Isolation

[VoltTurtle]

[+] CONTENT WARNING

Self Harm, Suicidal Idealization, Parental Infighting

Summer sunshine hit Amber's scarlet hair through the window of the bus, the noise of chattering students surrounding her, watching the landscape of suburban Tennessee roll by, the empty seat beside her serving as her only company. She was on the way home from middle school on one of the final days of the school year, and couldn't wait to finally be away from the place. This was always her favorite time of the year, because it meant no longer having to struggle through every class, barely being able to retain all the information that was taught to her. It meant no longer having to waste her teacher's time trying to help her understand stuff that came so easily to everyone else. Most of all, though it meant that she didn't have to deal with-

Amber felt something brush against the back of her head. She looked back to see what had touched her, only to find the empty, brown leather seat beside her. She reached one of her hands up to where she had felt the disturbance, only to be greeted by something wet between her fingers, now seemingly stuck to her hair. She heard sounds of barely contained snickering from the seat behind her, and she immediately puzzled together what had happened. She said nothing, choosing instead to remain where she was, looking out the window, trying to ignore the tears welling up in the corners of her eyes.

This was always her favorite time of the year, because it meant that she didn't have to deal with this.

She hated it here.

Eventually, the bus finally arrived at her stop, her eyes almost as red as her hair as she tumbled out of her seat and off the bus. The stop was still quite a ways away from where she lived, but that was okay. Even if it was hot and her backpack was really heavy, at least she didn't have anyone else there to call her names or throw things at her or stick gum in her hair. Sure, she wouldn't have any friends at home, but it wasn't like she had those at school, either.

Arriving at her front porch, Amber took the key off the lanyard that she had around her neck, unlocking the front door of the house and letting herself inside. She entered the house in a mild daze, too exhausted by the school day to really be paying attention to her surroundings. Inside, she was greeted by a distinct squishing noise coming from beneath her feet, only to look down and notice that the entire floor was covered in a thin layer of water. Shortly after shutting the door behind her, she heard her father's voice ring out from elsewhere in the house.

"Oh, Amber, is that you, sweetheart?" He called out. "I think a pipe broke while we were all out, had to shut off the water when I got back!"

Following the sound of his voice, Amber trudged through the water to the family's kitchen. She found her dad crouched on the ground, his pant legs soaked, surrounded by what seemed to be every towel in the house, all soaking wet. The cabinet doors leading to the underside of the kitchen sink were wide open, one of the pipes underneath clearly askew, and still dripping slightly. Her dad gave her a brief glance and a nod as she came in.

"Say uh, sweetheart, could you help me dry all this up? Sink's a no go right now, so I've been running back and forth to the bathroom with all these towels."

Amber stared wide-eyed for a while at her father, taking note of the pain and tiredness in his eyes, before giving him a silent nod and placing her backpack down on the kitchen table. Exhausted as she was from her time at school and the walk home, she wasn't about to tell her dad no, under the circumstances.

Once she got down to it, the actual work ended up taking a few hours, Amber running a bucket full of wet towels back and forth between her dad and the bathroom, wringing them out as quickly as he soaked up the water with them. When it was finally done, the sun was beginning to set, Amber's muscles ached, her head felt like it was on fire. Her dad gave her a token thanks and a pat on the back, and Amber took the opportunity to finally address the gum that had been stuck in her hair this whole time.

Standing in the bathroom in front of the mirror, Amber held the chunk of hair above her head to see, the dried wad of gum firmly glued in place. She frowned, but did not cry, her tired eyes unable to shed anymore tears today. This was the fourth time this month that this happened to her, and her hair was already an uneven mess because of it. Picking up a pair of scissors off the counter, Amber made one uneven cut across the bunch of hair, before tossing the newly loosened lock into the nearby trash can, and putting the scissors back down.

Feeling parched, Amber picked up a glass from the side of the sink, and reached down to fill it, only for nothing to come out when she turned the faucet. Remembering that her dad had mentioned having to turn the water off, she put the glass back down with a sigh, and began to stare into the mirror, at herself. At her tired eyes, at her messy, uneven hair, at the bright red pimples that dotted her face. She remembered the snickering that she heard behind her, in the bus. She only had one thought.

Ugly.

She picked the scissors back up, off the bathroom counter, before rolling down one of the sleeves of her baggy, unflattering shirt and staring at the shallow, straight scars that ran across her wrist. She opened the scissors up, brandishing the blade above her skin. Her hands shook, her breathing picked up. She felt the tension all through her body, all the stress and the hatred. She wanted to hurt this body of hers that she was trapped in. She needed that feeling of relief it provided, of the tension evaporating. It always ended up coming back, but however temporary it was, she wanted it, she needed it, she-

She resisted the temptation and put the scissors back down, before hurrying up the stairs to her bedroom.

Grabbing a notebook and a pencil off her desk, Amber threw off her shoes before catapulting herself into bed, landing on her back with a soft thump. Flicking through the pages, eyes scanning across random poorly drawn sketches and a litany of random, scattered ideas, until she eventually arrived at the most recent pages, stopping there. Unlike much of the rest of this notebook, these pages were more orderly. Less a collection of assorted ideas that happened to pop into her head, and more an outline of an actual story. It wasn't a super complicated, fantastical narrative, instead being a much more down-to-earth, slice-of-life story.

It was about a girl going to high school with a talent for reading people, because she could quite literally read people. As in, their thoughts, because she had psychic powers. Okay maybe it was a little fantastical, but there was nothing wrong or cringy about that, right? Amber didn't think so, or at least she didn't think she thought so. She hoped, she didn't actually know. Regardless, the so-far-unnamed main character was excellent at reading people. She always knew what to say to everyone to help them with their problems, resolve disputes, and make everyone like her. There was no problem she couldn't overcome, be it lunch room drama or making sure to help all her friends ace the upcoming math exam. Maybe it wasn't that interesting an idea, but Amber liked it.

She just needed to come up with a name for the main character. She wasn't exactly the best when it came to coming up with names. She didn't really know why, but it had simply never been her strong suit. Originally, she had just called the character Blue as a placeholder name, because Amber always imagined her wearing lots of blue colors. Maybe she could just keep the placeholder name? It wasn't like it mattered all that much, and it matched her outfit, so that was like, reasonable, right?

Stupid.

No, no, that was dumb, who names their kid after a color? This whole story idea was dumb. Who cares if she had spent months coming up with it while bored at school? It wasn't like it was ever going to actually turn into anything, she couldn't make it all on her own, and who else would ever want to help with her idiotic ideas. Even if she did make it into something, people would probably hate it and laugh at her and make fun of her and-

Amber tossed the notebook aside, a dejected frown on her face, her eyes half-closed and weary.

Those girls at school were right about her, everything she liked really was trash. She was just a worthless idiot that nobody liked. There had to be an explanation for that right? Like, she couldn't just have no friends for no reason. She could try to blame everyone else, say they just didn't understand true genius or something else conceited, but that was dumb. She was the problem, she was always the problem. No matter what she did or where she went she always made everything worse. That was the girl known Amber Yates. That was all she would ever be.

She started to cry.

She wanted to go get the scissors.

She did not move.

Amber remained there for some time, half considering grabbing one of her DVDs and putting on Home Alone for the sixtieth time. It was her comfort movie, one that she always enjoyed watching. She couldn't explain why exactly it appealed to her so much, but it did, it always made her feel at ease. Yet, she couldn't find the energy to move, and she wasn't even sure she would actually enjoy it, anyway. She just couldn't seem to enjoy anything lately, and she didn't really know why. It was like she was going through the motions, day in and day out, never quite feeling like anything was worth doing.

Suddenly, she heard the front door slam from long down the stairs, and Amber sat up in her bed, perking up just a little bit. Her mom must have just gotten home, maybe Amber could go say hello and ask her how her day went-

"Peter, what the hell happened?"

Hearing her mother yell from across the house didn't exactly make Amber feel very enthused to go greet her. She instead opted to lay back down in her bed, trying not to let the ensuing fight stress her out-

"Pipe attached to the sink busted, Lynn. I know it looks bad, but I think I've got an idea on how to-"

"Something else broke? Are you fucking serious? We just had to replace the fridge and stove last month! How are we going to afford to fix this?"

Amber rolled over onto her side, reaching out to grab a pillow, before doing her best to cover her ears with it. Just overhearing this was already making her heart was begin to race. She didn't need this extra stress right now. She hoped that maybe, just maybe, the pillow might help-

"Lynn, I know you're stressed, but hear me out," her father said, muffled by the pillow. "I have a friend who's brother is a plumber, we might be able to-"

"Oh my god, it's so damp, what about the floors? Jesus, Peter, what if they just start rotting, what are we going to do about that?"

"Lynn-"

"I can't deal with this right now. I can't, I," Amber heard her mother's voice break. "I just spent the last four hours getting screamed at for mixing up a few orders. I can't do this today, I can't-"

"Lynn, please listen to me," her father pleaded. "I know it looks tough, but we have to deal with this soon, because the water's off."

Amber didn't fully understand her family's financial struggles, but she knew that it weighed pretty heavily on her parents. They always looked so tired, and never had any energy to spend time with her. It made Amber not want to bother them, for fear of making everything even worse for them. It wasn't like she could do anything to help them anyway, she was just a stupid kid that they didn't even want to have. She was a burden on them, she always was, she was probably the reason why they could never make ends meet. Kids were expensive, right? That's what her teachers said, anyway. Maybe they would just be better off without her-

"Where are we going to get the money, Peter?" Her mother screamed, causing Amber to wince in response. "Even if you get a discount, we're broke, we have nothing!"

"L-Look, Lynn, I know it looks dire, but we can use the credit card to cover everything," her father responded, his voice taking on clear stress and desperation. "All we have to do is skip a few meals and then we can pay it off-"

"Oh, so Amber is going to go hungry with us?"

"I never said that-"

"Then how are we going to feed her?"

Amber curled up where she laid in her bed, starting to sweat, pressing the pillow even harder on both of her ears, trying to no avail to block out the sounds of her parents fighting.

"We can just use the card for her food too, and we can skip a few more ourselves-"

"Peter! We can't just," Amber heard her mother's voice break again, sounding like she was choking back sobs. "We can't keep doing this! I'm so tired of all of this. I'm fucking miserable, I'm working all the time, and I feel like I have the entire world on my shoulders, and I can't-"

Amber heard a thud coming from downstairs, and immediately jolted upwards out of concern. Springing up and out of her bed, she crept down the stairs to see what happened, leaning around a corner and into the kitchen, where her parents had been arguing. Her mother was sitting against a wall, crying into her hands. Her father looked dejectedly at his wife, visibly struggling to find something to say, only to spot Amber out of the corner of his eye.

"Oh, Amber, sweetheart, everything's alright," he said, his voice taking on a soothing tone. "You can go back to your room, mommy and daddy will sort this out, don't you worry."

Amber stared at him in response, silently contemplating. She could just go back to her room, but that would be the easy way out. It wasn't like she'd be any happier listening to all of this go down, trying desperately to remain blissfully ignorant of her family falling apart around her. All because of her too, her parents wouldn't be in this mess if she didn't exist. Who knows, maybe they both would have had happy and successful lives, if only they weren't stuck having to care for her. It wasn't like she was going to amount to anything anyway, she was just a stupid, worthless, no-good-

No, no. She needed to stop thinking like that. She wasn't useless. She wasn't dumb. She wasn't bad, or a burden. They weren't better off without her. She had to tell herself that. She could help, she was sure of it.

Instead of following her father's advice, Amber instead opted to walk into the kitchen, her socks getting slightly damp from the still-slick floor. Approaching her mother, Amber gently placed one hand on her shoulder, in an effort to console her.

"Mom, it's okay," she said, her voice shaky. "I can skip some meals too, it's only fair-"

"Don't touch me," her mother snapped.

"Wha-"

"GET AWAY FROM ME," her mother screeched, looking at Amber with fury in her eyes.

Amber scrambled backwards, her eyes wide, her breathing beginning to speed up.

"Lynn," her father chimed in. "Don't scream at her, she didn't do anything wrong-"

"YES SHE DID," her mother screamed, turning her hateful gaze away from Amber and towards her father. "If it wasn't for her-"

No.

"LYNN-"

"-IF IT WASN'T FOR HER WE WOULDN'T EVEN BE IN THIS MESS-"

No, no.

"-LYNN, STOP-"

"-FUCK YOU, PETER. WE WERE DOING OKAY UNTIL YOU GOT ME PREGNANT-"

No, no, no.

"-LYNN, FUCKING STOP-"

She had only made everything worse. She didn't want to be here anymore, she didn't want to hear anymore of this. She had done enough, heard enough.

Tears and snot alike streaming down her face, Amber turned tail and ran back up the stairs and into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her and turning the lock until it clicked. She slid down the door until she was left sitting on the floor, clutching the sides of her head. Blubbering like a baby, breathing so fast she was starting to feel faint. The world around her faded out, the continued screaming of her parents now nothing but muffled cries in the far distance.

Everything that just happened proved that she had been right all along.

Useless.

She really was bad. She really was dumb. She really was a burden.

Useless.

She was poison. She couldn't do anything right.

Useless.

They were better off without her.

Useless.

Everyone was better off without her.

Amber's nails dug into her skin, the warm feeling of blood underneath her fingernails. She should just die, that would be better. Her parents wouldn't have to worry about taking care of her anymore. The other kids at school wouldn't have to worry about her bothering them anymore. Her teachers wouldn't have to waste any more time trying to help her understand basic concepts that everyone else already understood. She should just die.

She remained there for some time, sitting by the door, sobbing to herself. The garbled noises of her parents fighting began to grow quieter, as the sun gradually setting outside her window, stopping not long after the sun had set completely. Amber didn't care, because she wasn't paying attention. The world around her might as well be as distant and unreachable and the stars above. Trapped in her own head, she was trying to understand what had just happened, how she felt about it, and what she wanted to do in response. Then, a knock on the door behind her interrupted her thoughts, and the world suddenly came rushing back. Amber stood up and went quiet, backing away from the door, her gaze fixated on it as if it were a monster that was about to attack her.

"Amber, sweetie," her mom's voice rang out, much more quietly than it had been moments before. "You're in there, right?"

Amber sat down on her bed, staring silently at the door, her lower lip quivering.

"Sweetheart," her dad said, his voice muffled. "It's okay. Mommy and daddy aren't fighting anymore. You can come out."

She did not move. She did not speak. Only stared, silently.

"Amber," her mother said. "I know I just said some things that probably upset you, but I didn't mean it. I'm sorry."

She remained where she was, blinking slowly, trying to suppress her cries, trying not to make a single sound.

"Could you please come out, sweetie? I just-"

Amber heard her mother's voice break, again.

"Fuck, Peter, what have I done?"

"Look," her father said. "I'll take it from here. Amber, listen sweetheart-"

Amber did not listen, because she didn't want to listen. She had heard enough already. She picked up the pillow once again, finally taking her eyes off the door and curling up on the bed. She covered her ears with it, and stared into the dark sky outside her bedroom window.

"-we both wanted to let you know that-"

Her father's voice grew more distant, and hazy.

"-your mother really didn't mean what she-"

The dark sky outside became her sole focus, enveloping her thoughts like an ocean. There was only one thought that she had that was important, anyway.

"-so could you please come out or say something, sweetheart? We're worried about you-"

She hated it here.