It's not just the ring leader though, as the bag bursts open and piles of disgusting trash and a soaking concoction of abandoned drinks coat the shoes of nearly every one in the group, unfortunately this includes my own shoes but it was worth it. Shrill women gasp and shriek, men gap and moan disgustedly, I can't help but laugh, losing whatever credit my act of 'an innocent accident' had afforded me. My aunt plugs her nose, laughs loudly and off beat with me, though her vocals are horse. She steps back in her small heels away from the forming puddle of who-knows-what and looks at me like a parent whose child just misbehaved in the most humorous of ways but she has to pretend to be angry.
I can't say my actual parent wears the same expression, she is completely mortified. In fact, I've never seen her that mad and embarrassed as if her world just fell apart. My smile drops the instant I see her face and know that I've messed up. I never wanted to make her look at me that way, with anguish and confusion. I just wanted to help my Aunt, and I suppose I also wanted these people out of our lives. I don't think they deserve to reach out and talk with my mom as if they didn't ignore her, cast her out even, just 17 short years ago. They don't deserve to be here now that she has money, it's Calvin all over again and that pisses me off. Anger burns inside me, anger at my mom for letting them in, anger at myself for hurting her and letting this happen, anger at Calvin and everyone here who disrupts the quiet night at home mom and me could have had with Aunt Clarissa. I'm just angry. Tears roll down my face as I stand in the middle of a crowd who stare at me like my feelings are just a symptom, the guy on the floor looks up at me with pity as if my actions were some mental outburst of a sad unstable child. That disregard, that pity, that condescending nature snaps something in me as I am sick and tired of always holding in my emotions, they'll just chop it up to me being insane anyway, no one ever takes me seriously so in that moment, the very same moment that Calvin, who has been the source of my anger for the past two years, enters the room wearing a tank top and holding a beer I can't find the will to hold back so force myself through the crowd and I punch him in the face with all the strength I possess.
With the party officially over, I wish I were asleep so that I could escape the remorse I feel for my actions, for my anger. I sit on a small stool in the middle of the messy empty living room, my mother towering over me while Calvin is in the bathroom fixing his bleeding nose. My mom is...beyond words. She is crying and huffing out air as if she wants to yell, wants to hit me or somehow get through to me but she doesn't do any of it, though I wish she would. I wish she wasn't hurt beyond action, I wish the anger coloring her face would simmer and her tears would stop dotting the wooden floor. I wasn't the one who was supposed to make her cry, I'm supposed to protect her, comfort her, bring her joy and pride. Her short brown hair messy and twisted from her fists running through and grabbing at her hair, she just keeps staring at me and pacing as if she can't find the words. I know what they are though, I know the disbelief going through her, I can see it in her drowning brown eyes. 'How could you do this to me?' She's thinking, ' I worked so hard to get everyone back, how could you? Why would you?...And Calvin! How could you attack him like that! How? I never expected this from you! You were never violent like this! What the hell is happening? Maybe he's right, maybe Club Sunshine is the right place fo him to be for a while….No, Rayen is such a good kid, he's just going through teenage rebellion...but attacking Calvin and Davis Wagner…' She is likely going through some similar string of thought, I know my mom and she is terrible at hiding her thoughts. She just shows everything on her face, the anger, the doubt, the despair, the confusion, the everything. I can't be sure when she'll speak to me or what thought she'll land on when she does. The only sound other than her huffing and her stomping is the water running in the bathroom from Calvin, I know whenever he comes out it's likely going to end the silence. I can picture him crouched over the sink, grumbling something about me being 'an ungrateful ass' or something similar, even the mental image of his irritation didn't ease my guilt towards my mom. I want to apologize to her, for embarrassing her and disregarding all the work she put into this party but what good would a 'sorry' do? It wouldn't fix the party, wouldn't change what I did or the busted stinking trash that lies around me. The intensity is suffocating as I wait for the justly due screaming...but it doesn't come. Even when Calvin enters the room and the water stops. He is pissed, he wants to beat me and probably would if mom was gone but she's here so he leans on the wall. His entrance did seem to jump start my mom though as she takes a deep sharp inhale and she just looks at me with cold, hurt eyes and says so quietly it's almost earth shatteringly hurtful to hear, "Just go to your room, Rayen, I can't do this." My eyes widen because I don't know what that meant, I can't do this… now? Anymore? Ever again? What exactly was the end of that sentence...why won't she yell at me? Has she given up? Was I unforgivable? Does she love Calvin more than me, did I miscalculate his place in her heart? Is she...going to send me away? I want to ask, to panic and argue but a part of me knows that will only make things worse so I get up on shaky legs and go to my room, unsure of what tomorrow will bring.
In my room, I hug my knees close to my chest while laying on my twin mattress. It's a habit I've had since I was a kid to curl up like this, I used to think it would protect me from the people I saw in my room, now it protects me from the crushing weight of doubt and anxiety. Guilt also shows its tormented head, I can't help but replay tonight events over and over in my head, playing like a movie in the dark. At every turn, it was my fault. I lost control, I broke my composure and gave mom reason to doubt me , evidence for Calvin to use when pleading her to send me away. I agonize over this until a glimmer of light changes the shades of black my closed eyelids provided me, I open my eyes to a bright circle of a golden sparks. I hear myself take in a breath as I sit up, this was new, I'd never seen anything like it before. In the circle was also different, instead of my blue wallpaper, the inside was a black hole, seeming to suck through different items in my room, my phone charger, my pencils, some nameless knickknacks from young summer vacations. I also see, with a sock of vibrating energy, that I too was glowing this same odd gold, a peaceful aura coated every part of me I could see and fear started to prick at me as I slowly start to gravitate towards the darkness.
I grip my bed and anything that feels secure, A scream builds in my throat but is quickly cut off by the agitated groan coming from inside the blackness, a woman's loud groan of irritation followed by the clanking of metal and sounds I don't have words to identify. The pull snaps away and I am left falling from the air beside my bed and making a loud thud on the ground. I grit my teeth at the unexpected pain and glare towards the mystic black hole. None of my delusions could do this, nothing fake could do this, And I could hear it- for the first time since I was a child- I can hear them fighting and cursing. For some reason instead of fear, I find myself feeling unbridled rage at the thing and the creatures within it. I ball my hands into fists and scream into it, "If you were real why the hell did you make the world think I was crazy! What the hell do you think you are! You're the reason my life has been so fucking miserable!" I scream this and other incoherent lines at the blackness as if it has consciousness, as if it could repent and feel guilt, as if it could fix what it's done, what I've done. I feel violent and hurt but I know I can't do anything to the strange thing so I just keep screaming at it, I scream until my throat hurts and my breathing is heavy. The hole doesn't shrink, instead the gold sparks start to rotate and just as fear pricks at me, a woman is tossed from the darkness into my room, her body makes a thud as it hits but she recovers quickly and looks directly at me with a fierce determined expression. The women would be beautiful if she weren't so off-putting and terrifying. Even though I don't know her, I feel like I am in danger despite her smaller frame. The women's mouth is set in anger and her eyes glow like emeralds, her pupils are catlike and thin. She doesn't take her eyes off me even as things begin to fly into the vortex once more. It is only then that I see her hands, her nails long and pointed like talons, weapons ready to slice me to pieces. It's not often you look your own monstrous death in the eyes as they stalk you but I am, I see her intent as if she had written it in stone. I know her, vaguely, I've seen her before in those awful nightmares filled with anguish. She would often fight brutally, she always had this sense of enjoyment that the other fighters lacked. Like a woman made of anger and violence, seduced by blood lust. Somehow I pity her but not nearly as much as I currently fear her.
She throws her messy blond hair away from her face and blinks once with a slow grin, "Got you." She whispers almost to herself before lunging at my throat.