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I.
Anna's got a new friend.
And she's happy about that.
Even if she cannot consider him a real friend, at least not yet, because she just met him yesterday, and she doesn't know his age, nor which school does he attend, nor why he has so many scars around his body. She only knows that he lives next to her and that she can watch him appear from his balcony when the sun hides itself behind the horizon of the city streets, and the stars don't show through the sky due to the luminous contamination of the not-so-great nonsleeping neverland, where she cannot sleep either.
(-Because her arms and legs hurt, and she wants to cry in a corner far away. Far away from the space she's forced to call home and shares with the terrifying green-eyed monster.)
And she also knows that his name is Zack. And she can talk to Zack when her little head pokes out from her fort. Zack is taller than her, so, unlike Anna, he doesn't have to raise on his tippy toes (until those legs cramp, toes break, and his ankles dislocate) to see her in the middle of the night, being illuminated by those streetlights that barely share their height with the fifth floor where they both live. Then, she can stare at his face for several minutes until he notices her presence, and, in that moment, ask herself why he has that scar on his face and those little distant eyes, always staring at nowhere, almost like trying to be hidden by the blue headband he wears.
Anna feels some kind of interest just because she has never seen someone like him before (because the only thing she can see every day is her father coming back at dusk, extending his demon claws towards her to capture her and lock her in a cage... where she screams, cries and weeps her misfortunes, and loses her childhood so pathetically). And, in the moment she gets tired of staring at him for the 20 minutes her little feet take to quit holding her weight, she falls on her back and rests, looking at the ceiling for another 20 minutes, while she spills shard tears down her sorrow-inked little cheeks, and waits for her spirit to come back... as it always does.
Her sky-colored flats are now ruined. She has to get them repaired, or they will tear apart, just like that vase she dropped on her knees and shattered that same noon.
(Some stab wounds here and there. There's no problem with that. -Sadly, that won't kill her.)
And as soon as she's recovered, she gets up and reaches a seat next to her, that will help her muscles to not get hurt anymore, to be able to see that person, the one who visits her now and then at night, and she accompanies any time she can -any time she can get up and stop crying for other 20 minutes counted wickedly by the hall clock, the clock that haunts and chases her in her loneliness and chides her that "tick-tock, tick-tock" she loathes. Her little freezing hands grab the top of the wall that separates her from the abyss, and she, naively, calls that other person who, dauntlessly, sits on the edge of the balustrade.
(Anna admires Zack a lot, too.
Because he has so many scars... but he doesn't feel them at all. Unlike her)
"Hey, Zack. Hello"
As soon as he looks at her, she can tell how, once again, she feels a part of her become happy. It is a childish thought, so bitter and so sweet, it almost burns like those cuts and scratches under her pretty little flowery decorated bandages, but her blondie head doesn't perceive it as a bad feeling. Just because of that, she can bestow upon him a beautiful honey-flavoured smile, and waits, with an infinite devotion, for him to respond, even if she has to wait the whole night for him to change that stoical grown-up face.
But that doesn't take as long as she thought, and her lovely sky-colored orbs can observe, mesmerised, the warm smile he's able to show her on that ethereal moment of peace.
"Hi, missy."
And for those soft words there is a short silence's amenity that she dares to break with some kind of intriguing and innocent comment, something about that she read in a book that a human can resist serious wounds if they are feeling adrenaline, or maybe some silly thing like this morning she did herself a couple of braids that, later, her father undid. Then she doesn't say anything and closes her lips for another 20 minutes, while she counts presumptuously the inches that separate her from jumping to Zack and wrapping her arms around him.
She loves him so, so, so much.
And his silent face hurts her, but she's happy that he always listens to her and never complains, even when she has dropped some rude comment that deserves some type of punishment, able to break what remains of her childhood (something so trivial by now). But she ought not to be selfish, so she'll sew her little mouth with threads she has in her cardboard little box where she keeps her rusty needles and scarlet satin fabrics she hates so much, but sometimes, she wants to tie around her neck on a pretty ribbon, like simple, yet beautiful ornament. Perhaps something able to take her breath away and then-
("Hey, smile. Don't you want a candy?")
(She spends the rest of the night with a little piece of sugar in her mouth and something soft going down through her throat. Something that doesn't take long to lay into her ribs, on the left side, cradling in the middle of her heart).
Zack is good at making her forget that the bruises on her skin weep blood.
II.
Zack, apart from being kind, quiet, (and sweet, cute, and scary), is weird too.
He's really weird, almost like rain on a sunny day—something that she doesn't really understand yet.
But that doesn't bother her.
And Anna could perfectly get on the wall, and dance to show him those little dance moves she'd learnt from all the days she had spent alone at that cold place she calls her home. But then he tells her not to do that, with his baritone voice, so freezing that it makes her whole world stagger, and all her doubts rush into her mind and overwhelm her. Her heart pounds faster, and she wants to cry and hide as she apologises once and a million times for annoying him. And that way, maybe she could fantasise about holding at bay another being, capable of submitting her fragile little spirit.
(—She cries, cries louder)
But even before managing to escape, Zack gets on the balustrade and shows her his hand; another one of those candies. Its envelope shines with the moonlight, it's blue and silver, and Anna doesn't really know how to control her urge to know, with all her might, what its flavour will be.
Then she forgets she wants to run away and stays there, waiting for him to throw the candy and watch it fly over the abyss that comes between them. The little girl says to herself that that's how those majestic and brilliant ballet dancers she watches on television must look. And she also thinks that she would love it, it would make her so happy, to be able to do the same. And maybe that way she could flee out of that cursed tower where she's confined with some vicious dragon who's always clawing her skin, looking for a so-desired treasure, a treasure she had lost a long ago.
But to be able to do that, she needs special shoes and more time.
And she only has her sky flats and the 20 minutes from her clock.
But the candy is enough for now.
(This time it tastes like kindness and companionship —and maybe a bit like caramel)
"Thanks, Zack."
"No worries, missy."
III.
Crash.
There is a whistle resounding in her ears. It hurts.
The rest of the sounds don't take too long to come back as well, and Anna can, once again, witness her father's fury. It's just that, this time, she doesn't understand, and she wouldn't be able to do so even if she tried. She's only nine springs old and has just a couple of science books on her shoulders, along with her poorly gifted TV with just a couple of channels to watch, which are unable to distract her in her lonely captivity, and how miserable her existence results for someone who can already decide for themselves. Someone who can just grab her flimsy little neck and squeeze her bones to dust between his fingers, stained with blood and impregnated with his gross, evil stench.
Anna does not ever want to get close to those hands again. She doesn't want to be touched by them; she doesn't even want to look at them. Because the moment she does, she gets filled with revulsion and her gags are enough to throw up the candy that Zack gave her, —along with the crimson of her own sin and the prelude of her destiny, that one she longs as much as her imaginary friend's comebacks. But she has no other option than keeping her cherry lips sewn and tying her little wrists into a painful black ribbon. Waiting for everything to end and turn as dark as that room she loathes—.
She might as well bite her tongue off and sleep forever.
And she could have, only if it wasn't for that lemon-flavoured candy in her mouth. And it's sour, but somehow nice, and there's no way she lets it go to waste; otherwise, Zack could get sad.
Twenty minutes later, her favourite white dress is torn apart, and one of her sky-blue flats is missing. Her scrapes burn, and there is a small portion of her soul leaking from some place she doesn't want to look at. She scrubs her wet cheeks, and, the moment the Arctic Dragon-Monster leaves the castle, she climbs on the wall, looks at the abyss, and then Zack.
Twenty minutes. One single candy. No more dance steps.
There aren't any smiles coming from him, either. And that hurts her. She wants him to smile. She wants him to smile at her, to smile for her. She needs it.
But she doesn't ought to be selfish, thus, she could make him leave. That wouldn't be good —because if he did, she couldn't help but do her last performance alone, right there on the wall, and imitate the majestic split leap of a true ballerina, to finish the play once and for all.
But only in the case Zack leaves... And she is not letting that happen.
(Even if that means she has to do that jump, without trembling as she always does, or distrusting her naked feet full of shards... that do nothing but torture her just like her open tissue does. She can still bear it is for them both.)
"Hi, Zack."
"...Hi, missy"
"Don't you have any more candies?"
His answer comes along with the attempt of a smile, and a handful of rainbow-coloured candies. One by one, they jump across the abyss and land on her little, gaunt fingers, always well-decorated with her pretty, colourful bandages, just the way she likes them.
She devours them as fast as she can. She doesn't care about the way Zack glares at her. She doesn't care if she gags on a couple of them. She doesn't care about the absolutely horrendous taste from the mix of all flavours.
She can only think about the way this amount of sugar will be able to keep her away from her gloomy nightmares. Those that poke from her darkened little eyes, and the nooks of her mind, which have been left with little less innocence.
She needs to get herself more books, to read them all, and then eat their pages to (at least, try to) ease the acid that corrodes her stomach and hurts her constantly.
"Hey"
Anna licks her lips and stares at Zack, coming back to the horrid real world. It is the first time, since they met, that he decides to speak first.
"Don't you want to get out of there?"
IV.
Anna's got a new friend.
His name is Zack, he gives her candies, —and sometimes tells her to jump out of her balcony.
But she says she mustn't, because she could fall into the abyss.
Although that's nothing but excuses.
So she stands still and waits, patiently, for him to accept it. That, despite his promises of catching her if she slips, she won't do it. She won't jump. Merely because she's afraid, and, even if she trusts him, she doesn't trust her own tarnished little body, nor the surrounding gravity which, with its cursed chains, would pull her down as soon as she dares to stretch one of her feet off the balustrade, with her childish way to tease, just for a moment, her damned luck.
And Anna knows she may die if she crosses the line, and death is not good. Because when people die, the others suffer, and she doesn't want Zack to suffer at all. Because Zack is cool, and kind, and such a good person... And she can sometimes see him put on sad frowns when she's sad too, and lend her candies when they're both silent, not knowing what to say next, and he smiles when she smiles, and that just makes her so... so happy, that mixed-up tears in her crystal eyes seem to leak and soak her dawn-and-dusk-coloured cheeks.
Twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes are enough to recompose her wretched soul.
Twenty minutes and a candy —pretty sweet candy.
Now she doesn't even have her sky-coloured flats. Nor does she have the tickling sound of the clock (now broken after facing the fury of the owner, torn apart and thrown, along with the rest of the rubbish, by her, who can't seem to stand her own anger and restrain herself from embedding those stinging shards on her palms to appease her despairing emotional whirlwind), nor any other sun or moon she can admire.
"Don't you want to go away from there, Anna?"
"I don't want to jump. I don't know how to. If I fall, my flower bandages or red ribbons won't be able to cure me".
"I won't let you fall, then".
Even if he extends his arms, Anna won't jump.
And both remain silent again.
The little girl's slender fingers twirl around her golden hair, and her sky-blue orbs, even brighter than her flats, rummage through the dark blue firmament for some glow, any star, any moon there could be to be seen. If she finds it, she'll go there, and then she will call Zack for him to accompany her.
But there's no such thing. Any way she looks, everything is solitude and a cold blizzard that makes her shiver. She doesn't know if her 20 minutes are already gone, but it must be true since she finds herself so tired she could fall asleep right there, standing on that little bench, laying her arms on the wall, looking back at Zack.
Zack, who hasn't stopped looking either, but, unlike her, he is not tired; he wears a bleak frown. Anna doesn't want to see him like that; she doesn't like it. If he stays like that, those candies will no longer be sweet, and her 20 minutes won't be enough.
"Please-".
"Then I'll jump".
"What?! No, no! You could fall!"
But her friend doesn't listen to her and, just as if it were any other day, she sees him get on the balustrade, but only that is enough to make her heart pound, able to break her chest apart.
Anna can rapidly feel herself choking as she realises she won't be able to stop him.
If she told him today is her birthday, and asked him to stop as a birthday gift, he would stop, right? That's the rule, and the last thing she wants for her birthday is watching him fall from that place!
But the girl doesn't know that Zack couldn't care less about that, because, either way, he has fallen from higher places, and he has gotten worse wounds than just a couple broken bones. And disappointment always hurts less as time goes by. He is still alive, alive, and with the not-so-small fear of not being able to catch Anna, and get her out of that horrid place, where she's kept captive, being abused and outraged as a simple disposable toy.
His blood boils just from remembering the cuts, the blood, the howls he has seen her cry when she thought she was alone in the middle of the balcony, hiding behind the flowerpots of her thorned plants.—Everything when she was even smaller than how small she is right now. Defenceless, only five springs old, and he, unable to help her with his early fourteenth. Not even able to move a step forward due to the horror he feels, not knowing what to do when facing such calamity, sinking what remained of someone so cracked, yet beautiful. Always beautiful.
Anna had always been so precious.
She'd look so much better if she didn't have those torment ink marks drawn everywhere on her body, almost every corner.
He likes to think that the reason why those scrawls have not yet reached her eyes is because of the candies he's been leaving on the wall for so long; after listening to her weeping, not for 20 minutes, but for at least two hours and thirty-seven seconds, because even though she claims that her clock counts one thousand two hundred seconds, Zack knows that clock is broken, but even if it is, it is better that way.
Because, thanks to a broken clock, he's been able to listen to her for more than twenty minutes.
"Don't jump, Zack! Please, don't!" She begs again, and her mockingjay voice cracks. Then, horrified, he sees her climbing on the balustrade as well. "I'll jump! You don't have to! I will!"
Her screams mix with her hiccups. She's crying, as she always does; there's no moment when she isn't. But even then, she keeps looking at him, getting close to the edge, extending her lacerated little arms, showing a genuine smile, as bright as the sun shining that same dawn. For both have lost their time, yet haven't run out of candies.
Anna breathes deeply. Her muscles tense, her legs hurt, and her ankles are about to twist. She wants to scream, let her fall backwards, sob for a while and give up again.
But her bleeding feet keep guiding her to the end, and then, a jump to the abyss.
(—This candy is sweeter than the sweetest I've ever tasted)
V.
They are nothing but two lonesome children with candies, their balcony, and a broken clock.