I Bled to Stay Awake

My mother always called me a dead weight. A girl who would sleep through her own funeral.

Id fall asleep in the middle of a class, halfway through a forkful of dinner, even standing at a busy crosswalk. My homeroom teacher eventually pulled my mother aside and suggested we see a specialist.

But my mother just sneered. "It's that damn phone of hers," shed say. "Up all night scrolling."

After that, my phone was confiscated. She took the lock off my bedroom door so I could never hide. Every time she caught my eyelids drooping, her palm met my cheek.

I didn't want to get hit, and more than anything, I didn't want to make her angry. So I started finding ways to fight the heavy haze. I pinched my thighs until they bruised. I pulled out my own hair. I dabbed burning peppermint oil directly onto my skin. But when that heavy, suffocating wave of exhaustion hit, nothing could stop it.

On the day of the algebra final, my mother happened to be proctoring my hall. I bit the inside of my lip until I tasted metal, begging myself: Just this once. Just hold on for two hours.

But the darkness came anyway.

A sudden crash shattered the quiet of the room. My desk was flipped over. I went down with the chair, my temple slamming hard against the metal edge of the desk. Everything went black.

My mother stood over me, her face twisted with disgust. "Grace Adler, do you care so little about your future that youd sleep through a final?"

"If you're going to be this lazy, fine. Stay on the floor and sleep!"

I lay slumped over my half-blank scantron, the light in my eyes fading to a pinprick. Mom, I think this time, Im actually going to sleep for a very long time.

"How long are you going to play dead, Grace?"

My mothers voice bounced off the cinderblock walls of the silent classroom. I heard the sharp, rhythmic clack-clack of her heels as she marched over to where I lay.

My cheek was pressed against the cold linoleum floor. Right at my temple, where Id hit the desk, a warm, thick trickle of blood was beginning to pool.

"Mrs. Adler, I think Grace really fainted," a boy in the front row whispered, his voice trembling.

"Fainted? Shes just throwing a tantrum because she's lazy!"

With a rough jerk, my mother grabbed the collar of my sweater. She possessed an terrifying strength when she was angry, dragging me off the floor. My head lolled uselessly back, my hand scraping against the abrasive floor, leaving a streak of red.

"You sleep through class, you sleep at the dinner table, and now youre sleeping through your finals?" Her voice was a venomous whisper. "You might not care about your dignity, Grace, but I am the Vice Principal of this school. I have a reputation to maintain."

She dragged me toward the door, my sneakers leaving long, dusty scuff marks on the floor.

"Mrs. Adler, shouldn't we take her to the nurse's office?" Miss Collins, the young proctor, stood up, her face pale with worry.

"The nurse? Miss Collins, don't let her fool you," my mother retorted, not even turning around. "She was probably up until three in the morning scrolling on her phone, and now shes putting on a show."

"But she's so pale. Something is seriously wrong." Miss Collins hurried down from the podium, trying to block her path.

"She's acting. I know my own daughter." My mother yanked open the classroom door. "Get back to your tests, everyone. Anyone caught looking out the window gets an automatic zero."

The room went dead silent.

My mother dragged me down the hallway to the old storage room at the very end. It was filled with broken desks, dusty filing cabinets, and the suffocating smell of mildew. She threw me onto the floor. My head hit the bottom of a wooden cabinet with a dull, sickening thud.

And in that exact moment, the weight vanished.

I felt myself floating up, hovering near the water-stained ceiling tiles. I looked down at my own body. Grace was crumpled on the floor like a discarded rag doll, her eyes closed, her face a ghostly, translucent white.

My mother knelt down and grabbed my chin, shaking my head violently. "Open your eyes, Grace. Enough is enough."

The girl on the floor didn't move.

My mothers chest heaved with anger. Then, her eyes fell on the dark stain near my ear. It was blood, seeping from my temple and pooling in the hollow of my collarbone.

She sneered, reaching into her pocket for a tissue. "You even brought fake blood? How pathetic."

She wiped hard at my ear, the rough paper scraping the delicate skin, only smearing the fresh, warm blood further across my jaw.

"Disgusting. Youre just like your useless father. Always playing dirty tricks instead of doing real work."

She balled up the bloody tissue and threw it in my face. "Fine. Stay here. Lets see how long you can keep this little act up."

She stood, brushed the dust off her slacks, and walked out.

Floating near the ceiling, I screamed after her. Mom, that's not fake. It's my blood. My head hurts so bad, Mom, please look at me.

But she couldn't hear me. She only left me with the cold, unyielding sight of her back.

A flurry of footsteps hurried down the hall. It was Miss Collins. She held a stack of scratch paper as an excuse, pausing outside the storage room door. She peered through the small wire-glass window, her brow furrowed.

"Grace? Can you hear me?" Miss Collins tapped gently on the glass.

The girl on the floor remained perfectly still. The blood that had been wiped away was slow to stop, a fresh bead dripping onto the collar of my school sweater.

Miss Collinss face went white. She reached for the brass doorknob.

"Miss Collins, what do you think you're doing?" My mothers cold voice echoed from the other end of the hall.

Miss Collins flinched, pulling her hand back as if shed been burned. "Mrs. Adler... I... I really don't think Grace looks well."

"She is perfectly fine," my mother said, marching over and brushing past her. "Trust me, Miss Collins. The only way to cure this girl's laziness is a little tough love. A couple of missed meals will do her wonders."

She pulled a heavy brass ring of school keys from her belt.

"But Mrs. Adler, it's December. Theres no heating in that room," Miss Collins pleaded.

The key turned in the lock with a heavy, final click.

"Once she gets cold enough, shell find the energy to stand up and finish her exam."

The final bell rang, signaling the end of midterm week.

The hallways erupted into a chaotic symphony of slamming lockers and teenagers arguing over test answers. My spirit drifted out of the storage room, watching my mother stand outside the main office.

My younger sister, Hailey, walked up, offering her a steaming paper cup. "Here, Mom. Youve been on your feet all day. Drink something warm."

Hailey smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners.

My mother took the coffee, the harsh lines on her face instantly softening. "Thank you, sweetie. How did the advanced calculus section go?"

"I got the last proof! I checked it twice, so it should be a perfect score." Hailey wrapped her arm around my mothers, gently swaying.

"Good. At least I have one daughter who understands the value of hard work," my mother said, casting a sharp, resentful glance toward the far end of the hallway. "Unlike the disappointment in the storage room, pretending to faint the moment the test starts."

Hailey followed her gaze, a fleeting, ugly spark of satisfaction dancing in her eyes before she masked it with a sigh. "Mom, don't be too hard on her." Her voice was soft, dripping with performative concern. "She probably just didn't sleep. Ive seen her huddled under her blankets with her phone late at night. I tried to tell her, but she wouldn't listen."

The lie was lightweight, but it landed with the precision of a scalpel.

My mothers face darkened instantly. "I knew it. Those dark circles under her eyes weren't from studying." She slammed her coffee cup onto the desk nearby. "I took the lock off her door, and she still finds ways to sneak around my back. Unbelievable."

Standing beside them, my spirit felt a cold, hollow ache.

I remembered the night my mother took the lock off my door. She had just lost a promotion at school, and she came home looking for a target. She kicked open my slightly ajar door and found me slumped over my desk, fast asleep.

Without a word, she grabbed a screwdriver and dismantled the lock right in front of me.

"You don't get privacy in this house anymore," shed screamed, throwing the metal lock at my feet. "Lets see you try to slack off behind closed doors now."

I hadn't cried that night. I had just stared blankly down at the inside of my thighs.

They were covered in tiny, neat punctures from the sharp metal tip of my drafting compass. Some had scabbed over; others were still oozing. I had started dabbing peppermint oil on the raw skin to drown out the faint, metallic smell of blood.

But when my mother smelled the sharp herbal scent, she assumed I was vaping.

"Using cheap vapes to hide the smell of whatever you're doing, are you?" she had screamed, slapping me hard across the face before taking my phone.

After that, I lost the right to even set an alarm to wake myself up. I had to plunge the compass needle deeper. And deeper.

But even now, in death, I couldn't bring myself to hate her. I knew how hard it was for her, raising two kids alone after my father left, carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.

I was just sad. Sad that I would never get the chance to prove to her that I hadn't been lazy.

The intercom crackled, announcing that the building was closing for winter break.

The last of the students filed out, leaving the school wrapped in a heavy, tomb-like silence. In the unheated storage room, my body had gone completely rigid. The sun reached its peak in the winter sky, but it couldn't penetrate the dirt-caked window.

My spirit kept track of the time.

Four hours since I fell.

The golden hour for treating a brain bleed had long since passed.

The beam of a heavy flashlight swept across the hallway floor. The elderly night guard, Mr. Henderson, was doing his final sweep.

The light caught the glass of the storage room, reflecting off something pale on the floor.

My hand.

White, cold, my fingers frozen in a deathly spasm around a torn piece of my exam permit.

Mr. Henderson stopped, leaning in to squint through the glass. "Hello? Is someone in there?"

He tapped on the pane and unclipped his radio from his belt. "Main office, this is Henderson. Ive got a student lying on the floor in the third-floor storage room. She isn't moving."

My spirit lunged at the window, screaming at the radio. Please open the door. Help me.

The radio crackled with static, and then my mothers voice came through, cool and authoritative.

"Don't worry about it, Henderson. I locked her in there for detention. Leave her be."

Mr. Henderson hesitated. "But Mrs. Adler, shes in a really awkward position. Should I go in and check?"

"I said leave her," my mother snapped, her tone leaving no room for argument. "She needs to learn her lesson. A few hours in the cold won't kill her."

Mr. Henderson sighed and turned off his flashlight. "Alright, Mrs. Adler. Youre the boss."

Across the street, the local diner was warm and bustling.

To celebrate the end of finals, my mother had reserved a booth. The table was piled high with Hailey's favorites: mac and cheese, garlic shrimp, and glazed ribs.

There was nothing I liked on the table.

"Here, Hailey, eat up. You need to replenish your energy after all that studying," my mother said, peeling a shrimp and placing it lovingly on Hailey's plate.

"Thanks, Mom," Hailey beamed, putting a rib onto my mothers plate. "You should eat too. You worked so hard proctoring today."

"As long as you get that top rank, every bit of hard work is worth it." My mother looked at Hailey with pure pride. "Once the report cards come out, if you're number one, Ill take you anywhere you want. What do you say?"

Hailey tapped her chin. "I want to go to Disney World. All my friends have been."

"Done," my mother agreed instantly, her smile smoothing out the deep lines of stress on her face.

My spirit stood in the corner of the vinyl booth, watching them laugh.

A cold chill washed over me.

I remembered the folded piece of paper in my school jacket pocket. It was a contract I had written the night before, my hand shaking with exhaustion:

If I place in the top fifty this term, Mom will let me put the lock back on my door.

That paper was currently soaked in my blood, the ink smeared into illegible blue shadows.

I would never get to show it to her.

After lunch, my mother returned to the school to grade the finals.

The teachers' lounge was silent save for the furious scraping of red pens on paper. My mother graded quickly, her pen slashing checkmarks across the pages.

Until she reached a completely blank answer sheet.

At the top, the name was written in shaky, desperate handwriting: Grace Adler.

I had written my name with the last ounce of my strength before the dark took me.

My mother stared at the blank paper, the muscles in her jaw twitching violently. "Not only is she lazy, but now shes handing in blank papers just to spite me."

Her grip on the red pen was so tight her knuckles turned white.

"Diane, is everything alright?" the head of the English department asked, leaning over. "Oh, whose paper is that? Leaving the essay completely blank? Thats just disrespectful."

"Whose do you think?" my mother sneered, slamming her red pen down to draw a massive, jagged 'X' across the entire page. The paper nearly tore under the force. "My ungrateful, lazy daughter."

She stood up, her chair screeching against the floor. "I am going to deal with her once and for all."

Clutching the zero-grade paper, she marched out of the lounge, her coat billowing behind her like a dark cloud.

By four in the afternoon, the winter sun was beginning to dip, casting long, bruised shadows down the hallway.

My mothers heels clicked sharply against the tiles. She stopped at the storage door, not bothering to reach for her keys, and kicked the wood.

"Grace! The sun is setting. Have you slept enough?"

No sound came from inside.

My mother muttered a curse, jammed the brass key into the lock, and swung the door open.

A wave of freezing, musty air hit her.

She stepped into the room, holding the paper with the red 'X' aloft. "Grace, get your lazy ass up and look at this disgrace of a grade."

Her voice died in her throat.

The girl on the floor was in the exact same position she had been in four hours ago.

The dim winter light sliced through the dirty storage room window, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air.

I lay curled in an unnatural, rigid heap on the floor. My fingers were clamped tight around the torn exam permit, my nails a deep, bruising plum color. The blood from my temple had dried into a dark, crusty halo on the concrete.

My mother walked over, her face twisted in annoyance. She nudged my stiff shoulder with the toe of her designer heel.

"What kind of performance art is this?"

She rolled the zero-grade exam into a tube and tapped my shoulder sharply. "Do you honestly think that faking some dramatic illness is going to get you out of rewriting this test a hundred times?"

Silence.

I didn't flinch. I didn't breathe.

"Grace, my patience is wearing thin," my mother said, her voice rising with a dangerous, quiet heat. "Get up right now and go to my office to redo this."

She reached down to grab my arm.

The moment her fingers brushed my skin, she froze.

"Are you seriously still playing this game?"