Work Text:
It was one of those nights.
I had a fight with my out-of-this-world drunken and drugged on whatever he could find, dad. Well not really a fight, but a heavy argument about ‘the future’. More precisely, my future. He had asked me what I wanted to become. I let my mind run wild for more time than needed and he took notice. He asked me again and I told him I didn’t know. Which of course, was a lie. He looked at me with that annoying glance in his gaze, looking right through me, and he dared to speak the words I hated most hearing in the entire world.
‘Whatever you do, I’ll always be proud of my little girl’
I felt fucking sick to the last crumble of cereal I had eaten that day. I had spat in his face, like I did before, for absolutely no reasons. Despite the fact he called me his little girl, while having only brought a trauma to as most of my life I can remember, and of course him telling me he’s proud of me.
‘Proud of what? This shit faced, drug addict and sex deprived person you call you little girl?’ my mind screamed. My mind always had the upper hand in these situations, stress situations. And all I could do is hurt myself because hurting others is never something I can pardon myself for.
I couldn’t look at my father anymore so I ran upstairs, to the place I always ended up in when I felt like dying. I had opened my laptop once I was locked inside my plain-white room. Because really, what do I want to be later?
Later that evening, I had made my whole suitcase, had booked a studio nowhere else than the beautiful heart of Paris in all its grace. I could already see myself, waking up by my window, looking out at the Eiffel Tower and noting how it crispied with the passing of time. I would wake up, take a long shower and smear myself in a cream that would be wood-scented, because in Paris everything is possible. I would take out my best outfit, as each day, dressing up for nobody but myself and enjoying how good I looked. I would take my keys, my Chanel bag and head downstairs to the boulangier to pick up my two croissants du matin. I would probably eat one of them on a bench, admiring the people being late to work and heading into the depths of earth for the metro. I would eat the least greasy one, because my form matters, and give the other to the pigeons. Yes I’m that kind of person. I’ll head back to my apartment, legs aching from all the stairs because of course I chose the studio on the rooftop. I would walk inside and be outside on the streets again with my work material propped in my arms. Fabrics, sketchbooks, my laptop and my coffee. All that is needed to brainstorm and of course create for my upcoming winter collection and its grandiue défilé.
Yes, that is my dream life. That is what I want to become.
But then it hits me. I cancel the studio, I put my clothes back in my wardrobe and cry the life out of me for days on the fact that I’ll never have that life. Never.
Maybe a week later, I walk out of my room to the bathroom. The room I always went to, to feel even worst about myself. I stripped myself from the hoodie and joggings I wore for that week. I looked at myself, disgusting. I put one foot on the balance, low battery. I waited and stepped on it.
57,5kg.
‘I need to lose 7,5kg’ and I start my diet.
Only calling it a diet is one of the biggest hyperbools I ever told, as an excuse perhaps. Because hearing your sister and ‘friends’ around you, saying how great of a body you have and how much they dream of having such a body and hearing unknown males tell me, I gave them gender-envy, only made me empty my stomach over the toilet over and over again. But the toilet now hasn’t been the only thing giving me a pitty-like glance, blame it on the ecstasy. The gym seemed like a place to open its arms to me, whatever time of the day it is.
Running on its neverending rolls of plastic, faster, faster, faster. Always only getting harder to breath, to the point my bronchioles and alveolis were burning, as well as my tired legs. Burning seemed like one of the good old sensations my body, somehow, couldn’t or even wouldn’t get enough of. From the burn of my first shot of vodka to my first cigarette, first joint, first downhill of pills, the burn of the first signs of domestic violence, burn from the brute that sexually assaulted me, name it, I had it. I had felt its burn.
Yeah, I really am at a bad state. Because even though I used the passed in this ‘introduction’ it still is the naked reality as a 15-year-old. Yeah, got that right. 15 years old.
Now let’s get started.
I was walking. To where, from where, I had no idea. Now blame that on the drugs and alcohol running in my blood 24/7 and affecting my memory. Or blame it on the memory-loss due to depression. Or both, in this life.
Point is;
I was walking my dog, the usual. I was surrounded by my thick black, leather jacket, black sweatpants, white Jordan’s and pink headphones. Just a simple looking girl.
But if I may add, nothing about me was simple. The countless cuts that lay under my hoodie the only witnesses of my not-so-simple life.
I always wanted someone to see the little details in me. The fact my toes curl when I’m in pain or the way I fiddle with my rings or bracelet when I’m uncomfortable. The way I don’t get shy when talking in front of a lot of people, but don’t say one word in a private conversation. The fact that I love compliments more than anything, but don’t like people to know that. I wanted someone to ask me questions about why I wear so many colourful bracelets just so I could talk about it for hours. I always wanted someone to pet my head without me asking them to. I always wanted someone to notice my little details, to understand them. I always wanted someone to see me.
With every person I ever mated with, I was always the kind one. The giving-without-receiving one. But all I ever wanted was for someone to kiss my scars. An unimportant move, for some, but meaning a hundred different things in my eyes. I just wanted the kindness, affection, maybe even patience. I wanted someone to be interested in me, to ask about me, oh I’m such a selfish human talking about what I wanted wanted wanted.
But I couldn’t care about people around me less, so… you know. I lost hope at finding that someone. I actually put a term on this description, soulmates. Yes, yes, it is cheesy. But as a girl who collects crystals like they’re the remaining pieces of her soul, one shouldn’t be surprised I believe in the red string that connects my unknown other half.
He was just a boy. A simple boy, inside as outside. Simple minded, waiting for new occasion to flee the real world, learn new things and above all, meet new people. He was a simple boy.
The boy was running, hard. He ran and ran, he fled. Because as simple and easy he may seem with an innocent smile on his face, he faced the worst out of all. The smile was a simple way not to draw any attention, he learned. Not to earn attention on the way his shirts and pants became too lose, bones poking at the material in a shivering way. Not to draw attention at those -too big- clothes that all became long, now always covering his arms and never once letting you have a glance of his thin thighs. He never liked getting attention, he never liked people asking him if he’s okay, while entering school after a fresh beating of his own father. He didn’t like teachers taking him out of the classroom alone, because he started wailing at the bare mention of parental figures. And what he hated the most as a form of attention, was people only seeing when receiving physical proof; bruises, blood, cuts, oh those damn cuts. So, he adapted. A simple boy he became. He simple smile he put on. Simple clothes he whore. And the hurt he carried everywhere without people realising it.
But not for now. Now he was at his weakest, feelings and emotions naked to the world. He was running, that sure enough gave him a lot of concerned eyes, and crying, hard. It just all became too much. He had cried, plead for pity, plead for compassion or at least a shoulder to lean on. He had screamed. But all he received in return was a disappointed look from his mother and a leather belt, he knew way too well, from his father. It was all just so much, he ran away. For now, he fled.
The boy abruptly stopped in his tracks when seeing her. Only a few inches away. She was wearing pretty pink headphones, probably why she didn’t hear me running towards her. She was walking her dog, he had stopped to sniff at a bush so she just turned around and continued to scroll through her phone.
It was as if destiny brought us together. And that I realised as I stood there. At the edge of the bridge. Arms and legs naked to the world, unspoken hurt in form of scars running down my limbs as sweets to my innocent eyes. And as free as I ever felt, I looked at him. His simple smile way brighter than before, happiness looks good on him. I took the beautiful sight of his slender figure in, studying it like it was the last time I would ever see him. My soulmate. My, soulmate. I brushed my fingertips over his arms, his shoulder bones soft under my curious fingers. His scars were so much deeper than mine, I could feel the anger and pain he used to press the blade in his flesh. But oh he was so beautiful. My soulmate was breath taking. I slipped my hands in his, feeling his fingers intertwine with mine as if we knew each other for years and dimensions before now. It just felt right. I finally felt good. And so I looked deep into his eyes, looking for the shared emotions. He came closer forming a heart-shape with his mouth, I closed my eyes and enjoyed. His lips felt soft on my forehead, a little humid and warm. It felt so good, I was already addicted to it in such a short amount of time. He stood up again and I opened my eyes. We held gazes until he nodded. Let’s go. And so we went.
Two broken people, two broken souls finding each other at last. Soulmates together in every possible dimension, even after death do us apart. But death never did us apart, it will never. Once my soulmate, always my soulmate. The jump was shorter than I remember it, the water like a cold blanket immediately engulfing us. And that’s when it came back. The fear. The first time I couldn’t take the jump because of it. And the two times after I just swam back up again, chasing the feeling of warmth after only having missed it for barely 30 seconds. I struggled, hard. But somehow I couldn’t really swim back up. Well no, I couldn’t. Because even when panic flashed in my eyes, just when I was about to swim back up like last time, I felt his hand squeezing mine. I looked up and locked gazes with the most breathtaking human being ever seen on the planet. Even when death crept up our longs with every struggled move, he looked stunning. Hair going back and forth, led by the current of the ice-cold water we were enveloped in. I shivered, the water colder than I had expected it to be. And he sensed it. His red string pulled and I found myself pressed against a chest, a heartbeat slowing down to calm. Warmth suddenly all around me, his scarified arms wrapped lovingly around my head, telling me without words it’s going to be okay. I close my eyes as I feel his plump lips against my forehead.
And he led us.
A kiss, inhale.