Spiralling A Prologue

Red was a disgusting colour. It transformed perfectly bleak things into outrageous horrors, scarred beyond recognition even after the red had been scrubbed away. I stared at the freshly painted, white-washed walls before me, and all I could see was red. It dripped to the skirting and pooled along the sanded floorboards, congealing in the spaces in between until the faint drip of it could be heard, escaping the cracks to conquer the packed dirt beneath the house.

I shuddered, pressing my eyelids together until the images faded away, but the feeling of horror only increased. It spread to my shoulders and down my arms, dislodging my hold on the cardboard box. The shattering of glass scraped against my ears as the box hit the ground, forcing my eyes open just as a person walked through the too-bright opening of the front door. I squinted as the silhouette formed into a tall, slender man in a crisp police uniform.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

I didn't answer him. He wouldn't appreciate what I had to say.

None of us were okay . We were all temporary inhabitants of a world that wanted to kill us at every turn, sharing space with people who were one piece of bad news away from turning on us and accusing us of stealing their oxygen.

The red is haunting me. I'm never going to be okay again.

He began gathering the fallen items from my box, even going so far as to walk me away from the space in case I stepped on any glass. I had shoes on, so I wasn't sure why he bothered.

"What should I do with the box?" he questioned.

"I don't care." My voice sounded as numb as my heart felt, and my words rang hollow. I wasn't trying to be rude, only honest.

He looked inside the box, and I could imagine that most of the contents were now sprinkled with shattered glass, so I wasn't surprised when he walked outside, and I heard the sound of the garbage bin opening and closing. I should have told him those were my only remaining belongings—everything the authorities hadn't confiscated—but it seemed fitting. They belonged in the garbage.

I belonged in there with them.

"That's everything, Miss Grey." This was another person—a woman. I didn't even bother looking at her. "We need to lock up the house now," she added.

I nodded to the voice. I hadn't been noticing details for days now, details like names and faces. The red didn't let me. It took up all remaining space in my eyes.

I found myself on the lawn, the condensation from the long grass dampening my calves. The outside of the house no longer reflected the inside the way it used to. The inside hadn't always looked so sterile and white-washed. It had been unkempt only last week. There had been mould on the curtains and ants in the cupboards.

Someone was speaking to me again, but I was fixating. Fixating on the memory of the mould and the ants and the sound of blood drip dripping to the floor. I was fixating and spiralling, and I could no longer even see my own hands as I held them over my face.

One year later …

"You don't have to be here, Mika."

I stared at my lap, my nails biting into my knees. The guidance counsellor's office was nicer than any other place in the school. There was something obsessive about … what was his name again ? I couldn't remember, but there was something obsessive about him. He needed to have everything in its place, and that had a soothing effect on my chaotic thoughts. Four little plants were lined up on the windowsill overlooking the courtyard behind the cafeteria, spaced evenly apart without a single dying leaf between them. His desk was completely bare except for a closed laptop. Behind him were several rows of shelving filled with ordered rows of handbooks and pamphlets arranged by problem. Pregnancy, depression, anxiety, sexual assault, suicide, OCD, ADHD, bullying … it was a vending machine of issues. A colourful little pill container with a letter for every day of the week and a solution for having to wake up on each of those days.

"You don't have a phone in here," I noted, returning my eyes to the desk.

"If someone needs to reach me, they can reach me on my cell," he replied.

He sounded surprised, or curious. Perhaps because I had spoken. I suppose I had been sitting there silently for a while. I finally turned my attention to him.

"Isn't that kind of unprofessional?" I asked.

He was younger than I expected. Much younger. Uncomfortably young. I didn't think I could talk to him about my problems.

How could he possibly understand?

He had smooth, tanned skin—the kind of genetic tan that was impossible to get from the sun or a bottle. It was earthy and perfect, like caramel or toffee stretched wide and thin before a window, daylight setting it alight from behind. He was every shade of sunshine and gold, except for his dark features. His stubble was inching into a very controlled shadow—the colour several shades deeper than the burnt, midnight maple of his hair. Maybe the facial hair was an attempt to look older than he was.

To look qualified.

He kept his hairstyle short enough to contain a barely perceptible curl but long enough for someone to thread their fingers through the silky-looking strands and grip .

I tried to picture him with sleep-mussed locks, lounging spread-eagled on a little kitchen chair in sweatpants, a steaming cup of coffee in his firm grip … and my brain short-circuited, telling me the image wasn't just improbable, but impossible .

In a different light, he might have had imperfections … but the building beside his office intercepted the stream of sunlight pouring into his office, slanting shade directly over his face and darkening even the hints of gold streaked through his strands. Without the glaring, punishing spotlight, I was unable to find anything in his appearance to critique. He had intense eyes—unendingly deep and knowing—a deep, dark blue so soft and shadowed it was really more of an indigo. Those eyes would haunt me. I knew it already.

He was unmarked, unbruised, unaffected … and totally fucking unqualified . He was too young to know about all the ways that blood could haunt a person and far too stunning to know about all the ugliness that stirred inside me.

"The opposite, actually." He had taken a moment to reply, and I suspected he had been busy measuring my reaction to him. "It allows me to do my job properly. I want this room to feel safe. Disconnected from the outside world."

I looked back to my lap.

"Mika, you don't have to be here," he repeated.

He had said my name in a voice that carried some kind of underlying command, and it was enough to force my eyes up again. The slightest spark of satisfaction in his expression told me that his words hadn't been so important; he was more concerned with my attention. He couldn't read me if I was staring at my lap.

Well, fuck him ? I looked directly at him before defiantly directing my attention back down again. "Here as in your office, or here as in?—"

"School. You don't have to be at school. You've been through a lot, Mika. It's been a very difficult year. If you aren't ready, you just have to say so."

You have no idea what I've been through .

I wished he would stop saying my name. He had a smooth, rumbly voice. It made me want to look up, look him in the eyes. It was the sort of voice that begged you to talk, to hand yourself over on a platter just to hear him deliver an approval of your actions. It was the sort of voice that you wanted to hear in an office like this—a boxy place where people came to talk about finding their plot again or to lay the ends of their tethers on the desk for inspection. It was the sort of voice you wanted to hear because it made the world feel fuller. Some people could do that: all they needed to do was speak, and people would really listen . It made me feel like I didn't have control over myself—and what pissed me off most about that was the fact that I shouldn't have cared so much. What did it matter? What did anything matter?

He was young, but his smooth voice and electric eyes had clearly gotten him this far. He had that air about him. The air of a person who could influence people, affect them with a word or a look, or bend the world into shape with his intention alone.

"You haven't been back for very long," he continued. "You were released to your aunt and uncle's care only yesterday. The school would understand if you needed time to adjust to your new home. To prepare to return to classes."

I laughed.

I couldn't help myself.

Home?

I laughed until I cried, and then I cried until my throat was raw. After that, he offered to call my aunt to come and pick me up. I snapped at him. Maybe. It was unclear, because I was spiralling again, disappearing into a world of red. I didn't remember the walk home, but I must have walked because when I woke up the next morning, there were blisters on my feet and blood in my shoes.

The red was back.

It was chasing me …

Four days later …

"You know you can't stay here with us, Mika." My aunt was reasoning with me as she twisted her platinum hair into a knot, securing it with a clip. "That's why we gave you the RV. So that you could have independence. You're too old to be micromanaged. We just want to do what's best for you. You've been on your own for a year—coming into a family now would just be too big of an adjustment."

I felt pulled between rage and despair, and the result was silence. I simply didn't know how to respond. I didn't want independence. I wanted … to not be alone. To not be forgotten. To not be stored away so that I wouldn't remind people of how much they were hurt by the same hurt that ate away at me.

I wanted to be a person to someone, not a problem to be dealt with, like a little box waiting to be checked off on a list of unsavoury tasks.

"I won't make trouble," I pleaded quietly. My voice was failing me like it already knew what her response would be. "You won't even know I'm here."

"But we will ," she returned, sounding pained and exasperated. She moved to the kitchen table, extracting Evie from her highchair so I would know who we were. "We're all still healing," she implored. "It wasn't just what happened a year ago. It was the trial, the constant questioning. We had to represent you in court while you were off—well, you know." She patted my arm but then moved to the other side of the kitchen. She couldn't stand to be near me. "All of us still have healing to do. You do, too. That's why this will be good for you. Being here, with us … it'll only remind you of what you've lost, sweetheart."

She was confusing me again. Twisting me between rage and despair. Sweetheart , she had called me, while telling me that I wasn't allowed to be a part of her family.

What could I say ?

"Here are the keys." My aunt— no , Shel. Her name was Shel. She didn't want to be my aunt. She handed me the keys, closing my fingers around them in a semblance of a handshake, devoid of warmth, before inevitably drawing away again.

She sought refuge on the other side of the kitchen once more, scribbling something on the top page of a notepad. She tore off the page, tucked it into an envelope, and then I was herded to the door.

"I've set up a bank account for you—you won't be able to access your full inheritance yet, but your mother's accountant managed to put aside some funds for you. They should last you the year."

She must have already called a cab because one was waiting by the curb. She was juggling Evie, so she couldn't hug me goodbye. She said that uncle— no , Fred. Fred would miss me. They would check up on me. They would call.

She was lying.

I didn't care.

I was spiralling again.

Two days later …

The RV was parked in Summer Estate Trailer Park , and the rental for its allocated space had been covered for the year ahead. There wasn't anything particularly summery or stately about the park. There were trees, and that was nice. There was a pathway through the trees, but night-time had it choking in darkness, so I hadn't yet explored where it led. The RV was sparse. It seemed to have been recently stripped. Perhaps Shel had thought that it would be best for me. Perhaps she hadn't wanted me to remember her, or them, or the family that wouldn't have me.

There was a small kitchen and living area in the centre, with a U-shaped couch built into the right side, set beneath a bank of windows. A curtain separated the kitchen from the bedroom, which was just a double bed between two bedside tables, a wardrobe built into one side and a small window set into the other. There was an empty shelf above the bed. It reminded me of the guidance counsellor's display shelves. If I filled it up with pamphlets and handbooks, it would look the same.

A tiny en-suite was at the back, but the shower didn't work. Summer Estate Trailer Park had an amenities block, where I supposed I would be taking my showers from now on. It wasn't summery or stately either.

I fell asleep on the couch and woke up with my head pounding and my stomach cramping. I couldn't remember the last time I had eaten. It wasn't that I didn't have any money or that Shel hadn't put some essentials in the fridge, because she had. It was because I sometimes forgot to live. I forgot that I needed simple human comforts. I forgot that they were available to me. It seemed a surreal concept, expelling effort to keep myself alive. It was like losing sleep over a bad relationship or wasting time fighting for something I wasn't even sure I wanted anymore.

The fridge revealed milk, eggs, bread, and butter. The receipt was still stuck to the milk carton, plastered from the moisture. I peeled it off and saw that Shel had bought the items only the day before yesterday. She had also bought diapers for Evie, a six-pack of Coors for Fred, and a toy for the dog, Houston. I was immediately consumed by a horrible, niggling thought: a suspicion that she hadn't been able to complete her shopping trip to fill up my new fridge without also buying those extra items. She had needed to remind herself that she had her own family to worry about. A family who needed things just like I needed things … except that they were her responsibility, and I was nobody's responsibility.

I thought I was angry at her for it, but I wasn't sure.

I hunted through the cabinets above the kitchenette, pulling down a glass and pouring myself some milk. I couldn't bear to smell the cooked eggs or to have the roughness of toast clogging up my throat, so I poured another glass of milk. Maybe if I drank enough of it, I wouldn't have to eat anything.

A scratching sound at the front door interrupted my second glass. I stared at the ragged little ball of fluff on the other side of the screen, sitting expectantly at the top step.

"No," I said, staring the creature in the eyes. "I hate cats."

It stared back, impassive, and then slowly raised a paw, flashing several ragged claws before it scraped across the screen again. The entire thing seemed deliberate. Scathing. Rebellious. But it was just a cat.

I frowned, looking at the remaining milk in my glass. The cat's stare was unnerving. It scratched at the screen door again, and I sighed, transferring the milk to a dish and opening the door to set it on the concrete platform outside.

The cat darted past me into the trailer, disappearing beneath the bed.

A tiny spark of annoyance tried to flare to life inside me, but it spluttered out before it could catch any oxygen. I tossed the dish into the sink, pulled out my phone, and navigated to the notepad app.

Buy more milk .

There. I was taking care of myself already. I didn't need a family. I exited the app and found myself staring at my phone's background.

I smiled in the picture, my chin notched atop my mother's head. She had hair like mine: a heavy gold that shined bright in the sun and grew lighter streaks in the summer. The picture was cut off right below her eyes. Even her eyes were like mine: green, almond-shaped, tilted slightly at the sides, framed by thick lashes. The similarities ended there. I had my father's cheeks, the too-full hint of youth that never seemed to fade away. My ears were all my own, too pointed and small to have come from them. My lips were my own, too. They weren't wide and smiling like my mother's or thin and smirking like my father's. Mine didn't seem to know how to smile at all. Not anymore.

I was partly a product of genetics, partly a product of torment.

The truth was there in the picture, even though it had been taken so long ago. Even then, my smile was a mockery: a forced, unnatural shape. My dark-blonde brows were just a notch too low for the expression of happiness supposedly plastered onto my face. I couldn't look at it anymore, but I didn't want to be hasty and throw it away. That would look too much like a temper tantrum, and I needed to take care of myself now. I turned it off and shoved it into the cutlery drawer, but after a few minutes, I fetched it out again and added another item to my list.

Buy cat food .

One day later …

"Hey—girl, can you hear me?"

The tears made it hard to see, but I knew that someone was hovering over me. I scrubbed my hands over my face and tilted my head back … and back. The man was tall, his hair greying. He had a kind face, blotched by age and sun and love. The type of love that stuffed your stomach and clogged your arteries. I was sure that he would die with a bloated belly and a joke on his lips. My body didn't know love like that.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled. I didn't know what I was apologising for. I seemed to be a burden on people no matter where I went, so the words came quickly to my lips.

"Visitors aren't allowed here after ten," he informed me gently. "Can I call someone for you?"

"I live here." I struggled to my feet, looking around.

I had no idea how I had even gotten to that particular part of the trailer park. To the covered courtyard area with a vending machine and a short bookshelf filled with faded and bent paperbacks. Borrow shelf , a sign read, with something scribbled beneath that I couldn't make out. I didn't remember walking there. I had no idea why I was crying.

"You do?" The man was shocked. "Which lot?"

"Eight?" I answered him with a question since I wasn't entirely sure.

"The Bunty lot?"

"Fred and Shel are my relatives," I told him, scrubbing my hands down my face again. "They're lending me their RV for a year."

"By yourself?" He looked sceptical but also seemed to realise that he hadn't yet introduced himself because he held out his hand. "I'm Tom, by the way. Tom Summers. This is my park."

"Mika Grey," I mumbled, briefly shaking his hand before retreating to the pathway.

"You come to me if you need anything." He seemed concerned, following after me for a few steps. "We're the last lot—just follow the pathway 'round to the back, and we're there, the last lot before the train tracks."

I nodded. "Okay, thank you."

He didn't mean it.

They never did.