Dumb Enough

She simply could not stand being told what she could and could not do, whether the thing in question was insanity itself or not. No one, but no one told her what she could not do, consequences be damned.
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Dumb enough to agree. Dumb enough to do it. Then dumb enough to feel the guilt as something hard, as something swallowed but indigestible: warm lead in her stomach, heavy, unforgiving.

It had not been her idea, really, not at all. She had thought of protesting, well she hadâ€"internally, anyway, she really hadâ€"but almost none of it had made its way out as words, and in the end she went along. And did it. And now the familiar burning was back. The knowing she had done it. The cold knowing they would find out, they always did. Shifting and burning in her stomach.

She was in her room, sitting on her bed, her comfortable and neatly made bed. She shifted to tuck her left leg in under her and the springs creaked softly at the movement. Creaked like a welcome, it was such a comfortable noise. A home noise. A her-room noise. She leaned a little to the side to hear the springs creak again, and they cooperated.

She sat in a warm semi-darkness. The yellow light from her bedside lamp sifted through the shade and draped the room and its familiar things with muted light, softly locating pictures, desk, chair, wallpaper patterns, plants, window, rug, quilt, pillow, hands, one in the other, hands anxiously alive, kneading, restless, one in the other, as if desperate for each other’s company, finding each other’s fingers a confirmation of sorts, she’s here, in her room, as yet not discovered. She shifted again and the bed responded with its welcome.