Rose Bush

Elizabeth Anderson pulled her knees up to her chest and gave herself a shaky sigh as she gazed out upon her half-empty bedroom around her. She had to admit, the room was ugly. It was almost a mantra of self-hate. Elizabeth’s twin sister, Roxana Anderson, had moved out.

A tear rolled down Elizabeth’s cheek, she was not a crier, so she straightened her legs and got out of bed, wiping at her eyes – afraid that the posters that lined her walls, decorated with rock stars, would come alive and they’d all laugh at her.

She wasn’t sad because her sister had moved out, they were twenty-five years old, they shouldn’t still be living with daddy. It wasn’t their fault they were tied to the house by the binds of mental illness. Treasures he kept with a sort of perverse sort of pride.

Roxana had simply gotten lucky, she found a man who would do everything in his power to help with her mental illness. Which brought Elizabeth to the understanding of why this whole thing hurt their dad as bad as it had.

Well, half way too understanding.

She understood why it hurt, their father had been married to their mother for almost twenty years, and she “died”. What really happened was she had left him. Took a plane to Mexico. A quick Facebook search and her daughters found out, she had changed her name, and was living the good life on the beach. It was a little dark, a little dramatic, and a little unhinged.

That hurt their father. That had hurt Roxana, his little princess. That had hurt Elizabeth. Then some wannabe director swooped in and wooed Roxana and proposed within a week of their dating. Their father and her would have put a stop to it, but it was Roxana’s best friend from high school.

He was someone Roxana knew, and knew pretty well at that.

Couldn’t really come between them then, huh? What Elizabeth didn’t understand was, why their father had snapped, why his world was swirling into a nightmare. A few months prior to all this happening, their father had found a lump upon his breast.

The lump was on the surface which led the two of them away from cancer. Their father always thought he knew better and the better version was: “men can’t get titty cancer!” But it had been growing and changing colors.

And with that, an unknown disease eating away at him, he played the cancer card towards Roxana and because of that, Elizabeth was seemingly on a constant run on the hot tequila highway. That didn’t surprise Elizabeth, her father was the type of man who twirled his nut hairs thinking about beating women.

“You wouldn’t really leave me to be with him while I have cancer, would you? You would? Wow, what a shitty daughter!”

“If cancer kills me, you aren’t allowed to mourn me!” He had also taken to slapping the snot out of Elizabeth.

It was something she couldn’t stand anymore. It left Elizabeth with a heavy, loaded feeling in her stomach. And she was finding herself jumping between the two, begging them to stop their yelling. It always left Elizabeth feeling like she should take a bath, one that the water was darkened by the blood from her own wrists.

But Elizabeth got up, and decided to watch one of her horror films, she had over 2,000 titles, there’d be something to watch. There always was. It was just a crazy fantasy to think there wouldn’t be. She got down the Unborn. “I’ll watch you,” Elizabeth said to the box, hugging it against herself.

Her bedroom door flew open, slamming into the wall behind it, Elizabeth tensed up as it crashed into the wall – leaving her to wonder if there was a hole left in the wall. “Why did you let her leave!?” screamed their father. He wasn’t high, but he was sure acting like he fucking was. “She listens to you!”

Elizabeth rolled her eyes at the rash of hysteria that was breaking loose. “Dad, they’re in love. I’m not going to keep Roxana from that,” she said. “I love Roxana.”

“Are you saying I don’t love my daughter!?” screamed their father, storming into their room…Elizabeth’s room. He was being his typical angry self, as relentless as a neon bar-sign. “I loved Roxana! It was you who I never loved!”

“Ouch, dad.” That didn’t affect her as much as it probably should have.

“Dad, I just want to watch this movie.”

Like a viper striking, the movie was out of Elizabeth’s hand and her face was struck. She fell to the floor, holding her eye. The smack felt like the cut of a knife. “You’re a pig bitch just like your pig of a mother! Why don’t you be like her once more and abandoned me!?”

Without so much as a word, Elizabeth picked herself up and walked out of the door. Down the street, to the gas station across the street. She pulled her phone from the pocket of her bondage pants and called Roxana as the darkness crept across the sky. “Can David pick me up?”