I watch the two drops forging new paths down the window pane. One absorbs a smaller droplet and speeds on faster than before. Impatient to win the race.
Someday, I used to think. Someday I will leave this house behind. It will all be a distant memory.
My finger traces the rough wood of the windowsill. Every crack and bump is expected before I even touch it. My hand knows where to dodge the splinters that would dig into my skin and form a home for themselves.
Familiarity breeds contempt.
I despise this window.
My back is sore from sitting on the tall stool and I stiffly stretch up to seek relief. The bigger drop snakes down the last few inches. As I watch, it charges into the battleground of the outside sill. Immediately, it is absorbed by the puddles there. The drop won the race, but lost the battle.
The second, smaller drop halts halfway up the window. It needs a push or it will be stranded. But maybe being stranded means being the last drop to survive.
Someday.
Today is someday and someday is today.
I push my hands against the windowsill as I rise, and wince sharply at the prick of a splinter.
Every time.
On my feet, I turn to leave. My suitcase stands at attention by the doorway, waiting for me. So many times, my suitcase used to perk up as I rushed to stuff it with my birth certificate, my driver’s license, and my bank statements. My life on a few papers. Today, my suitcase is proudly bursting at the seams with everything in my bedroom. Today, it knows it won’t be thrown back into the closet to the tune of Your entitlement is mind-boggling! I am your MOTHER! Do you have any idea how much I sacrificed for you? How much your selfishness hurts me? How dare you LEAVE–
My gaze lingers on the small drop. Two rivulets form on either side of it. From the outside, they look like a protective fortress. The little drop inside is quivering slightly. It knows to fear the rivulets that can pounce at any second. Other drops stream past, carried by the rivulets, ignoring the small one. It is left to fend for itself; no one notices how alone it is. How scared it is.
The wind shifts and a sheet of rain slams into the glass, and my heart jolts into my throat. As the wind relaxes, the window clears again.
The drop remains. The rivulets are gone.
The drop should have been swept away in the deluge. It should have slithered down the glass or been soaked up by a more imposing droplet. Perhaps it was luck. Perhaps it was sheer willpower to outlast the rest.
Today.
I will leave this house now. I will not come back. My muscles transport me steadily towards the bedroom door. The walls are still painted pink. Around the door frame, flecks and cracks are showing the old age. Mother should have repainted the walls years ago, when the first knuckles cracked through the sheetrock.
I will leave this house. I open the door and step onto flat, ragged carpet. Worn down, worn away, worn through. The carpet used to coax me to give up with it. I’m tired, it told me. I know you are, too. Father should have replaced it years ago, when he scuffed it as he kicked furiously at the door.
I will leave this house. The suitcase is heavy in my grip as my feet move deliberately down the stairs. I have carried so much up and down these steps. Shopping bags bursting with new clothes because We love you SO much baby girl!, extra books from school because If I ever see a “B” on that report card…, the weight of fear on my shoulders because I know that expression in Mother’s eyes. My parents should have stripped the dated mauve carpet from the stairs a long time ago, but I had asked them not to. Without the carpet, my footsteps would have echoed.
I know every creak and groan of every step. Even now, my feet slide softly from tread to tread. My parents are gone but the house still clings to me. The lock on the outside of my bedroom door beckons from behind me; the camera pointed at the front door warns me not to try leaving again.
My finger is throbbing from the splinter. The house has made a home inside of me.
Someday.
I won the race, but not the battle.
Emily Helmen is currently a Creative Writing MFA student at Emerson College. Her flash fiction piece, “Nightmares Are Underrated,” will be published in decomp journal in summer 2022. Emily enjoys fiction writing, especially fantasy, and has received two Honorable Mentions from the Writers of the Future contest for fantasy novellas. She lives in the Midwest with her husband and very fluffy cat.
Photo by Anna Nesterova on Unsplash.
