Page 195 of Vicious Saint
With furious taps of my foot, I await any type of significant response. Hurt, but not surprised, when all I’m met with is heavy silence.
“You ruined everything, Saint, I hope it was worth it.”
“Guess this means you hate me again,” he finally says, marking the end of the conversation.
“Hatred.” I study the distant expression on his face. “Funny you never had a problem sensing that.”
My anger is an emotion hardest to fight, because it’s always been bigger than me.
Even as a child, violence was habitual, the answer to every problem when it came to being mistreated at school, on the playground, even during play dates.
If some kid called me names, I’d settle the score by choking, biting, or scratching their face.
As I got older, my impulses became worse, so much I scared Mom and Auntie into taking me to therapy.
It did shit, and Mom refused meds in fear of me magically changing into a different kid. Typical stereotype.
So, instead, I spent all of elementary school in and out of the guidance office, working on proper methods of conflict resolution to control my temper. But I couldn’t help it, inflicting pain to thwart mine was visceral.
As a little girl, I never understood why I’d have these knee-jerk reactions, why I liked them, or why I couldn’t control them.
Until one day in fifth grade, Mrs. Lee, my counselor, suggested I pick up a pencil. To draw, not write, my feelings on paper.
She explained how visualizing, not spelling, emotions could sometimes make it easier to understand them.
Turns out, she was right.
Because the second I put a pencil to paper and was told to draw whatever scenario brought me into her office that day, it was like a fog lifted.
At first, most of my scenes consisted of hateful words in bubbles, bloody faces, guts, devil horns…and Mrs. Lee didn’t even protest.
She promised it was safe for me to express myself and show exactly how I pictured others in my head. Until eventually the bloody faces and horns turned into bubbly cartoons, and the bubbly cartoons turned into portraits of my favorite characters.
Mostly superheroes.
As I matured I got better, not as much as my drawings but with enough emotional regulation to get me through middle and the first half of high school with only a handful of major incidents.
Enter…Riverside Prep.
Enter…Saint Lavell.
Scratching lines over my third attempt at Scarlet Witch, I toss my sketch pad on the bed and fall onto my back with a huff.
“Hendrix…you are officially broken.”
I stare at the ceiling, waiting for answers on what the heck I could’ve done in life to deserve being where I am.
Maybe trying to drown Kathy Steinhart in the toilet.
The ceiling is wrong, given Kathy had nothing better to do in fourth grade than point out the extra fat I had rolling out of my jeans when I’d sit.
My phone rings, and when I look it’s Bex calling.
The three of us never got to finish our conversation about me and Saint, given how fast I took off when Archer’s warnings turned into Bex’s excitement about me “finally giving her favorite Royal Heathen a chance.”
The look of surprise on their faces was priceless, and the questions were endless when I came clean on how long ago I actually did.
It was a pivotal moment when I left my best friends to search for Saint, so pivotal I still haven’t found a way past the pain to offer an update on what happened hours ago.
