cold feet

Will the fear ever disappear? She thought as she sat in front of the mirror in her bedroom bathed in insecurity and pathetic self awareness that made her feel like she was trapped. "Everywhere you go, there you are."  she muttered again heavy and slowly remembering the many times it was repeated to her over and over by different people when she was young.Back when she worked at the coffee shop and all the regulars came around and stared longingly at her as she prepared their usual drinks, and shared in polite conversations about the ex-wife and kids, and politely laughed at their jokes she sometimes couldn't understand through the thick accents or sometimes because they simply weren't funny. Now ten years later her feeling rushed her mind back to those words.  An inventory of memories flooded her mind, memories she thought she had lost. She remembered walking home from the laundry mat with her mother in San Francisco, staring at her first and only pair of jelly shoes as they glittered in the sunlight clear with gold specs. She remembered her brother when she was ten tickling her so hard she peed on herself, then getting so angry at him she poured water in his bed as he slept. She remembered her mother and father fighting when she was five being so scared as they stabbed each other with sarcastic cruel remarks and laughed she told her brother and sister they were joking they were laughing everything was going to be o.k. She was so scared she had to pretend it was something else. She remembered her mother being punched in the face by her father as they fought, then watching her mother afterwards in bathroom wash her face with cold water asking if it looked like she'd been crying. "No." She replied shaking her head