Free Copperback by Tarah R. Hamilton Page B

way through the living room and down the hall to my bedroom. I
glanced at the pictureless walls – desperately needing a coat of paint.  Every
memory of my mom and my life before she died was packed away in a box somewhere
in the house. They were too hard to throw away, but harder still to face.
    I
ran my fingers around one outline that used to be a photograph of the three of
us sitting together when I was just a little girl. Mom would tell me how I had
thrown such a tantrum before the picture, and it took the entire staff to get
me to sit still and smile. I didn’t need to see the picture to remember what it
looked like: all of us were in shades of blue; Chase in a tie and me in a
jumper; my mom’s brilliant smile as she held me on her lap. A time before
anything had changed.
    Just
past the silhouettes was the staircase leading to the top floor. I used to
sleep in the room upstairs, across from Chase’s room, but since he had moved
out, I moved my meager belongings to my Mom’s old room and had her stuff boxed
up to collect dust in the rooms up there. The upstairs sat empty, except for
the few sheet-covered pieces of furniture that wouldn’t fit in the basement. I
hadn’t been up there in months, and really had no desire to go back up there
again. I had everything I could need – kitchen, living room, bathroom and bed –
on just one floor.
    I
made a stop at the bathroom to validate my earlier feeling about Chase’s
destruction. With the light on, the bathroom was pristine, except for the towel
I had left on the floor in my haste, and the tub still full of lavender-scented
water. The aroma drifted back into my nostrils and made me feel relaxed again
while I fished for the drain plug in the frigid water. I noticed the water
turning pink while my arm was still under, swirling away trace amounts of blood
down the drain. Had I really gotten that much on me?
    I
looked at the reflection of myself in the mirror over the sink. I could see,
just below my eye, faint finger swipes of blood where I must have brushed back
my hair that had come loose from my ponytail. Both eyelids were red and puffy
from crying on and off through the night, and the circles under my eyes were a
faint blue, getting darker by the minute. My faded T-shirt – that had once been
solid yellow – now appeared tie-dyed with red and brown.  Looking down, I could
see the stains on my shorts were not much better. I looked like I was preparing
to go to a Halloween party dressed as a slumber party mass murderer. All I was
missing was an oversized butcher knife.
    As
heavy as my eyelids were becoming, a shower was less of a desire than a
necessity. I stripped off the ruined clothing and crawled under the hot water. It
felt so good to scrub off the layers of grime that coated my body, along with
the thoughts of the predicament I had gotten myself into. Yet, as much as the
water dissolved the recollections of the fight and the anger, I couldn’t shake
the thoughts of Job.
    If
he made it through the next few nights. It was still such a
big if. He could be down there drawing in his last breath, and I was still
concerned about how to make it through three weeks. The thought of him dying
kept swirling in my mind. I was wrestling with myself if I should just call it
a night, or go check on him one more time before turning in. Subconsciously, I
knew I needed to see him again. I really wanted to be the person my mom had been,
but the rest of my brain still wasn’t convinced that it was the right thing to
do. There were so many questions and worries surrounding the whole situation.
What if I were caught? They would kill him for sure, but what did they do to
anyone who helped a Sayner? I had been standing in the shower so long, debating
over what I should do, that I hardly noticed the hot water running out, until
it turned ice cold. It shocked me back to reality, and I turned it off and clambered
out of the tub.
    Wrapped
up in a towel, I snagged my clothes, made a