feebly made its way through the campus curtains. 

My fever had broken. 

By Amanda Little  

A polaroid of my sister and me shoulder to shoulder one summer evening in the fading sunlight, as we sit on a hill. My pale yellow pleated skirt brings out the buttercups in the grass beside us.  

A polaroid of my boyfriend and me holding a pink heart-shaped helium balloon, his hand around my waist. The balloon brings out the blush on our cheeks. 

A picture of an old group of friends sitting in a field on the day we first met, arms interlaced over and under one another. We snuggle together as if we have known each other for years. 

A photo of me on the beach looking at my feet in the shallows, my blonde hair bleached almost white from the bold rays of the sun as it splays about in the salty wind. 

These are my first impressions while looking back on some of my favorite photographs.  

But I can never stop the inevitable second thoughts that follow, as the pictures slowly take form into tests, and my happiness depends on if I pass.  

The night my sister and I sat on the hill to watch the sunset, I had run over six miles that day and skipped dinner to look thin in that pale yellow skirt.  

Before the picture was taken of my boyfriend and me on Valentine’s Day, I had made sure to suck in a breath so that my waist would take up less room in his hand.   

The day I had met a new group of friends, I remember the skin under my fingernails being blue because I was so cold on that warm late April afternoon.  

That day on the beach, as I walked in the shallows, I wasn’t looking at my feet but at the gap in between my thighs, making sure it was large enough for me to be wearing my bathing suit. 

I have over 7,000 pictures on my camera roll.  

Along with them come over 7,000 thoughts that my eating disorder has latched onto like a parasite. 

Looking at each picture I can name what I ate that day, if I ate that day, and how happy I was depending on it. 

With each year that passes as my camera roll grows, my infected thoughts do the same.  

I’m always hoping that I will see the smiles instead of the size of my waist or the gap between my thighs. 

I am still hoping for my photographs to return to what they once were to me before: not a test, but a cherished place in time. 

By Alicia Reese 

It’s late, about 9 o’clock in the evening. I’m in my apartment, sitting on my soft plush bed, waiting for him to arrive. The lights are dim, but the wax burner that sits on my desk sets the mood with warm tones of light. It smells like a bakery filled with coffee cakes and other small pastries with a hint of coffee. All of a sudden, I hear a light tap. Dragging my feet, I walk toward the door, unlock the brass deadbolt, and turn the knob.  

“Hey!” he says. 

His eyes are chocolate brown, and his skin is tan as if he’d sat in the sun all day, with a smile so white that it’s blinding. He is tall and his muscles are large, making me feel intimidated, but I shouldn’t be. I’ve known him for such a long time, my childhood friend. 

We walk to my living room and get as comfortable as we can on the hard floral-print couch. The room lights up as I turn on Netflix, selecting “50 First Dates,” and press play. Twenty minutes is all it takes. I feel his hand on my thigh. I ignore it. A few more minutes go by. I feel his hand moving up my leg, then wrapping around my waist. His hands are clammy. I begin to feel uneasy. 

“I’ll be right back.”  

In the bathroom, I lock the door, open the toilet lid, and vomit. My stomach is empty, and acid grazes the back of my throat. I am uncomfortable. He is making me uncomfortable. My mom always warns me about being alone with a guy. She always tells me that I need to be careful and make sure I am safe because anyone can hurt me. These thoughts are running through my mind while I lean into the toilet. 

I get up off the cold hard floor and flush. Looking at myself in the mirror, I pull myself together and say, “You’ll be okay.”  

“Hey, sorry I just needed to use the bathroom,” I explain when I return to the living room. 

“Nah, it’s all good.” 

I sit back down on the hard couch, and he places his muscular hand around my neck to kiss me. I do not pull away because my throat is in his hands. I go limp as he takes off my clothes. 

“What are you doing?” I cry out. 

“You don’t actually want to watch this movie, do you?” he says. 

“I mean, yeah. I find it interesting,” I reply softly. 

He continues to take off my clothes as if my words don’t mean a thing to him.  His body weight is on me. I stare off into the distance at the beautiful floral painting on my wall, feeling just as lifeless. His lips are soft, but they pierce me like needles. I try pushing him away but it’s too late. Tears run down my cheeks as I grip the couch with all the strength I have left. He finishes and looks at me questioningly.  

“Get out,” I say. 

“What?” 

I scream, “Get out!” 

He scrambles to put on his clothes, and leaves slowly. I lie, staring at the ceiling, scared to move. I begin to shake and cry out. 

I do not know what to do, so I lie there for thirty minutes until I drag myself to the bathroom and look in the mirror. I think I could have prevented this before it started. I should have told him to leave the first time I felt uncomfortable. I should have defended myself. I look at my puffy eyes and my red cheeks. 

I do not know the girl in the mirror. She is a stranger, someone who was weak and defenseless. I wipe my tears and shuffle toward the shower, turn on the hot water and let the steam accumulate in the air.  

I sit down in the tub. I wrap my arms around my legs and press my knees to my chest. The hot water washes over me. 

Thirty minutes go by. My skin is blistering hot and as red as a bottle of siracha. I pull myself out of the tub and wrap myself in my robe. I lie awake until the sun rises. 

As the new day begins, I stare out the window, letting the sun blind me. I know what happened was not my fault. I don’t blame myself for what happened, but I do blame myself for not standing up for myself. 

I go back inside where warmth seeps into my skin and flows through my body like a surge. 

And gaze into the fireplace where embers glow.