6:01 p.m. - 2003-01-13
bleeding, suffocation and tears. metaphorically. weekend in Anguilla.
We went to Anguilla over the weekend to celebrate my dad's fiftieth birthday on the 10th. We missed a day of school. My parents knew that ten years from now, we won't remember what we did in school that day, but we will always remember what it felt like to walk through the sand, soft as flour but less clumpy, into that perfect clear blue cool Caribbean ocean. To make a splash and see the fish dart away, the baby yellow-and-black Sergeant Majors. To pick up a handful of sand and let it sift through your fingers, fine as confectionary sugar but probably not as tasty. The sun on your back as you lie on the anchored raft a few hundred feet out, rocking back and forth on the baby waves. Sometimes it's worth catching up on the work.
Kelsey and Alexa were taking turns in the bathroom, giggling about anime pairings, surreptitiously checking the television whenever they thought Mom and Dad weren't about to peek in. I couldn't stand it anymore. I went outside.
The sun had already bled across the sky and it was dark. Where I live, you can see the stars, but nothing like this. Shining sparkling diamonds in the sky and I knew if I reached out my arm I could touch one, keep it for myself, remember the moment forever. I knew that if I reached out my arm the spell would be broken. I didn't move.
The air settled over me like a blanket and suddenly I was suffocating. I sat down in the cool sand and tried to make myself breathe. Mom came out onto the porch to tell me the shower was free and asked me why I was hyperventilating. I calmed myself down. My mind was filled with words and sentences and stories that would never translate to paper (or to computer screen). A cool breeze came from the ocean and goosebumps sprang out on my "healthily tanned" skin. Cancer-inducing. I went inside.
Kelsey and Alexa were in bed, lying between clean white sheets with pink flowers on the pillows. They had already ripped off the petal from each flower and left the carcasses on the nightstand. They were still whispering and giggling to each other. I asked them what was so funny. They told me to leave them alone. I complied.
I took a scalding hot shower and scrubbed my skin nearly raw. When I came out I was bright pink. I wrote my name in the steam on the mirror and then savagely wiped it off with an edge of my towel.
I curled up in the cold, unforgiving marble bathtub and finished reading "The Bell Jar." I went to bed and sobbed myself to sleep for no reason at all, except that I was still awake.
But quietly, quietly, so I wouldn't disturb my sisters.
