My Scarlett Heartt

*content notice – contains descriptions of violence, self harm and abuse*

She could see her face in the blade of the knife, her image reflected in the glinting silver.

As was her emotional state, the reflection was distorted. The image in the blade  truer than she to herself. Running her finger slowly along the serrations on the knife edge, she came to rest on the point. She drummed her fingertip until her skin was pierced and a small scarlet drop of  blood appeared. She wished that she had the courage to pull the knife back and drag it violently across her wrists or to drive it viciously into her heart. Perhaps even to plunge it deep into him. He deserved it. He deserved that and more.  But did he? Or was he right every time he punched her , every time he kicked her, when he said it was her own fault – that she brought it all upon herself?

She put the knife back in the kitchen drawer and went on cooking their evening meal. This in itself part of the problem. She felt like a lackey, an unpaid slave in the kitchen and the bedroom. She was not happy. She hadn’t been in a very long time. In her naivety she had really believed that getting married would solve her problems. There would be a sparkling ring, a ceremony with a beautiful white dress and no more guilt hoisted upon her by her own conscience let alone by everyone else. It was meant to solve everything but it had solved nothing; it had made things worse. She often asked herself why no-one had warned her that she was too young and too inexperienced for the life she was committing herself to. She already knew the answer, it was because those who held the power over her considered young and inexperienced to be good. The perfect state for marriage. And as with everything else, she’d believed them without a second thought. Now she knew better. Now it was too late.

She sat down and waited for the water to boil. In her heart she hoped he wouldn’t come home. She wanted him to leave her as she was too scared to leave him herself. She had nothing to call her own, no money, no qualifications and few possessions. Most of all she didn’t want anyone to blame her for what had happened within their relationship. She knew it was her fault. She had decided to hell with the morality that the church preached. She was young and she wanted to experience life. She wanted to do all the things she’d been too scared and too insecure to try before. Most of all she wanted to experience men. Men and women. She knew there were not many women who had slept with only one man and she was tired of being one of them. None of the women she was allowed to associate with would ever admit to being attracted to another woman. She wanted desperately to know what it was like with someone else, how it felt. Not that she was a sexually overt person in any sense. She didn’t think much of sex. It wasn’t all it was made out to be and it certainly wasn’t the emotional and spiritual experience that the church said it was. It was anti-climactic really. She had never had an orgasm and she wondered if that were her fault or his. She longed to sleep with someone else to find out the answer. And as if he knew her inner thoughts he kept her close. Not allowing her to venture out of their home unaccompanied. Not allowing her to keep contact with her male friends from school. Taking her to church to be prayed for. Taking her to church to contain her.

During her teen years she had been told that everything she wanted to do, and that all her friends were doing, was  against God. Dancing was wrong, alcohol was taboo and intimate physical pre-marital involvement was strictly off limits. Pubs and nightclubs were to be avoided unless you were trying to convert the masses and extra-marital affairs weren’t even discussed because they were so obviously taboo. They’d even told  her that she shouldn’t be closely involved with those who didn’t share this belief system. Jeans, visible bra straps and make-up were all out of bounds. Tattoos and piercings never even entered the equation. She had swallowed it all without question for five years and then she’d woken up. But by then it was too late. She’d already thrown her freedom away.

She watched the bubbles rise in the saucepan as the water simmered. They were mesmerising and she thought how it seemed so unfair that a bubble could rise to the top of a pot but she would never have the opportunity to rise to the top of her life. A naff analogy but she had never felt so defeated. So hopeless.

She had had these thoughts before and many others along a similar vein. Life was a deep, dark hole that she was being sucked into head first and there were clammy hands making certain that she was completely immersed in the darkness. She desperately wanted to find a way out. She knew it was there but she didn’t have the nerve to take it. It was almost better to endure the agony than to be alone.

Desperation bubbled within her and she had to fight constantly to conceal it. She had to fight to stay emotionless in front of him. But within her mind she felt on the verge of hysteria. It was all too much to bear and she knew that enduring it any longer was beyond her limitations. She was already teetering on the edge. Suddenly she knew that she had to do it. The courage that had previously deserted her now flooded her entire being. She almost fell over herself to get to the kitchen drawer. Distorted and fragmented thoughts raced through her mind and scenes from their time together ran like a home movie in front of her eyes. Fighting, screaming, hitting out. The pain in her head increased, it was screaming out to her. She threw the drawer open and snatched up the knife. Ironically he had sharpened it only the day earlier. In the midst of it all she paused momentarily. It was the reflection in the blade that startled her. Looking back at her was her own face but it wasn’t the pale, worn looking face that she saw in the mirror every day, instead it was the woman that she knew she was inside. The woman she could be if only she could escape this life. She knew she had to be that woman. It wasn’t a decision, it simply had to be. There was no choice. She had to become that woman, that woman had to inhabit the shell she knew as her own body. She had to be her. Now. It had to happen at that moment or she knew it never would. With a surge of strength she swept the blade along her arm. She felt a searing pain as she slashed again and again through the pale skin. As she fell to her knees she was overtaken by darkness and a sense of  spiralling out of reach of those clammy hands.

The blood was dark, pooling around her lifeless form. He came home later that night to find her there. He cradled her head against his body. He wondered why she had been so unhappy. For the last time he failed to understand her.

copyright Bri King 2013