RED.

RED EVERYWHERE.

My vision swam, unfocused, a dizzying sensation making my body sway. It was everywhere. There wasn't supposed to be this much. Shallow breaths escaped from my lips, echoing off the tile. I gripped the countertop, bracing against the flare gun of contractions in my abdomen.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Everything was wrong.

I'd felt a bit of cramping all day, and left work early when it worsened. By the time I pulled into the driveway, I could hardly stand it, flying through my door and heading straight for the bathroom when I felt the wetness. Above me, rain pelted down on the roof of the house, masking the erratic pounding of my heart. My hair was soaked from the precipitation, a stray raindrop trailing down my nose.

I shook violently, before another stab of pain contracted in my core, and I couldn't help but cry out, squeezing my eyes shut against it. I sank to the floor. I didn't know if the nausea was from the sight of the blood, or the rejection that was currently taking place within my body.

Footsteps pounded down the hallway, and I had no time before the door was flung open, bringing a rush of cool air with it. I tried to move, to get up to close the door, but I was frozen in place.

"Vivi?" It was Mom, her face instantly paling. "Oh my God."

I immediately became unspooled.

My face crumpled as I dissolved into sobs at the sight of my mother. It made me feel so foolish. I'd needed her. All this time, I'd needed her, but I'd been too ashamed. If I would've just told her the truth from the beginning, everything would've been different.

"What's going on?" she demanded, blue eyes welling as she crouched to my level. She pushed my damp curls out of my face, doing her best to manage my tears. "Talk to me, sweetheart."

"Mom," I choked out, clinging to her. "I'm sorry."

In a way, I'd gotten what I wanted.

I hadn't been able to make a decision, so the universe made one for me.

I told everyone I had mono, that being sick was the reason I couldn't get out of bed.

Murphy laid next to me in bed, day after day, and sometimes Mom did, too. She told me that she'd lost a baby shortly after me, and that she'd been devastated by it for years. I wanted to tell her that I'd never wanted to be a mother, but admitting that would mean I'd have to come up with another explanation for my behavior. But frankly, I didn't understand it myself.

I'd been given an out, as traumatic as it was. I should've felt relieved.

Instead I felt heavy, and empty, and everything in between.

Will tried to call me, but I told him I'd lost my voice. In a way, I had. I hadn't really spoken since I left the hospital.

Nine days after it happened, I left my bed. I took a scalding shower, as if hot water could burn the last couple months from my skin and make it my own again, then grabbed my keys and got in my car. I drove in silence beyond the town limits, gripping the steering wheel tightly. Everything inside of me was building into a crescendo—relief, rage, grief, self-loathing, hysteria—and I didn't know what to do with it.

I arrived at the lighthouse, parking haphazardly. It was stormy, thunder booming in the distance, dark clouds above me, choppy waves below, but there was no rain yet. I extracted myself from the vehicle, not bothering to close the door, stalking toward the base of the lighthouse.

I walked until I was at the edge of the cliff, chest rising and falling heavily, curls whipping around me, staring out at the water.

When the next gust of wind came, I screwed my eyes shut and screamed. Once I started, I couldn't stop.

It was a strangled sound, filled with pain, like I was trying to expel all of the toxicity that had made its way inside of me and settled in my bones. It didn't even sound like my voice. I had become a stranger to myself, unrecognizable in the mirror, feeling foreign in my own body. I wanted it to stop.

I screamed until my throat was sore, then sank to my knees, dried tears sticking to my face.

As the sun went down, the clouds above became darker, and the rain finally arrived. I didn't move from my spot until my teeth were chattering, my clothes sticking to my body. It made me feel better; less zombie-like, more human.

But it was a temporary fix, a band-aid over a gaping wound. Something to stop the bleeding. It would take a lot more to get rid of it completely.

___

i've had this scene in my head for quite some time, and i hope i did it some justice.

thank you for reading <3