I Let Her Out



              When I was younger, I would wake up on summer mornings to the smell of coffee and the sound of the TV. It may not sound like much, but every day, that’s what I would listen for, and if they were missing, there was something very wrong.

When I wake up now, the TV is silent, and the coffee pot stands unused. I’m the one, now, in my teenage years, who rises and puts the grounds in the pot. I add the water. I press start. I turn on the TV. And then I sit, and remember how it was before I grew up.

My sister and I would jump out of bed on Saturdays and rush downstairs at 7 am. We would turn the TV on and watch cartoons until noon, then we would throw on some clothes and walk down the street to our friend’s house, dragging him out of bed and out into the sunshine.

Saturdays now, I sit up groggily at 7 am and thump downstairs. I grab some coffee, if any is ready, and my laptop, and head upstairs again. I might type a little, or watch something, but most of the time I surf the web. My sister and parents watch TV, or read, but I’ve fallen prey to the internet, and I like it that way.

You see, what they don’t understand is how Close I am to the breaking point.

People look at me, and they see a perfectly regular, straight A student. What they don’t see is the sheer willpower and thought behind every decision I make. In that sense, I’m completely different. The inner battle within me every day sets my heart to shaking, the willpower I use to push down my dark half is enormous.

But it wasn’t enough.

‘cause now I can feel my dark half chewing away inside of me. The half of me who would kill anything and everything without a hint of hesitation is free. And I don’t know what I’ll do. I have to stop it. Stop HER, because she is female. I have to stop her.

But it’s never enough.

No matter how many tests I pass with flying colors, no matter how many essays I write, I will never be a person recognized for their achievements. I’ll always be the background, always doomed to fall behind others. No matter how much they tell me to be myself, I know that it won’t help, because I’ve been myself, and no one sees how hard you try. No one sees your pain. No one sees how every day you take one more step towards the edge.

No one sees that. All they see are the people who do MORE. The people who do EVERYTHING. I’m not athletic, I’m not a “People person” I have social issues, I can’t always be the person who belongs to every club in the school. I can’t do that’s what they don’t understand. And all the people who can get pretty awards, and I’m stuck in the crowd, holding a flimsy piece of paper that announces I have a 4.0 GPA.

You’d think we would get recognized somehow. “These people try their hardest and do amazing work!” No, that award goes to the kids who have low grades, the ones who need tutoring. That’s simply how it is. There’s nothing I can do about it.

Or maybe there is.

That’s the thought that started it all.

Maybe I can do something about it.

Maybe I don’t have to stay this way.

<p class="MsoNormal">Maybe I can make them understand.

<p class="MsoNormal">The words drummed inside my head, just like all the other words, spinning, spinning, spinning inside my head. They put themselves together for me so I knew what I had to do.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Let her win”

<p class="MsoNormal">Maybe I will. Maybe I’ll let her win. Maybe I’ll stop suppressing her, maybe I’ll suppress my light side for a while. Just for a while. To forget all the things they’ve done for just a little while.

<p class="MsoNormal">I underestimated her. The one who was inside of me, I underestimated her. She got out, she wriggled free. As soon as the thought passed my mind, she was loose. I couldn’t stop her. I couldn’t control her. And she killed my cat.

<p class="MsoNormal">I must have passed out for a moment, because when I woke up, I had a butcher knife, and my little striped cat was dead on the floor.

<p class="MsoNormal">I cried for a long time, but that wasn’t the end of the matter, oh no.

<p class="MsoNormal">My parents found the little grave. I told them she had died in her sleep. They didn’t need to know. I could protect myself from her. I could suppress her again.

<p class="MsoNormal">But no.

<p class="MsoNormal">I went to sleep that night repeating to myself again and again, don’t let her out, don’t let her out, as silent tears streamed down my face. My cat was dead. The only creature I loved in the entire world was dead. But I couldn’t let my guard down, I had to stay strong.

<p class="MsoNormal">Don’t let her out. Don’t let her out.

<p class="MsoNormal">I fell asleep.

<p class="MsoNormal">At 3:40 am precisely, I returned to my senses. I was standing in the middle of my room, holding my pocket knife, with blood dripping from the wall in front of me.

<p class="MsoNormal">The blood shaped the words, “let me out.” They were scrawled over and over again, covering my entire room.

<p class="MsoNormal">I looked down, unable to stand the sight.

<p class="MsoNormal">The first knuckle of my right index finger was missing. I screamed. My parents ran upstairs, then called an ambulance, then the police.

<p class="MsoNormal">They bandaged my finger and scrubbed my room clean. They took care of every detail, but found nothing but my own DNA and fingerprints.

<p class="MsoNormal">I told my parents to call a priest, an exorcist, something, anything. Just call someone who knew about spirits.

<p class="MsoNormal">They called a priest from the nearest church.

<p class="MsoNormal">He took one look around the house, and said that something wasn’t right. I told him I would do anything he wanted, cleansing, baptizing, anything. It had killed my cat, I said, it had cut my finger off.

<p class="MsoNormal">He said he couldn’t do anything yet. He said he needed one more day to get everything in order. We agreed.

<p class="MsoNormal">But that night, I fought to stay awake, but I couldn’t.

<p class="MsoNormal">At 3:40 am exactly, I woke up, holding a butcher knife, standing over my family’s bodies. I tried everything I could, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t even blink. I could only stare down at them.

<p class="MsoNormal">Then, against my will, I looked up, and saw another me, standing on the other side of their bodies. She looked at me, I looked at her. Then she smiled, and I saw the blood in her mouth, I saw her long sharp tongue, I saw her red eyes.

<p class="MsoNormal">I saw my dark half, standing across from me.

<p class="MsoNormal">I saw the true me.

<p class="MsoNormal">I saw myself.

<p class="MsoNormal">She looked at me and smiled, and in a voice that painted bloody words in the air, she said, “You let me out.”

<p class="MsoNormal">Then she raised her arm holding the butcher knife. My body mirrored her movements against my will.

<p class="MsoNormal">She pointed the butcher knife at her own chest. I followed the movement to the centimeter.

<p class="MsoNormal">Then, with not so much as a cry, she thrust the knife into her own chest.

<p class="MsoNormal">There was a burst of pain, and the lights went off. I felt myself dying. I could do nothing as my heart emptied my own body of blood.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I let her out.”