Three Days Wait


The envelope covered in my hand-writing and three stamps slips out of my hand and into the post box, out of my care. In the next few hours it will start making its way cross-country and over the Atlantic, to its destination in London.

Walking away, I couldn’t help but feel uneasy. You can’t blame me for it though; having something this great happen after my life has been one let down after another. The chance to go to the best art school there is and I’m relying on a piece of paper.

A short five minutes and I am back home. Me, being the only child of a workaholic mother and having no dad, I’m home alone, per usual. As bad as it sounds, I’m not exactly close with my mom. She doesn’t know half the things that happen to me, nor does she care. She doesn’t even know anything about my scholarship offer.

Jogging up the old, wooden stairs, I hurry into my bedroom. I call the one person who even seems to care all about my scholarship.

“Jane! I did it. The letter is being sent today!” All the enthusiasm I’ve built up for years seeping out in that one line.

“That’s great Audrey! I’m going to miss you, you know that don’t you? I basically just got you back.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m really sorry about that,” I really was. She was my friend for seven years when the accident happened. I just wanted to be alone and I shut her out, along with everyone else, for two, long, nightmarish years.

“Hey, it’s fine. I completely understand, after the accident and the attacks you still often get. You will just have to make it up to me by calling me and introducing me to all those British boys that you will be surrounded by,” Jane said, making us go into a fit of laughter.

“I will, I will,” a few light giggles escaping my lips.

“So, when are you going to tell your mom?”

“Um, I’m not sure yet. Maybe after I get the letter telling me more about the trip. Not like she will care anyway, since it won’t cost her anything to send me away.”

“Aud, I’m sure she does care. She’ll be as happy for you as I am, if not more,” She smoothly stated, as if speaking to a puppy, trying to get him to follow. “Please don’t cause another attack this way.”

That was about to happen. The strong tightening in my chest, slowly creeps in like a python, killing, squeezing the life out of its pray, making it almost impossible to breath. The school yard bully who picks me out of tons of people to torment. Trapped in my own corner while he throws words at me, telling me that I’m the reason my mother doesn’t care about me. That I pushed her away like everyone else in my life. That I’m the reason that Ryan is dead.

“Hey Aud, are you still there?” Jane asked, snapping me from my thoughts.

“What? Oh yeah, I’m fine. Thanks.”

“Do you need me to come over? I’m not doing anything so it’s—“

“No, that’s alright. I have stuff to do,” Lie.

“Okay then. Just call me when you need to,” Still unsure to let me go.

“Will do. Bye.”

I hate being like that to her but I need to learn how to deal with this problem on my own.

My chest is still tight, so I start to walk around, thinking of other calming things. I try to avoid the accident, my mother, just the last two years for the most part really. There was one thing I could be thankful for; the start of my art career happened in that time. Drawing got my mind off of everything then and still does.

One day last summer, I had nothing to do, and thinking wouldn’t be good for me so I went over to my bedroom corner. My pile of gifts from years of birthdays laid there. I went in to search for something new and found a box of art supplies, mostly sketching utensils. It was something different for me, so I took those and a notebook and started on my drawing.

The only noise I would hear was the India black graphite moving across the pure white paper. I found myself relax and just started focusing where the next pencil mark would go, nothing for me to worry about. I drew for hours, but to me it only felt like a few minutes.

That whole day I only had one breakdown.

Soon my breathing is back to normal and I slump back onto my bed. These attacks or ‘close calls,’ I guess you could say, always wear me down. Soon my eyes draw heavy and my joints start to relax.

The sun is rising outside my window when I open my green eyes. The bright rays blind me as they stream through the glass, causing me to roll over and hide from the oncoming summer day.

In my opinion, summers are long, hot, and boring. Of course, I’m not like other people my age; I don’t go out and hangout with other people. I stay indoors all day, working on projects with the occasional breakdown now and then. Who hangs out with that?

Lying there for another thirty minutes, I decide to finally get up and head to the bathroom. A quick hot shower wakes me up, and the next thing I know, I’m running down the stairs to make breakfast.

In the kitchen stands my mother, gingerly sipping coffee out of her mug, while peering over the brim, reading a file on one of her numerous cases.

“Good morning,” I say lowly, not so much caring if she heard me or not.

All I get is a simple nod, as if opening her mouth the slightest bit to say even just one word, would be the biggest burden in her life.

Hesitantly, I ask, “What is you new case about?”

“Why does it matter to you?” She doesn’t even have the decency to look at me, her own daughter, when she talks.

“I’m just trying to make a conversation. It hardly ever seems like we talk at all,” We don’t.

She doesn’t reply, only proving my previous statement further. Either she blocked me out or doesn’t care. I don’t know which answer would surprise me more. Why I even try with her, beats me. All she ever does is bring me down anyways.

I sit at the bar, eating and drinking my orange juice, when my mother speaks again.

“Where were you last night?”

“In my room. I ended up falling asleep early, yesterday.”

“Oh,” she says, rather coolly, “I thought you might have actually gone out last night,” Here she goes. “I guess I was wrong. Should have known better, all you do is stay in your room and fool around. Making “art” as I guess you would call it. Wasting time is what it is. It’s not going to get you anywhere.”

I can tolerate my mother ignoring me and not telling me things. This, however, telling me what I do is no good, that no one likes me enough to be friends or even be around me, breaks me.

I jump up to my feet. I head towards the doorway, but turn around to say one last thing to her before I exit.

“You know, I’m sorry! I’m sorry that I’m just another disappointment in your life. I’m sorry that I don’t want to do what you do for a living, but do you want to know something else?” Pure rage runs through me. Years of being talked down to propel me into yelling, not thinking of what I’m saying. Yet again, I don’t really care at this point.

“I don’t want to be anything like you! I don’t want to be stuck up and lost in this “perfect” world that you seem to think that you are a part of. I don’t want my children to feel like they don’t matter, and hate me because of it! Oh, and I’m wasting my time in my room, doing something that will get me nowhere? You keep thinking that while I pack and leave this house to go thousands of miles away from here, on a scholarship, from doing that such nonsense! The reward in this isn’t really going to the school. No, it’s getting away from you!”

I turn and sprint to my room, locking the door shut behind me. My breathing is quick and my mind is moving faster. All those words, I have wanted to say for so long now. I wish I could have seen the look on her face after all of that. Although, since I’m not very high on her ‘important people list,’ she probably won’t let anything I just said sink into that hot head of hers.

There is a pain in my stomach, but it isn’t the usual that I have before an attack. In fact, it doesn’t really hurt. I feel warm, and when I look at myself in the mirror, my face is flushed with a stupid grin spread right across it. I haven’t felt like this in so long, I almost forgot how it feels.

Happiness is spread throughout my entire body and I love the feeling. It will feel ten times better once I get the letter from the University.

For the next week I stay in my room, practicing my drawing for when I have to leave. I’m surprised that my letter hasn’t come in yet. Maybe I estimated the travel time wrong, but I did send the letter a day before I should have, just in case I was wrong.

I wake up and lay there for a while, listening to my music as loud as my phone would allow. Today is my break day. I can’t continuously work on something without getting stressed over it. I’ve done it before and it’s something I don’t need to do right now.

I roll over, when I see a man walk over to my mailbox and slip in a few letters. I get the same feeling I do every morning since last week. Again, I shoot down the stairs and out the door and pull open the small metal door of the box. I reach in and flip through the few envelopes we have until I find the one thing I have been waiting for, for so long.

I stare at the slightly aged looking enveloped with my name and address perfectly centered on it in deep black ink. Slowly, and surprisingly carefully, I make my way up the steps to the house, not daring to take my eyes off of the most important thing to me right now, in fear if I did it would just disappear. Through the heavy green door of the house, I drag my feet to the kitchen and stop right at the table, putting all the other unimportant letters down on it.

Time to me seems to slow as my small, steady fingers pull at the seal, not wanting to rip a single piece of paper that has to do with any part of this scholarship happening. The rough texture of the paper can be felt on the soft pads of my fingers as I pull. The rubbery glue that holds the flap of the envelop stretches and snaps to one of two pieces as the envelope is open. Carefully I pull out its contents and unfold the paper.

All my excitement and happiness drains as I read the first few words on the note.

I sit the letter down with all the other unwanted mail as disappointment sweeps through me. The words “Sorry” and “Denied” jump up at me as if mocking me. I stand there and shake as tears roll down my face. Two days. The letter was late getting there by two days. No scholarship. No London. Stuck here and going nowhere. The letter was held in the post office. For three days. I want to be mad, but I can’t. All I feel is numbness taking over my body as I stare in disbelief at the note in front of me. With my hand, I wipe away the tears and slowly step away. I can’t deal with this at the moment. This did not happen. I did not get a letter. I did not get offered a scholarship to the University of the Arts in London. I am a prisoner to myself, this house, my mother, and most of all, my past.