Frail

He sees her. He sees her irritated red marks and tear stains and beautiful, dreadful eyes. He knows her like no other but she’s still a mystery, a half-finished painting. One day, he hopes to see the full painting but for now, she is too shut down. Too broken.

She looks at him as he looks at her and even she can feel that there’s pleading in her eyes. She doesn’t know what she’s pleading for.

His voice racked with sheltered pain, he asks, “Is that why you grew your nails long – to scratch away at your skin?” In the harsh light of the room, she flinches. The plain white walls glare at the pair and Dylan knows he technically shouldn’t be there; no one could see her until her doctor or counselor or whatever it was arrived.

“Yeah.” Her voice sounds almost defiant, daring him to be disgusted by her. “I need to get the skin off because something keeps itching under there and here and it needs to get out!” Edged with panic, she grows louder and louder as her words tumbled out.

“Why do you paint them colours, then?” Neither she nor even he understands why he asked that. It’s off topic, irrelevant and the answer doesn’t even really matter anyway.

She answers though, as he knew she would. “Because the tips aren’t white like everyone else’s. They’re like…yellow-ish. Pink and purple and blue and black and all the colours of the rainbow look better than old-man yellow.” They both know this isn’t completely true. She knows that really, she just doesn’t want to see the instruments she uses to hurt herself. All that he knows is that there’s more to the story.

Dylan only hesitates for a lonely second before he asks the question he actually wanted to ask, before he’d blurted out the nail painting one. “Your skin is all red there now. Were you aiming to draw blood?”

He already knows the answer but that doesn’t matter; he wants to see if she’ll trust him enough to admit it.

He watches as she lifts an arm full of misshapen crescent scars to swipe away the mousy brown hair from her eyes, locking them onto his before replying. “Yes. Blood lets the monster, the itchy thing, the pain out. It helps. Razors work better though and so do pins. You wanted me to quit so I did. Scratching doesn’t count as cutting, does it?” Worry briefly breaks onto her face.

“Not exactly. It’s still self-harm.”

“Yeah, but you asked me to stop cutting, not stop self-harming.” A sad smile slides over her face as she realises how pathetic her loophole is. He sees the sadness and his heart breaks.

“True.”

Eyes cast down, she folds her arms in front of her chest and mumbles something that is difficult to hear. Leaning forward, Dylan manages to catch what she says. “I’ve been thinking about killing myself.”

Something inside him shatters. “W-Why?”

She looks up fast and shoots him a glance full of emotions he doesn’t know. Anger, pain…So much more. “Because what have I got? A lifetime ahead of counselors and mental hospitals.” She gestures around the room before dropping her arms to her side and allowing a broken note to sound in her voice. “And a lifetime of listening to her in my head because nothing they do will make her go away. She hurts me, Dyl. She hurts me.”

Pain lashes through him at the suffering in her but he keeps his face clean. “What does she tell you?” With more information, there might be a way to help her. He can only hope.

“Oh, I don’t know.” She shrugs, indifference hiding a lot more pain than Dylan knows. “She tells me heaps of things. She calls me fat, disgusting, dirty. She says I’m easy because of…Um, she tells me you feel bad about me being completely insane.” Panic creeps into her voice again. “Disgusting, insane, disgusting, insane, disgusting, ins-”

He interrupts there, unwilling to let her breakdown of words to grow even worse. “Shh. You know I care.” Lies, lies, lies – he has no idea if she knows he cares but he doesn’t know any other way to comfort her.

“She says you’d be relieved and free if I were dead.” Her face lifts and she stares him straight in the eye, daring him to contradict her, daring him to tell her he wouldn’t be, he’d be devastated by her death. She needs something to hold onto; she needs some love but admitting that to herself makes her feel pathetic and weak and like a little child clinging to her mother’s legs.

Dylan’s face falls into pain and sadness – that could never be true and he wishes she knew it. “That’s why you’re really thinking about killing yourself, isn’t it?” He knows what kinds of sacrifices she would make to keep him happy, to make him live the life she thinks he deserves. She would be willing to rip away her own life to give him freedom and happiness and everything he ever wanted.

Shock flutters onto her delicate features as she realises maybe he knows her better than she thought. She stutters out an “I…” but doesn’t manage anything else. He knows he’s right and he doesn’t need confirmation.

“Fee, I want you to know something.” He kneels down beside her, she on the seat and he on the ground, his face at chest level but looking up into her eyes seriously. “There is no way I could live without you. Because I love you.” Emotion and truth makes his words sound strong and sure.

“I know.” She thinks all he’s saying is that he loves her, nothing serious. It’s only been said a million times before.

“No, you don’t know. I love you. I am in love with you.”

Her heart beats loud in her ear, like the time when he first appeared in front of her at her most desperate moments. Struggling, she whispers, “Oh.” Knowing it’s not the response he wants but unable to manage anything else. Her heart keeps beating.

“Yeah,” he says softly, wondering if maybe he read her wrong and she doesn’t return the same feelings. Maybe she only wants friendship.

Before she can help herself, she blurts, “I still want to kill myself.” Although it’s probably the only thing she could say that would hurt him this much, she didn’t mean it cruelly, intending to hurt him. She said it because she wants him to be able to take away the longing that everyone classes as wrong and insane. She wants him to take away her desire for death.

It was the wrong moment to tell him but nobody’s perfect.

His shoulders slump in the most defeated way – how can he help her? Does she even want help? An assumption grows in his mind but he doesn’t like assuming things without asking it to be confirmed. “Is this because of-” he starts to ask before she stops him.

“Don’t.” Cutting and cold, her voice hides much more pain than she thought she could hide.

“Don’t what?” He knows what, of course, but it doesn’t hurt to hear an answer.

“Don’t say it.”

Frustration boils in his blood as he wonders why she won’t even let him say one simple name. “But why?” he asks, knowing he probably shouldn’t be so frustrated at her. “Fee, you know you’re going to have to talk about it at some point. Maybe talking will even help.”

She glares at him, confused and annoyed at his lack of understanding. “Nothing will help,” she replies slowly, the words drawn out as if that will help him understand. “I trusted him, Dyl.” Pain and betrayal and brokenness laces through her words. “He destroyed me and then destroyed me again.”

“Tell me how,” he insists.

“You know how.” She looks at him with confusion in her expression, unable to see where this is going.

He hesitates before saying, “Maybe I’d like to hear the details.” He doesn’t really want the details but he thinks it would help her if she were to talk about it, if she were to tell her side of the story to someone who’ll listen.

Her expression warps into hurt and anger and he realises he said the wrong thing. “What kind of sadistic freak are you?” she spits. “Get out. Get out!” She rises from her seat and pushes him away from her but all he does is stand. She’s not that strong.

“No, Fee.” His tone is desperate for her forgiveness. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it, okay? You don’t have to talk about it.” He adopts gentleness onto his face and in his voice.

Anger rushes out of her and leaves her seeping down onto the chair again, exhausted and wanting no more pain. “Good, then,” she mutters, putting her head into her hands,

“Good,” he replies, not sure what else to say but so relieved she forgave him, he wants to sink down to the floor again. To rest there and to see her beautiful face.

“Do you...” She looks up at him again and bites her lip.

When it’s clear she isn’t going to finish her question, he asks, “Do I what?”

“D-Do you really love me? Are you really in love with me?” Hope shines through her voice like the morning sun rising above the horizon.

“Yeah. I am,” he admits.

“Wow.”

“Yeah.

Shyness overcomes her expression and she says softly, “I think...” before drawing a deep breath and trying again. “I think I’m in love with you too.”

“Wow.” Happiness soars through his veins.

“Yeah.” Slightly awkward, neither of them knows what to say.

“What now, then?” Dylan eventually questions.

She stands up beside him and says hesitantly, “Can I try kissing you?”

Butterflies erupt in his stomach. “Alright.”

She leans up and closes her eyes just before she presses her lips to his. The butterfly-soft kiss only lasts a second before she pulls away, shocked. He crosses his arms nervously. “What’s going on?” The question is barely above a whisper. “I couldn’t feel you kiss me. Dyl, what is going on?”

Speechless, he only mutters, “I...”

Reaching out, she places her hands on his chest and pushes. She didn’t notice before that she couldn’t feel him. “Oh my god. My hand can’t feel you either. You’re there, like my hand can’t go through you, but I can’t feel you either!” Panicky, she grips his shirt between her fingers, willing some feeling to show.

“I’m sorry, Fee.”

She looks up again and whispers, “Why?”

He rubs his forehead before answering. “Because I’m like her – a figment of your imagination, another part of your disease.” Even he admits she’s insane. “I’m not real. I’m a hallucination.”

“O-Oh,” she barely manages. Her mind races through every moment they’ve had together and there’s nothing to prove him wrong – if anything, it proves him right. The way he always shows up even though anyone normal wouldn’t be able to be there so quickly. The way he’s avoided her touch until now. The way he sometimes seems transparent, as though he’s not completely there.

“You don’t love me anymore, do you?” He didn’t mean to betray so much emotion in his voice.

She shakes her head. “No, I do. That’s why this hurts so much.” It feels like her insides are being turned inside out – everything she thought she knew before is being turned inside out.

“Please don’t hurt because of me,” he murmurs.

“Can we still make this work?” Her hope is so innocent; it sounds like a child going to bed on Christmas Eve, asking their mother how long it will be ’til morning.

He places his hand on her neck and tries to ignore the way she shudders when she still can’t feel him. At least she doesn’t push him away. “If that’s what you want.”

She puts her own hand on top of his. “It is. It’s definitely what I want.”