When he wasn't

The sob caught in her throat with a snotty gurgle.

“Just…”

Her breath shuttered, halted, and gasped again.

“I just…” Her face cracked with a sob, water running from the shatters in the corners of her eyes. The hospital bed beneath her shuttered. He wanted to pull her to his chest, to turn himself into her shock-absorber.

He knew he couldn’t, just had to sit next to her and watch as she shook like a bottle rocket, tied down to the bed with velcro straps secured beneath the thick white bandages around her wrists. Ready to try and lift off, being held down, exploding.

And yet, he had learned quickly that keeping his distance had been a mistake; while he watched, she began to shake harder, her hands struggling against the restraints. He knew what she was reaching to do because he had seen her do it so many times. If she could have, she’d be reaching up to start pulling out tufts of hair.

He was glad that he didn’t have to watch her do this. It was her way of trying to steady herself.

It never worked.

On the subject of reaching out to hold her, his brain landed on a compromise. His hands closed around her balled fists. They struggled against his touch for a moment, but his grip did not flinch until the shaking had faded into a faint tremble. Once they had, his finger pushed hers open.

Did it get quieter? Was the room shrinking?

They both looked down at the lines on her palms, each delicate rivers of sweat, the same thought running through each mind at the same time: where in these lines does it explain what she’s done.

He then thought silently to himself: where does it say when she’ll try again?

and she thought to herself: where does it say if the next time will finally be the end?

He held her hands there, palms up and open to the sky, nothing hidden within. The red puffs beneath her eyes made her skin glow under the fluorescent lights, the blue of her eyes pierced with their reflection. He could see himself there.

Through her eyes and into his own, he could not find the emptiness or sadness like he would have expected; shit, he kind of wanted to find them. But in the both of them, he saw only fear. Fear and something else that he could not distinguish.

It had no name, what he saw. It made her shivers pass into his own bones; it vibrated there.

He looked away from her eyes down to her bandages, which drew him in like the dark spaces beneath a staircase. Two months ago, the week before Halloween, they had been carving pumpkins together. It was before the fight, before he’d realized that her outbursts ran deeper than her anxiety. She was carving a cat, pulling a knife through the orange pulp, curving the blade to arch the cat’s back in surprise and anger.

A quick slip. She made no noise. A moment passed as they both watched blood leak down the pumpkin’s skin, flowing from the fresh slice made between her thumb and forefinger.

He looked over right before she slumped to the ground and saw only the whites of her eyes.

She’s always fainted at blood before.

before

How did she do this?

how could

His hands moved from her palms to her bandages, neither of which were his anymore. Before he could stop himself, he felt his thumbs push down on the white coverings, searching for her skin’s sewed groves beneath. Just as when she’d slipped and cut herself before Halloween, she remained silent.

He thought to himself, but I’m here

but he wasn’t.

#past #selfharm #sickness #pain #breakups #PROSE