Chapter 4: Bleeding Out the Truth
The bathroom tile was cold through her jeans. Catalina stared at the razor blade balanced on her knee, a sliver of surgical light from the nightlight catching its edge. Her reflection in the dark mirror was a stranger with red-rimmed eyes.
Crawl out of my own bones. The diary’s words echoed. This was one way.
She pressed the cool metal to the blue tracery inside her wrist. Her hand shook. A thin line of fire bloomed on her skin, followed by a single, perfect bead of blood, black in the low light.
It was real. The pain was a clean, sharp fact.
From the nursery, a soft whimper pierced the silence. Then a drowsy, “Mama?”
The sound unspooled something rigid in her chest. She dropped the blade; it skittered across the tile into the shadow under the sink. The bead of blood swelled, then traced a hot path down her palm.
She fumbled for a wad of toilet paper, pressing it hard against the cut. The sting grounded her. Another whimper, louder this time, laced with sleepy confusion.
“I’m here, mija,” she called out, her voice rough. She stood on unsteady legs, flushed the stained paper, and ran the tap to wash the evidence from her skin.
The cool water burned the cut. She met her own gaze in the mirror. The haunted look was still there, but underneath, a raw stubbornness flickered. She couldn’t leave. Not like that.
The door unlocked with a click that sounded too loud. The hallway was dark, but a sliver of light spilled from under Dominic’s door. He was awake. Listening.
She moved past it, toward Mina’s soft crying. Pushing the door open, she saw her daughter sitting up in the crib, Mr. Wrinkles clutched to her chest, the forgotten note still tucked under its arm.
“Bad dream, baby?” Catalina whispered, lifting her out.
Mina nodded into her neck, small fists clutching her shirt. Catalina held her close, breathing in the soap-and-milk smell of her hair, feeling the solid, trusting weight. This was the anchor. This was the sentence.
The weight of her daughter was the only real thing in the world. Catalina rocked slowly, the floorboards creaking a familiar rhythm under her feet. Mina’s breathing softened into sleep again, a warm puff against her neck.
Through the thin wall, she heard the shuffle of Dominic’s feet, then the click of his door opening. He stood in the hallway’s darkness, a silhouette looking at the closed nursery door.
“She okay?” His voice was gravel, sleep-scraped and low.
“Bad dream,” Catalina said, not turning around. She felt his stare on her back like a touch.
He didn’t move. “You?”
She adjusted her grip on Mina, her thumb finding the tiny scar on her wrist beneath the child’s arm. “What do you think?”
The floorboard near the door groaned as he shifted his weight. “I think we’re still here.” His words were simple, heavy. He didn’t ask about the blade, or the locked door, or the panicked silence he’d undoubtedly heard.
He already knew. The diary was proof.
Catalina finally turned, Mina a sleeping shield between them. His face was shadowed, but the set of his shoulders was unmistakable—a man bearing a load meant for two. “You read it,” she stated.
“Yeah.” No apology. Just a fact, hung in the air between them.
“Move,” she said, her voice flat.
He stepped aside, letting her pass with the sleeping child. She laid Mina back in the crib, tucking the edges of the blanket tight. When she straightened, he was gone, his bedroom door shut once more.
The next few weeks settled into a terrible rhythm. The house functioned. Pancakes were made, engines were tuned. Brian and Mia came over for barbecues, their easy laughter a surreal soundtrack.
Dominic would disappear some nights, returning late with the smell of perfume clinging to his collar. The sound of the pipes groaning when he showered afterwards was its own declaration. Catalina heard other things through the walls, the choked-off sounds of a woman she didn’t know, and it was a kind of slow, acid drip on an exposed nerve.
She cut herself more than she liked.
The shallow slices on her thighs, hidden beneath denim, became a necessary punctuation to the empty days. A brief, sharp clarity. She told herself it was about control.
She was in control.
Then one Tuesday morning, Catalina woke to a familiar, dull ache in her lower back. She stared at the water stain on her ceiling, her mind performing a swift, brutal calculation. Her body felt heavy, thick with dread.
The calendar in her head flipped backward, counting. The desert, the hallway. The shower. Her breath hitched.
She bolted upright, the sheets twisting around her legs.
"Fuck," she whispered into the silent room. She was late.