Beautiful/Terrible

I woke up disoriented and confused.
There were white walls to my left and right and a large tan curtain straight ahead. Linoleum floors were a light blue and stretched into the abyss that I couldn’t see. Outside of the curtain there were footsteps and voices and none of it made sense. Where was I? Why was I here?
A part of me knew why, but a larger part of me wanted to deny it. Had I cut too deep? Had I faltered?
Before I could ask myself any other ridiculously cliché questions, I heard footsteps emerge from stage left and I closed my eyes. I had to prepare myself for whatever was about to come next. This was going to be a long conversation, I could tell.
In walked my mother, father, and a short young man with sandy blonde hair. He was well built and slightly attractive, and wore a long white doctor’s coat. That was how I could tell his profession.
They all huddled around my bed, my mother was the first to speak, “Hi, Honey,” she began, sugary sweet, “Do you know where you are right now?”
“Hospital.”
“Yes, dear. Do you know why?”
I was silent this time. My father nodded in understanding, and placed his hand on my mother’s arm. She stopped talking.
“Let’s begin with some introductions. I’m Dr. Sanders,” The sandy haired man said. I almost chuckled. Almost.
“I’m going to ask you some questions,” he began again, “Are you any danger to yourself right now, Leda?”
“No.”
“Are you any danger to others?”
“No.”
The conversation went on as such for the next half hour until I was left to sit alone. I sat in silence. I sat in silence. I sat in silence for an hour. Two. I sat for three and then four and then when five came around I sat up and yelled, “Help!”
Immediately a surge of people ran into my room, worried faces staring intently at me. I was fine.
But it had the effect I had hoped for- people. I hated being alone with my thoughts for too long because when you’re alone you get to thinking about things you don’t want to be thinking about. Thinking about people you don’t want to be thinking about. Thinking about memories of memories that you don’t want to ever remember again.
Like a saint haloed by that horrible tan curtain, Allen appeared in my room. Savior.
“Hey, babe,” he said to me immediately. He seemed relaxed, like he was home here. Home.
“Yo,” I said back to him. I cracked a bleak smile. He came over and kissed me on the forehead and I savored the feeling of his lips against me, grazing my skin. The hair on the back of my neck stood up in recognition and yearning for his presence and touch. He always seemed to have that effect on me. Him. His gaze fell on me and mine fell on him, our eyes interlocking. His eyes flitted across my form, curled up in a ball on the bed.
“This place suits you,” he told me sincerely.
“Thank you,” I accepted the compliment.
He continued, “You look sickly and beautiful, so torn and haggard by life. I love you.”
He was right and I smiled at him. I was relaxed whenever he was around.
We cuddled in the hospital bed for a while until the doctor came back with my parents with my release forms. A half hour later I was being escorted out of the emergency room and on my way home. I tried to lay down in the back seat but my parents forced me to sit up straight with my seatbelt on. There were no eyes painted on the roof anyway.
We got home smoothly and I hurried inside, braving the cold for but a moment before in the shelter of our home once more. It was almost winter.
I immediately hid in my room and locked myself inside. I wanted to sleep the world away and not be disturbed.
So I did.
I slept for the rest of the day all through dinner and in my dreams I saw white walls and tan curtains and when I saw them a of me was scared but another part of me felt relaxed and comfortable in their presence. The whole ordeal confused me, much like I was confused when I woke up.
I woke up to pitch black.
I couldn’t remember where I was or when I went to sleep, and the darkness only felt like a blanket concealing my memories. Dazed and disoriented. My eyes flicked from place to place in my room, trying to make out the shapes of the room. I made out the perimeter of my bed, glowing in the moonlight streaming through my window. I looked up at my ceiling, covered in tiny little stars. The calmed me, but I was still confused.
It took me a few minutes to clear the fog from my head and figure out what had happened, but when I did I regretted ever trying. I wanted to forget again.
I floated over to the counter of my bedside table, took my phone. I called Allen’s number from memory. He picked up after the third ring.
“Hello?” his gravelly voice traveled towards me.
“Hey,” I said.
“Mine or yours?” he asked me.
“Mine.”
About 15 minutes later I heard his car door slam in the driveway and then scuffling noises coming from the chimney. I opened the window and looked out, eyes searching for him. They found him climbing the chimney to my left.
A few moments later we were sitting in my room in the dark. Our legs were crossed on my bed and our knees tapped each other from time to time. I felt the course hair on his knees scratch up against my smooth ones. I placed my hand against my surface and ran it along the rough texture, back and forth. To an outsider it might have looked like I was petting him like a dog, but to me it was an intimate sign of appreciation for his physicality, there right in front of me. I looked back up from his knee to his face.
“Bad dream again?” he asked me.
“No, I was just sad and wanted to see you. You always say the right things,” I chuckled.
My eyes averted in the direction of my parents’ room, ears straining for the sound of movement. Nothing happened. I had previously been speaking at a regular volume, but we had to whisper or else they would wake up. If they woke up they would definitely make Allen go home, and I didn’t want that right now. He had only just gotten here and I still couldn’t get that white and tan palette out of my head.
“Well I’m glad you called me,” Allen said, “I’m always glad for a chance to see your beautiful face.”
Allen said those kinds of things to me all the time, he really was the sweetest. I didn’t deserve him.
“I hate when you’re sad. You’re so beautiful and sadness is so beautiful but when it’s on you it’s this horrible creature and I hate it. I wish I could protect you from yourself, Leda, I really do, because I love you so goddamn much it hurts my heart every time I think about you. It hurts. It hurts, it really does. I just love you so fucking much. I wish the world could be just as beautiful as it is right now, but with less pain. Pain is beautiful but it really is terrible in and of itself. I just want us to be happy because happiness is such a pretty thing. It’s such a pretty thing. I think it would be pretty hard for us to be happy, though. Pretty…”
“I wish the world didn’t have so much hurt in it,” I said, “even if it meant the world would be a little less beautiful.”
“I do, too,” Allen told me earnestly, “I do, too.”
We sat in silence for a while and it was good, until Allen spoke again, “Leda, what would you say if I told you I had a way of making the world more beautiful, while still taking away sadness at the same time?”
I thought about it. “I would say that that’s fucking amazing and I would do it.”
Allen smiled, as if my answer gave him reassurance for whatever he was going to say next.
“Let’s kill ourselves. Not today, not tomorrow, but promise me we’ll go down together. Promise me that our love will be forever. Promise me that there is a way I can end your and my pain, together until the end.”
“Okay.”