- 40 -- 40 -

I showered every single day for three years. I thought it could 
clean me, scrub away the fingerprints and bruises. I was afraid that 
if I went a day or even sometimes half a day without it, I would 
see them again – the bruises around my neck, around my arms, 
everywhere. Though I gathered them gradually over time, I could 
picture them all together in my head, and the sensation of being 
touched without wanting it crawled on my skin like bugs. I wanted 
to stop being afraid of something that was gone. I wanted to stop 
waking up with my hand around my throat, wanted to stop flinching 
whenever I saw a silver sedan. I wanted to stop sleeping with my 
bedroom door locked, to stop locking my car over and over and over 
while I was getting gas or walking into the store, into school. Locks 
didn’t save me anyway. 

I’ve tried to stop showering every day, and it works 
sometimes, but then I reach my breaking point again, and I find 
myself in the shower at three in the morning, scrubbing until my 
skin is raw and sometimes bleeding. Then I have to walk across the 
hall in the dark, shivering, wet, and in pain. The fucked up thing is 
that I was never afraid of the dark as a child. I didn’t think monsters 
were real. But every so often, the short walk from my driveway to 
my house takes my breath away and collapses me onto my knees 
when I’m safely in the light because what if? What if I wasn’t 
alone? I think I’m being followed constantly, watch the cars behind 
me, that person in the gas station, that group of people in the 
parking lot. Yet, when I think about it, the worst part of all of this is 
that it could have been worse, couldn’t it? It could have been worse. 
But when I’m locked in a public restroom, and I’m curled up on the 
floor because I can’t breathe, well, I know that it could have been a 
hell of a lot better, too. 

Michaela White

trauma.
Best Of Creative Nonfiction