Voices

Salt.

The smell stung my nose and tore at my skin with each drop of rain. As the water rolled down

my face it landed on my lips, the taste of the salt soaking in. I closed my eyes and took a deep

breath in allowing the salt to make its way in.

Deep breath.

Silence.

The silence felt so good I wanted it to engulf me and to never emerge.

“What are you doing out here?”

And just like that my silence began to shatter. I squeezed my eyes shut and took a step forward

tilting my head towards the sky allowing the rain to wash over my face.

“Hey! I know you can hear me! What are you doing up here?”

“Come on, let her be. She’s enjoying the rain.”

“Okay and? She can still answer me.”

“Maybe she just doesn’t want to talk to you right now. You did just put her through a lot.”

Deep breath in, and out, in and out. If I wait long enough they’ll stop talking and go away.

“I don’t care. She needs to answer me. Come on, just answer me!”

“Leave her alone already, she just needs a minute after what you made her do.”

“What I made her do? We all know it wouldn’t happen unless she wanted to do it, so I don’t

really care if she’s upset.”

“She just needs a minute, let her have it.”

“What I need is for you both to shut up and leave me alone.” I pushed my hands into my hair and

pulled at the roots as I went. “Please. I just need you both to shut up. Just for a minute let me

think, let me be.”

“Oh come on, don’t be dramatic. Why do you never appreciate the things I do for you?”

I pushed my hands through the rest of my hair and drew them up to my face. Reluctantly I

opened my eyes, forcing myself to look at what I had done.

My hands trembled, shaking droplets of red to the ground. I traced the red as it flowed from the

tips of my fingers to off my elbow as the water slowly dripped to the ground below me. I sunk to

it, placing my hands into the dirt.

“Why would she appreciate what you just made her do? How does that make any sense?”

“We had to do something about them! They wouldn’t leave us alone. I know you would’ve rather

us just be paranoid and do nothing but they wanted to get rid of us. We had to do something.”

I squeezed my eyes shut again trying to grasp onto the silence I once had, but my mind was too

cloudy to be silent again. Instead I focused on the waves crashing on the rocks below, the smell

of salt that stung with breath.

Deep breath.

“You, you made me hurt them. You didn’t help, you made things worse…”

Suddenly I could feel the warmth all over, the spray across my face, the looks in their eyes, the

red. It needs to come off. I began scraping at my arms, but no amount of rubbing could get me

clean. I was drenched. I panicked. Why was nobody helping me?

“Get it off! God please help me get it off! Get It off! Get it the fuck off of me! Why won't it

come off!”

“Come on now. Stop doing that, you’re going to hurt yourself. Come on stop that, there’s nothing

even there anymore.”

“Don’t baby her, she needs to suck it up. We wouldn’t have done it if she didn’t want to. She

needs to take responsibility. What’s done is done and that's it. They’ll never try to hurt us again.

She wanted this and she knows it.”

I scraped and scraped but it wouldn't come off. It’s not in my head, I know it’s there, so why

wont it come off?

“You need to stop, you’re making yourself bleed. Come on, get up.”

Against my will I rose to my feet, finally able to see that the red wouldn't go away because of the

scratches up and down my arms that were oozing it out.

“Okay now get your shit together. What's done is done, no going back now.”

“But I hurt them.”

“Exactly. You needed to do that, they were going to get rid of us.”

“He’s right ya know. We needed to do something, they wanted to get rid of us, and that can’t

happen.”

“They just wanted me to take my medicine. It had nothing to do with you guys.”

“You know that’s a lie. They just wanted you to get rid of us because they don’t love you. They

were scared of you and never accepted us. Those pills were going to make you forget about us

and god only knows what they were going to do to you after we were gone. We couldn’t let that

happen, I had to protect you.”

“Exactly, something did have to be done. They knew you weren’t taking the medication, they

were going to send you away. Once that happened you would’ve been put somewhere and

experimented on. This was the only way. Now you won't ever have to deal with that again.”

The waves sounded so nice, crashing rhythmically, never missing a beat. I can’t hear them, I

don’t want to. I want them to leave. I just want it to be silent. I just want it to be silent for once. I

stepped closer to the sound of the waves, now able to stare down at the rocks below me.

If I jumped it would be silent.

“Hey, don't even think that. You aren’t going to jump.”

But it would be so nice for it all just to end. Then it would just be me. I could be free.

“What about our family? They wouldn’t want you to do that.

“They’re dead.”

“Ha! At least she accepted it.”

“Shut up, you're not helping. Don’t listen to him. Everything will be okay, we just need to go

back home. Let’s just go back home and get cleaned up. You’ll see that everything is perfectly

fine. I promise.”

“Why would we go back there you dumbass, they’re all dead. We killed them. You don’t go back

to the scene of the crime.”

Deep breath.

Another step forward.

If I do this it will finally be silent. I just want it to be silent.

“You’ll be killing us too, You couldn’t kill us could you?”

I wiped the tears from my eyes. Another step forward. Another step closer to silence.

I stood looking out over the water. The salt singing my eyes and clearing my mind. I turned to

confront them, tell them it was time to say goodbye. But as I turned they vanished into the rain.

Instead I stood facing my house in the distance. Light filtering through the windows.

A car rolled into the driveway, the high beams gleaming at me through the rain, like a spotlight

on my sins.

My family stumbled out of the car, full of laughter, full of smiles. They were alive… for now.

Without me they could be happy again.

Deep breath.

The waves crash.

Step forward.

The salt swallows me whole.

Silence