Neighbourly Concern

At first I was too scared to move, but all it took was a single disapproving flicker at the corner of my Mom’s mouth to get me to scurry around the corner and out of her sight.

I was now trapped between two humiliating and terrifying outcomes – outcomes that continued to make my heart race and my head spin with how quickly my life had apparently gone so so far off the rails.

I was standing in my parents hallway completely naked. I didn’t have anything to put on – everything single possession I had now lay in garbage bags. This was it; this was all I was and all I had – just me, completely, helplessly and permanently naked.

To my left was the front door, and the looming humiliating unknown shadow beyond it. Around the corner to my right was my mom… my ex-mom? Scowling, disapproving and promising to punish me if I stepped even the smallest bare foot out of line. It made my heart ache to even contemplate what relationship I now had with her, or any of the rest of the family. They owned me… as much as they owned the TV, or a lamp…

I pressed my back to the wall, the cold rough texture of the painted drywall made me gasp quietly to myself. I needed to ground myself again – to do anything that I could to try to wake up from this nightmare.

After a moment the door knocked again and I jumped, my panic and anxiety growing worse with every passing second.

The more they knocked, the longer my Mom would know that I was stalling… the angrier she’d get... fuck!

With anxious, trembling steps, I padded towards the front door. Every instinct in me was screaming that what I was doing was insane, and completely wrong. I had never, and would never walk around the house in the nude like this… I’d never ever contemplate the mortifying possibility of opening the front door to a anyone so…**** and exposed…

I put down the garbage bag I was carrying with a final defeated sob, and then reluctantly opened the door.

I couldn’t bring myself to look at who it was, I kept my head bowed and my eyes closed, using the door to shield my nakedness from them even as I felt the warm morning breeze roll in across my bare skin. I heard a quiet gasp from whoever it was.

“Oh… So… that’s…” I recognised the mumbling voice of our neighbour Mrs Peterson, even as she clearly stumbled over her words at the sight of me. “Are you alright?”

Her voice was one of absolute care and concern. It cut through all of the pain and suffering and loneliness I felt - shining on me like a single bright light of warmth and hope.

She cared. Someone cared. Someone could still see me as me… someone was still concerned about me… someone would help me… she would get me out of this. My eye snapped up to her face and I felt my tears welling, blurring my vision, I still clutched the door anxiously but shook my head in frantic disbelief, “N-n-n-no… No… please… Please help me… I’m not a person anymore and I don’t know what happened… everyone… everyone is treating me like I don’t matter and please, please help me Mrs…”

“Sandra?!” Mrs Peterson cut me off, calling out past me and into the house. The change in her voice immediately made me stop again, freezing as I felt the cold hard realisation slam into me again.

“Bernice?”

“Sandra! I said, are you alright?”

What…? Wait… no… no no no no! Of course she was affected... everyone was...

A moment later my mom rounded the corner, “I’ll call you back” she said into the phone before hanging it up and snapping at me disapprovingly, “Alexa, open the door!”

I sulkily complied, feeling my cheeks burning even pinker with shame as I sniffed back my tears, hating myself – was I really that stupid as to think that she was talking to me?

“Bernice? Of course I’m alright, why wouldn’t I be?” My mom frowned with genuine confusion. I cringed, standing between the two women, naked, ashamed and partially ignored.

Mrs Peterson waved a hand over my naked body after a moment, as though she was illustrating a clear point, “Well I was worried about you. You know – I heard on the news what had happened to all the Alexa’s and, well, I wanted to check in to make sure you were ok… losing a daughter…”

“What? Oh!” My mom seemed to take a moment to process that before she started laughing and waved her hand dismissively “I mean, well, the timing hasn’t been very convenient but – to be honest, she was costing us a fortune in college fees.”

She gave me a derisive look, making it clear that she wasn’t talking to me, merely looking at me as she spoke, “Honestly Bernice, it’s very kind of you to be concerned but, I’m fine! A little irritated that this has become my problem all of a sudden, but, I don’t think this will make much difference in the long run anyway…”