Page 83 of Delirium
“There’s no point, Storm,” she breathed out, closing her eyes. “No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, there’s always someone that gets hurt because of me. There’s always a person I could lose, and I don’t want to see it anymore. I don’t want to live through it anymore.”
Sometimes it was easy to forget everything she went through, everything she fought through. It was easy to forget because she never once showed how much it affected her. I witnessed her nightmares, but I also witnessed her shutting down right after her eyes opened, as if she was ashamed that something like that could make her weak.
She was raised to never feel, to never show what was truly on her mind. They told her it was a sign of a weak person, loving someone, caring for someone, showing your true self. It ate at her, all these things they tried to instill in her.
“Sunshine,” I grunted, moving up on the bed. “I’m going to hold you now, and you’re going to let me.”
She still didn’t look at me, didn’t even move to let me know she heard me, but as my body weight fell on the bed, I pulled her into my arms, placing her head on my chest.
“I know you’ve been strong for so long,” I started, pressing my lips to the crown of her hair. “I know you’ve suffered, but I need you to let me take care of things now, okay? I need you to rely on my strength as well because we’re in this together. We’re in all of this together, Sunshine.”
“I don’t know how,” she whispered. “I don’t know how to be strong anymore.”
“Yeah, you do,” I murmured. “You’re the strongest person I know, Phee. And you’re going to be such a good mom, an amazing one. You’re going to be better than all the other moms in the world.”
A shuddering breath pushed through her, and before I could even look down at her, her arms circled around my waist, holding on tight. Her entire body shook, the sound of her sobbing cutting through my skin with razor-sharp blades, but I held her, rocking her in my arms, trying to soothe the invisible wounds.
But just because a person didn’t bleed, it didn’t mean that they weren’t hurting. Just because the pain of the mind wasn’t a physical one, it didn’t mean it didn’t exist.
“I’m here, Sunshine,” I whispered as she climbed onto my lap, her entire body curling in on itself, holding onto me for dear life. “I’m never letting go.”
“It hurts,” she cried out. “And I don’t know where it hurts. I don’t know how to stop it. I know I’m being pathetic, and I know you’re worried about me, but I don’t know how to get up. All these thoughts…” she shuddered. “All these vicious thoughts keep repeating in my mind, and I’m afraid, Storm. I’m terrified that I’m going to destroy our kids. I’m afraid that I will never get to see my sister, that I will never get to tell her how sorry I am. I’m afraid that I will never have to stop running, that I will never have a home.”
“You have a home, Ophelia,” I said, placing my fingers under her chin, pushing her to look at me. “You will always have a home with me. You know why?” She shook her head, those tear-stained cheeks trembling from the force of her sobs. “Because you are my home. Today, tomorrow, in I don’t even know how many years, you will always be my home. I know that we have a long road to travel if we want to get to peace, but I am not giving up on you. I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”
Her face scrunched, an avalanche of emotions tearing through her body, flowing with her tears.
“I’m sorry I pushed you away,” she hiccupped. “I didn’t mean it, it’s just—”
“It was easier than letting any of us in.”
She nodded, pressing the side of her face to my chest again, pulling her knees up. “I just have this horrible feeling inside my chest that everything will fall apart. I have a feeling that this fake calmness is just temporary, that it’ll all go up in flames, and I will never get to experience true happiness.”
“You will,” I pushed. “You will be happy, Phee. You will have everything, trust me.”
“I don’t know how to trust you. Not because it’s you that’s saying those words, but because everything inside of me is telling me that I don’t deserve to be happy. That I don’t deserve to be loved. There’s this weight sitting on top of my chest, telling me that I will always destroy everything good around me. It’s telling me I don’t deserve you, these kids, my friends… I don’t know how to stop listening to it. I don’t know how to stop.”
She was killing me. Her shaking body, her palpable pain, it was all killing me, and I did the only thing I knew how to.
I kissed her.
My body acted before I could think about it, my hands palming her face as I pulled her upright. My lips pressed against her much softer ones, the taste of her tears mingling with the taste of her. There was no carnal desire in what I did. There was no need to tell her anything else as she kissed me back, her tiny hands fisting my shirt.
Words weren’t needed to express what both of us felt in this moment, and the relief from her kissing me back washed over me, reigniting the hope that died that day when we came back from Emercroft Lake. But I also knew that I wouldn’t be enough to help her.
Ophelia needed professional help to deal with everything that had happened, and I would find it for her, no matter what it took. In our line of work, we couldn’t just walk into the office of a psychologist and start spouting everything we ever did.
If we did that, we would end up locked up somewhere in a psych facility or in jail.
“Are you feeling any better?” I asked as we both pulled back, catching our breaths. Her cheeks were flushed red, her irises dilated, while her hands still clung to my shirt, as if she too didn’t want to let go.
“I’m… I’m okay.” She smiled brightly. “I… Thank you, Storm.” She beamed. “Thank you for coming for me.”
“I will always come for you,” I murmured, pushing back the loose strands of her hair. “I will always be here, one way or another.” I smiled. “We might push and pull each other, but I need you to know how much I care about you. How much I need you.”
How much I love you, I wanted to say, but I knew she wasn’t ready to hear it. We’d said it before, mentioned it in passing, but never once did we say those three words directly to each other.
I never understood why those three words, with eight letters, held so much weight, when they weren’t the ones that mattered—our deeds did. But now, sitting here with her, holding her, breathing her in, I understood.
