January 28th

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Calm her chaos,

but never silence her storm.

- K. Towne Jr.


January 28th:

Just outside the sparkling mansion a bright orange sun falls on the small pond frozen over with ice. Standing rigid she takes in a breath of the dry night air, filling her lungs with much-needed oxygen and shaking her head away from the thoughts. The large windows shine the glow of the light and life from inside onto the front stoop where she lingers, preparing herself for what's to come.

Mara was discharged from the hospital a week ago, but because she is eighteen, she demanded this time that they didn't tell her mother. She needed time to prepare herself for the belittling and pestering, staying at her friend Ryn's apartment for the past week. 

Her mother believes that because she is prosperous and can afford to buy away all of her discrepancies, that Mara can simply be fixed with a crisp check signed by Doctor Genevieve Gray. She doesn't understand that this malady is wired in her brain, that no amount of high priced doctors and prescriptions will ever rid her of its claws. It is who she is. 

Sucking in another staggering breath, she clutches onto the arm of her backpack, filled with the stolen To Kill a Mockingbird and used clothing. Rasping her bruised knuckles twice against the red-painted door, she waits a minute before being greeted by their butler, Happy.

"Miss Emanuella," he glows, "how the household has missed your presence." Mara scoffs, snorting as she shakes the snow off of her shoes on the mat. She allows Happy to take her jacket, keeping such a tight clutch on her backpack that her knuckles turn white.

The bag isn't designer, like everything else she once owned. Rather just a knitted knapsack that her friend gifted her on her birthday last year. Her mother despises it, which makes the appeal of it only grow for Mara, who strives to upset the family in more ways than one. 

"Your family is getting ready for dinner, I presume you remember your way," Happy teases. He motions for her to travel into the grand dining room, decorated with round fluted marble columns. His polished shoes are almost as glistening as the tiled floors enhanced with soft golden flecks that shimmer under the light. It emanates from the grand chandelier that hangs over the grand staircase. Everything about the house is immaculate. And grand. 

Taking it all in, in all its perfection, Mara realizes just how much she really does despise this place. It is always so clean and perfect, the demons of its truth lurking behind bolted doors, with keys nobody owns. Every piece of furniture stands as a polished distraction to hid the failures.

Walking towards the dining room, the voices of her very successful, and eye of perfection, twin adult brother and sister hook her ears. As well, the low static of the company they produce, two women. She wasn't prepared to deal with more than her mother, about to turn back. Though the voice of her elder brother Mateo calling to her stops her in her tracks.

"Hello, Emanuella, how was Italy? Mother tells us you went on a school trip." He speaks, his tone firm and professional. She's never heard him talk otherwise as if he makes it his mission to be the blandest he can strive for. His expression never carries an ounce of emotion, his face always set in a stoic glare to fit his pressed suit. 

Gradually turning back, taking her time to observe every detail of the wall, hoping to prolong seeing their faces, she is met with the same vitreous blue eyes she posses. The only feature she and these people, who sneer at her, share. Everyone in Mara's family has dark brown hair, and even darker skin, whereas she has honey blonde hair and a much paler complexion.

"Italy was amazing," she fakes a smiles, her eyes finding her mothers who shake her head. It's a silent warning for her not to say something that ruins the cover up. 

Right, she is to act as if she had no problems. Scribbling out the words inside her head on the screaming walls of her wardrobe, shutting them behind a locked door.

"I went there once, when I was studying abroad," her sister speaks up at her turn, stabbing a piece of her seasoned steak and asparagus, "it was amazing. So warm outside, lots of respectable suitors to fawn over."

Her voice is nasally and high pitched, her irises hard and judging as she takes Mara in. Starting at the light roots of her hair, trailing down to her worn Doc Martens that everyone despises. Undoubtedly, she is comparing herself to Mara, the way she's done so many times before in their past.

"Yeah, the sex was amazing, but the drugs were even better," Mara rejoins tauntingly, staring straight into her mother's eyes. Genevieve's entire grimace goes livid as she stares at her hard-headed daughter.

Point one Mara.

---

It suffice to say that dinner was quite tense after Mara's retort; at least for the rest of the family. A dazzled, signature smirk played on her lips the entire time. After dinner, she hastened to her bedroom, having been pointedly excused from the table. Promptly she locks the door behind her, giving her mother no chance to dish out a punishment.

With her one arm on the closed-door, leaning against it, her breathing comes out staggered and ragged, out of shape from not having exercised the past few months. Gradually, after a minute of letting it all sink in, an evil laugh comes over her. It continues to build until she physically can't stop the tumultuous noise, her abdominal muscles contracting into a painful squeeze. Its chorus fills her room that's freezing cold, a sheen of dust covering most surfaces.

It isn't until she spins around, actually taking in her surroundings, that her uproarious laughter dies down. The walls are crisp, decorated with plush pink wallpaper. The design that's remained the same since she was a child.

It isn't that, however, that makes her frown.

In the wake of her manic state, she had scrawled out everything in her mind on her virgin walls in red. Scratching it out with pastels, pencils, whatever she could find to scribble with, really. The size of the staggering words and sentences varied, but the message was the same. Some were so small you had to lean in to read them, your nose touching the surface. While others, written in dark ink, made you take a step back to take in its entirety.

It was like stepping into Mara's mind, the craziness and confusion of it all. A million thoughts and ideas all fighting at once to be the one escaping their enclosures. Medicine is only the gatekeeper, and whenever she goes off of it, the words escape their prison.

What defeats her, though, is that her mother plastered innocent wallpaper over her words once again. As if they don't exist, just shutting them away. But you can't erase history. Genevieve always paints over Mara's words as if they mean nothing to her when in reality the words are just a cry for her to see Mara. To see the real, struggling version of her. Not the perfect image Genevieve has painted in her mind in an attempt to preserve their reputation.

Bipolar for Mara is like an addiction, it constantly lingers in the back of her subconscious. She can place it into remission, but she will never really be able to conquer it fully. She can't escape its hold, its yearnings to go off your meds and live happy, even if that state is manic.

The words scratched onto the walls in the middle of the night are just the raindrops of a graver storm about to ensue. Mara just wishes someone would notice it before it passes the point of being able to be stopped. Instead, she ends up shoved away into another facility, as if she has no worth other than being a disappointment. She's worth a million paychecks and nothing more.

Feeling as disposable as a penny. When it's lucky, worthy, people smile, they rejoiced. But as soon as it becomes unlucky, not of any use to society, they stomp on it.

While her mind digresses, her long-drawn strides pacing the length of her room, her memory falls upon the profile of the boy with unkempt brown hair. His eyes are wide and innocent, protecting demons behind their benightedness.

Pictures of him flitting through her daydream with each passing click of the clock on her desk, day turning night. The glow of the sun continues to set on the horizon. Her shadow lurking, following her on the hollow wall to her left side.

Biting her stubby nails, she gnaws on her lip, deep in thought. She can't help but grin at the thought of Elias, her lips turning upwards from the frown into a soft smile. 

Maybe she befriended him because he can't talk. The thought that maybe a fragment of him is just as messed up as her being a sense of comfort.

Or maybe it is utterly because he appeals to her in a type of way nobody has before. Not because of his looks, in his Disney character, but the aura of a disaster he encompasses. Once again, like an addiction, the thrill of wrongdoings is her craving.

Elias speaks everything that is constrained chaos, on the peak of breaking, falling over the edge. Like a porcelain doll, knocked off the prestige wooden shelf they are kept on for perfection. Watching them shattered into a million razor blade shards. 

Broken, helpless.

She can see it in his deep brown irises, the mettling behind them. The frustration and angst of being trapped inside your mind, with no escape, suffering in the soft silence of it's anarchy.

Elias is silenced, but Mara will become his voice.

---

Authors Note:

Thoughts?

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- ❤ Nia


Edited 3/26/23


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