Bonus Chapter - Dripping

Ella once had loved the rain. Jumping from puddle to puddle, feeling the cold drops jumping back at her legs had been her favourite thing to do.

That changed when she was seven.

After that, whenever she saw raindrops running down windows, she remembered the belt her stepfather had used on her backside to punish her for getting her new clothes dirty. “I ain’t toiling for ten hours a day in that god-damned factory for you to ruin your stuff,” he had said. He hadn’t shouted, not barked or growled. He had spoken softly and with ice in his voice.

Then she had to drop her trousers, pull her panties down, and bend over the couch. Slap, slap, it went, while she stared at the window, drops running down, soon joined by tear drops running down her face.

It wasn’t just the dirty clothes. A rip in her school uniform from playing with her friends, a dish slipping her hands and scattering on the kitchen floor as she was drying it off, her hesitating to call him father when answering his questions, all that had called for the belt. But what stuck with her was the rain, the beautiful rain turning salty.

She was ten when it ended. It was another rainy day, spring storms rolling in from the sea, making it fall horizontally against her window. It should have been a joyous day; her parents were in the mood to celebrate. Her mother had gotten a promotion at whatever job she had in the evenings, those that made her leave the house in heavy make-up and high heels. Ella’s stepfather had gotten her mother that job back before he became that.

But the rain hit the window, and Ella couldn’t feel joy. She stared at the drops, rolling down and being replaced by new ones. And she tried not to think about her mother’s job. She wasn’t stupid, and even at her age, she had a good idea what it was about. The rain ran down and she almost wished to have her mind distracted by the slap, slap of the belt.

She felt how her stomach would cramp up every time it hit, how the pain would seep into her belly. Only it felt too real. She felt for it, and her hand came back bloody. She looked down, and panic grabbed her heart. Her panties and trousers were bloody; it had seeped into the bed sheet, probably also staining the mattress. She’d feel the belt for that, for sure.

Yet, when she had mustered the courage to walk out of the room to tell her parents, that hadn’t happened. Her stepfather stepped away quickly, disgust on his face, and her mother had been happy for her. When she told about the pain inside, she’d been offered to stay at home while her parents went out for dinner. That was fine with her.

Her parents never came back home that day, or ever. A tree had fallen over the road, the police told her, they never had a chance, did she have any relatives that could take care of her?

The orphanage was a weird place. On one hand, it was a happy place, nothing like the terrible pictures the telly painted orphanages to be. But under all of that happy modern facade lay the same sorrows that had plagued orphans since forever. There was loss in the heart of all of them.

Ella felt it, too. During the day, when everything was loud and hectic, she could forget it, just not think about it. But at night, it surfaced, and when it rained, it made her miss even the slap, slap of the belt.

The years dragged on, one night at a time, one raindrop-splattered window at a time. She hated the rain. She longed for the rain. And with every rainy night, another longing grew in her. Slap, slap.

At thirteen, she started hanging out with the bad crowd. The ones who no longer wanted to be happy children. The ones always gloomy, opting for black and doing all the things they shouldn’t do. They hung around in shady parts, getting back just a minute after the curfew started, just to show their disdain. Ella felt right there for a while.

But it didn’t last. She wanted to feel more, to find a way to recapture her childhood’s happiness. The token protest of the orphanage rebels didn’t do it for her. So she migrated to the really bad crowd, those groups of teens in town that even the adults were wary of. She had her first cigarette at fourteen and soon became fascinated by them. Her stepfather had smoked. The smell reminded her of him.

But it wasn’t just the smell that drew her interest. It was the glow, that little ball of embers at the end. It was hot, it would burn, but it was not so hot you couldn’t touch it. It wasn’t the slap, slap she missed, but when she held it close to the thin skin in the underside of her forearms, she could almost feel it.

That carried her for months, but at some point, the close hat had become mundane, no longer stinging. Then it became a touch, almost caressing her skin. Then she pressed it in, smothering the fragile nest of fire with her skin.

She soon noticed that the burn scars that were staying behind couldn’t feel the heat anymore. It occurred to her that she would run out of easily hideable skin before getting out of the orphanage, and for the first time ever, she actively and consciously looked for alternative means. Where the cigarettes had come to her just by accident, creeping up closer and closer to her, the razor blades were sought out.

She had admitted to herself she wanted to feel pain, liking it, but she didn’t realise where it came from. Now, she didn’t dream about the slap, slap anymore when it rained. Instead, she pulled the sharp knife over her skin softly. Just enough that it cut that little bit to release its goodness of pain into her.

When she left the orphanage at eighteen, she hadn’t worn a short-sleeved garment for nearly two years, and she didn’t expect to ever do that again. But now, living alone in the tiny one-room flat she could barely afford with her cashier’s salary, she realised that always wearing long-sleeved shirts opened up so much more soft flesh.

Soon, angry red lines marred her belly, then her breasts. No longer caring about appearances, or having to hide blood, she started pushing harder, making real cuts.

Ella once had loved the rain. Now she hates it; as when the rain comes, even the blade cannot satisfy her hunger anymore as red drops join the raindrops.

It hadn’t rained for a while that August night. Ella lay in her bed, sleeping dreamlessly and miring the bedsheet with tiny bloodstains from her latest, not yet scabbed-over cuts. The second-hand LED alarm clock next to her bed rolled over to show 5:03 when Ella woke up in a dream. “We want you to feel all the pain you want,” the dream whispered into her mind. “Do you want that too?”