Picture

When I was young -- young enough to still cry, but old enough to wish I could stop getting older -- I was given a framed picture. It showed a girl, a very pretty girl, and people told me that we shared a strong resemblance. 

At first, I hung the picture in my living room, because I liked it. The girl was sweet and beautiful, her mouth curved in a half-smile, and her wide brown eyes had just the faintest squint. She looked like she was about to tell you a thousand wonderful things.

When people came to visit me, they would always ask me to explain the picture. They would stand with their noses very close to the girl's chin (for I had hung it high on purpose, in order to feel that she was taller than me) and ask me questions. Where did I get it? Why did I display it? Who is she? "She looks very much like you," they would say, as if to compliment me.

Their questions confused me. They seemed shallow questions, questions not meant for enlightenment but for imformation. They were questions that I had already asked myself. I would answer, and tell them I received it when I was younger, and I displayed it because I liked it, and I didn't know who she was. And they would nod and smile and say something about the weather.

Once, a young man came to visit me, and he noticed the picture. He stood across the room and gazed at it, and he didn't ask me where it came from or why I displayed it.

"She looks like you," he said, as if it were a statement, not a compliment. "Her eyes do. They look like they can see. They look like they know everything." And then he turned to me, with a half-smile, and said, "She is very pretty."

Her eyes began to frighten me. At first I told myself that it was just the unusual color of her eyes, and I wasn't used to it. They were gray, but brown around the iris, and they looked deep and understanding. I reluctantly confessed to myself that I felt they were watching me.

People continued to come, and they began to study the painting more than they paid attention to me. They told me she was beautiful, they told me they especially liked her eyes. I started to ask them questions about it: did they think she was watching them? Why do you think she was smiling? Why were her eyes the color they were?

No one knew.

I grew to loath and fear the picture. I took it down and put it in the closest in my bedroom, and never went in. I tried to forget about it, and everyone else lost memories of it quicker than I would have liked. Part of me wanted them to remember it, so I could ask them about it safely, when the girl wasn't watching me.

One night I was violently sick, and in my delirium imagined I could hear scratches and whispers from the closet. I stumbled to the door and threw it open. The girl in the picture blinked at me, her eyes black in the shadows, her mouth uncurved and set hard. Her fingers were at the edge of the frame, and long scratch marks now decorated the once-smooth cover. I shut the door, vomitted, and fell asleep.

When I was at last recovered, I opened the closet door in a moment of fearless bravery. What was there to be afraid of? A silly picture, sodden with the silly memories of a girl watching me.

There she was, as she had always been, her lips curved mysteriously, her eyes wide and beautiful. And all around the edge, there were scratch marks.

I didn't tell anyone. I didn't want anyone to tell me I was different, I was special, I scratched at a stupid painting that I used to think watched me. I didn't want to be sent to a counselor. I didn't want to be put on medication. I didn't want that.

There would be times in the middle of the night where I could hear the girl screaming from inside the picture. I would be on my bed, staring up at the ceiling, in complete dark, sobbing. I was afraid. As many of us are aware, all common sense and reasoning skills vanish at night. Dreams become reality. Noises become monsters.

She began to call the names of the people who had come and watched her, and asked me questions about her. She called for the young man who told me that he felt the picture could see and know everything. But most of all, she called for me.

The picture was more and more disfigured every morning. I could check it, just to make sure she was still safely inside her frame. I was terrified that she would say something when I opened the door, but she never did. She stared straight ahead, her lips curved, her beautiful hair perfect in every way. But the picture was scratched horribly, and the frame was splintered.

One night, close to three in the morning, I couldn't take it anymore. I opened the closet and turned on the light. There she was, her hand stretched through a tear in the paper, her eyes glinting, her mouth open and panting.

"Let me out," she whispered hoarsely.

I have never before wanted anything more than for her to get out of the picture.

I licked my lips. "How?"

Her eyes were locked with mine, and I felt small and unimportant. All that mattered was her and her escape.

"Let me out," she said again.

I took hold of the frame and made to pull it from the wall. Thousands of fragments of wood pierced my hands, but I didn't care yet. She screamed as if in great pain. 

I let go of the frame. My face was wet; I was crying.

"Let me out!"

I grabbed the paper that was peeling away from where her hand reached out. I ripped it back, trying to ignore her screams. My blood splattered the walls and the paper, but all that mattered was the girl in the picture getting out.

She stretched out her arms and I took hold of them. I had cuts up and down my arms, and I could tell that my face was bleeding, but I didn't care how that happened. Her eyes were on mine. I dragged her through the frame until we both fell on the floor. She stood up; I didn't have the energy. I coughed and blood choked my lungs.

She knelt beside me. "It's alright," she said, softly. She looked tired now. Her eyes didn't look so strange and amazing.

I was cold. I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing. My lungs wouldn't fill, and my face felt warm and wet. It was so dark. So cold...

***

The blood had disappeared with the body. I felt better about this; I worried that I would have to explain to the police what had happened. The ripped picture I had burned, along with the frame.

People looked at me now like I was something different that was very, very familiar to them. Most of all they commented on my eyes; had they always been that strange shade of gray? I always smiled later. It's incredible how much people can overlook about you, even when they claim to know you like their sister.