Unclean

         She sits on the little white window seat and stares out at the rain. If you've ever stared at the rain, you'll know there are many different ways you can stare at it. You can focus on the droplets that are collecting on the other side of the window pane, watching the way they slide down after they hit - colliding and combining, moving faster with their added weight - until they find rest or they slide out of sight. You can also look past the droplets on the window and watch the rest of the raindrops wrecking havoc on the outside world. For a reason she couldn't name if she wanted to, watching the rain pelt the trees enough to make them sway under the pressure makes her feel as if her own weight were less bone-crushing.
         In a brief moment of delirium, she imagines delivering a blow to the window that shatters the glass, allowing the rain to beat her along with the trees. She pictures herself climbing out of the window and jumping into the heavy, pelting rain. But instead of plummeting the three stories to the ground, she hovers just beyond the safety of her room, defying the laws of gravity. She lifts her head towards the heavens and ascends, up above the trees, the rain, and finally the heavy black clouds. Standing atop the clouds she imagines there is an angel. Perhaps he is Gabriel, perhaps not. He holds in his hands a bowl of holy water, like the priests at church. But unlike the priests at church he is not stingy with his holy water, opting to dump the bowl onto her head rather than sprinkle her with it. The cool, borderline freezing, water seems to penetrate every inch of her body. It is painful, harsh, unforgiving, and reaches all the way to her bones. She lets her imagination wander a little further. Perhaps the holy water isn't enough to clean something so filthy as her. Perhaps he has some holy body wash with him as well that she could ravage herself with.
         "Right." She mumbles out loud, wiping at the tears that had dared stain her face. "It would take a miracle, wouldn't it?" She pulls herself away from the window and the dream of ever being clean again. Skirting around her full-sized bed, which took up most of her child-sized room, she makes her way to the door. She'd outgrown the room a while ago. She was no longer a child, after all. No longer a child. The thought strikes her like a physical blow, stopping her in her tracks just before the door. She gives in to the grief that tries to bring her to her knees, and winds up in a sobbing mess on the floor. Angrily, she closes the door and leans against it, letting her tears have their way with her. She is quickly growing tired of fighting the depression.
         "Nicole?" She hears her mother call from the bottom of the stairs. Hurridley she pulls herself onto her knees and spins around to crack the door a bit.
         "Yeah?" She calls back. Thankfully her voice didn't give her away.
         "Dinner's ready. Come down after you've washed up."
         "Okay." She manages to calm down during her washing up. She must never know what has happened. She allows herself to think it, even though it rings with a little too much truth. She hasn't formed the thought fully in her mind since it happened, and she probably never will. This thought is more of a whisper than a strike. It winds it's way into her body through her brain, but before long it infects her heart, lungs, stomach, and even her limbs. She accepts the thought without hesitation this time. Her mother should not have to know that she has such a disgusting thing dwelling under her roof. No mother should have to go through the pain of watching her child become a woman literally overnight. A woman where there should be a child, a sinner where there once was a saint, a hole where there will never again be a heart. With her head full of angels and holy water and her heart full of needles and weights she makes her way down the stairs to fake another smile for her unsuspecting parents.