(Mi) What the world is missing.

What the world is missing

Mi

“You could come back to my room, if you want to I mean. I know it is against the rules but they don’t check anymore and…”

“I can’t Mi, I’m sorry…”

His rejection felt like he had come up to me and stabbed a kitchen knife through the gaps in-between my ribs before twisting it around. Had he not felt anything like I had and if that was the case why had he felt the need to undo my bra? I nearly chocked trying to find the words to say but there were none.

“It’s not that I do want to Mi. I’m on green. 10 minute checks they say but I swear they are checking me every two or three. It’s a pain in the arse.”

“Connor you were acting like an Arse. I mean honestly what got into you? You don’t need to act all hard and bolshie. You won’t impress anyone and you won’t get back out of this place any faster if you don’t make peace with people. It’s Christmas in twelve days’ time Connor and you land yourself back in here.  What the hell happened?” I asked just before I tried to twist my arm around to do my bra up again but the stiffness in my wrist prevented me. I groaned with a huff. Sixteen year olds shouldn’t have had problems with their wrists especially ones that they had apparently brought on their self’s It was pathetic.

“I wanted to be back here Mi,” Connor said softly as he came around to my side and moved his arms up under my shirt so he could hock my bra back together again. I shuddered at his touch trying to resist the urge to lunge at him again and lock my lips around his again. I wanted to yell at him for what he was saying but it was impossible to be mad when I could feel his skin touching mine. “It’s fucking scary out there. There are no walls around you, no one telling you what to do. You can walk into any place when you are out there and there are a million things to get your impulses to go into overdrive and trying to control them all of the time it’s exhausting but that wasn’t even the worst bit. For everything that there is out there it is missing something as well and I know it is stupid and irrational but it is true. I would rather be trapped in prison with you, then live as a free man without you.”

(Esmee) The fire eats tonight

The fire eats tonight

Esmee

 

“No!” I shouted taking two steps back from Emmet my whole body shivering and my breath catching just outside of my lungs. I had cut him, physically caused harm to his god-like body and it was my entire fault. The man that I loved and adored had become injured at my hand.

“Emmet I’m sorry, it was a mistake! An accident! I wouldn’t ever even… I mean to hurt you… it’s just… I just… Unforgivable... Inexcusable… just  no… to dream of hurting you… no…no!”  I trailed off from my ranting the vomit gushing up my mouth and rendering my speechless as I let go off his cut and clambered to the sink. The orange and green splashed up the side of the polished stainless steel and clung to the dish rack as well as his ruby blood from my hands.

“It’s fine Esmee, it’s all OK. You didn’t mean to I know you didn’t.” I felt Emmet’s smooth skin on my arm but out the side of my eye I could see that lines of dark blood streamed like odd veins on a plant down his arm and onto the floor… and they were… beautiful…  inviting… perfect… wrong/wrong/wrong… I needed it… I had to do it.

I became under its spell instantly. Everything about the blood drew me in towards it and nothing about it mattered any more. I may have cut Emmet but the emotions that I was meant to feel washed away as easily as his blood and suddenly all I felt was jealousy and lust. The release that was meant to be mine was engraved into his arm and it was perfect. A ruby rose scented red, laced with glitter and joy and absolute ecstasy belonged to him and not me and he didn’t even enjoy or understand that it was a reward. I didn’t just want it. I needed it, more than him, or family, or friends, or even air. I had to have it.

I shrieked without meaning to as I darted, span around Emmet, did the limbo under his bad arm allowed my knees to crash against the floor where I scooped up the razor that was in a puddle of my own husbands blood and pulled it vertically down the top of my fore arm. The skin parted as it went, the flesh retreating to the edges as blood engulfed the surface area in magnificent sticky heat. I turned my arm over and looked for another good spot and found the other side of my arm staring at me. I knew it was dangerous, I knew that the veins lingered just under the surface and that one cut into their blue gentleness could kill me before I even had time to react, however… I would die in ecstasy and for a moment I didn’t care…

“Esmee don’t!” Something bashed into my hands before I had time to make the cut and the blade along with specks of my  blood splashed about ten foot over the kitchen floor. My body reacted before my brain could and I clambered after it slipping out of Emmets grasps.

“What in hell is going…”

“Leo, Lenny, stop her! Pick up the bloody razor!” I had almost reached it as Lenny bent down and snatched the razor from my hands. I got to my feet in one fluid jump like a cat and squared up to Lenny. I would have fought him for it if I had to. The part of my brain that loved and respected Leo and Lenny was nothing compared to how my body craved the feelings that blood gave me. I would have moved mountains and broke rocks for something shiny and sharp.

“Give it to me now!”  The voice leaving my mouth didn’t belong to me; neither did my screwed up fists and the ability to take out Leo if I had to. I growled more pulling my self-higher and for a few seconds Lenny looked as scared of me as I was of myself. I decided I would try not to hurt him too mush. I would scratch and grab and not go for his crotch as I first intended.

“Now that is enough Esmee!” I had no time to protest or to scratch or to kick as before I knew it the man with the loudest voice had hocked his arm around my waste and with his shear force and weight dragged me over to the sink turned the cold water tap on full and shoved my blooded arm in there just before he forced me to lover my head over the sink so the icy water could prick at my face.

I gasped aloud. The elastic that had been tied so forcefully around my burning chest broke and my head began to swim back into focus so I could properly see what I had done and worse feel it. Water had trumped fire in the end but only after it had consumed me completely.

(Mi) His magical touch

*there is asult content in this chapter I should say over 18's really but the whole blook should really be over 18's any way. Not really a trigger but you have all been warned. ;-)

His magical touch

Mi

I retreated to my wardrobe in my bed room. It was at least safe in there, away from him and them and everyone else in the unit and I spent eight long hours in there. The staff did come in and check but they didn’t push me. I wasn’t sure why they let me go. Maybe it was because I wasn’t angry or even sad. It was just somewhere that I had to be and it was so ultimately set in my mind that they couldn’t ague with it not even if it made me miss lunch or snacks or any other activities. I could have happily stayed there forever in my ball. I could have put up with the cramp and the pins and needles to stay in the security that was a dark hole surrounded by cheap beach effect wood but my bladder had other ideas. At the end of it all I eventually had to, no matter how reluctantly, make a trip to the bathroom.

I ran to the bathroom quickly and lightly on my feet Checking the corners for monsters as I went. I didn’t want to see anyone and a glimpse of Connor would have about destroyed me. I had loved the man that had left me. The one who sat next to my curled up body like a protective Labrador ready to defend off any monster big or small that put me in danger. I had loved the scruffy haired boy that had pilled blankest onto me when my body trembled  with shivers and took them away as I over heated, but he had not come back to me as I had wished, and worse, someone else had inside the body that I felt like I knew.

After I had been to the toilet I planned to go back to my cupboard.  I would try and sleep in a nest of my old cloths and dream until the staff awakened me there and forced me out physically or Emmet and Esmee came to save me. I had overheard staff saying that Esmee had called in for her shift saying that Mia and Emmet had gone down with a 24 hour bug and there was no one else to look after them both but she would be back for her early shift tomorrow and if Emmet was feeling better he would come in for the night. I hoped to stay safe until then, until there was someone to run to and someone to explain why the world seemed to hate me so much.

I got about half way back to my bedroom before some grabbed me from behind pulling at my wrists and twisted me around so my back was braced against the cold wall. I shouted before I could properly comprehend whose eyes were starring back into mine. Whose eyes were trying to work them out about as much as I was trying to work out who or what now lived in his.

“What are you planning to do to me Connor?” I asked. I know I should have felt fear at being held like this by him. I had thought that when I saw him again I would have been terrified but something inside me refused to feel it. If he was going to hurt me he, he was going to hurt me, and strangely I didn’t mind really. My destruction at his hands seemed almost OK.

“Do to you? I would never hurt you MI.”

“Then why did you just tackle me from behind Connor? You hurt me then. You know I have the wrists of a 90 year old, you could have broken them. The Connor I knew wouldn’t have done that to me. You were gentle and kind back then. I mean what was that stunt you were playing with Jean. You were so rude to her and you know as well as I do that she is one of the best damn nurses that this place has. A little annoyingly cheery at time yes but hell you have to laugh at this place if you ever stand a chance at getting out of here alive!” I yelled at Connor my anger swelling into void that the fear should have used. I wanted to know what had made him like this. Who had stolen his heart when he had got into that car and drove away from this place?

“Anger, well that’s a new one. Anger I like. It’s good to see some fight in you.” Connor grinned as he let go of my wrists and held me against the wall with his sheer force of presence. I had missed his smile more than even I knew I had missed it, and now that it was in front of me again, complete on his perfect face it almost hurt. My Connor had always used this smile for me back when he was whole still – back when he felt the electric that I had.

“I am angry because I don’t know what has happened to you Connor! I’m angry because you survived too long in here only to be corrupted somehow when you were given your life back! I’m angry because they took you away from this world and you were perfect!” I almost sobbed at him at the same time as I tried not to reach out and shake him by the shoulders.

His lips reached mine before I saw it happen and the magic exploded inside my head before I had time to pull away or protest. My body didn’t care to listen to logic then. It acted instinctually and furiously as his teeth brushed lightly over my bottom lip and I pushed myself closer into him, pushing my left hand up under his t-shirt and gripping my right into his tousled hair so I could hold his face to mine and take the kiss deeper. His mouth responded to mine without even thinking. His lips and tongue working in perfect time making every sense inside me explode in passion and heat. He then took it even further as I felt the scar tissue on his rough hands crease the contours of my back, lingering gently in the arch before meandering its way to the top and resting over my bra. It would have been so easy for him to undo it then, and I wanted him to. I wanted to rip the t-shirt off over his head while he pulled off my jumper and carried me away were we could get even closer. I wanted to feel every part of his bare skin rubbing against mine. I wanted to breathe him in and taste his flesh so he could bring every part of me to elation and I thought I was going to get my wish as I felt my bar go lose around my back…

“Shit! Stop it Connor!” I could have screamed at him as he dropped my body as quickly as he picked it up and left me feeling cold. I wanted to cry it hurt so much. I had never felt that way before, never experienced such sensual pleasure and I never wanted it to end.

“I am so sorry Mi… I have no idea what came over me, or why the hell I decide to take your bra off,” Connor stuttered before smacking his hands to his head, “Connor you are such a damn idiot!”

“Don’t,” I said taking a step closer to him and taking his hands in mine so I could lower them to his sides, “It’s Ok… I mean, I enjoyed it… I mean… I didn’t want you to stop.”

flesh mix up (Esmee)

Sorry it took so long. Hope it is OK. more soon

Flesh mix up

“It’s not the face, but the expressions on it. It’s not the voice, but what you say. It’s not how you look in that body but the things you do with it. You are beautiful."

Stephenie Meyer

The host

 

 

We reached a stale-mate. Emmet had tried to get some understanding from me. Some minor compassion and I had used the words that would hurt the most to destroy him, and I had. Emmet could not form speech to argue with me, he couldn’t even muster up any anger to shot down my ridiculous proposition. Whatever it was inside of me that had decided that my physical being had anything weight behind how much Emmet loved me was not located somewhere in the sane part of my brain. It had never been an issue and the real part of me, the part that wasn’t being ravished by old demons knew that it never would be. I would always be good enough for him weather I stood in the sun or the rain, weather I was fat or thin, short tall or anything in between. I never understood how or why he came to this conclusion but he had and I was done fighting it because every time I did we both nearly ending up underground however I did have to be the best person I could be for him and to use the thing that intertwined us so deeply in hurt against him was one of the worse things that I could do.

There were no options left. Everything about the day had broken me in some way and though I did not deserve compassion or understanding for my current pain, I hurt more then was manageable. As humans we always had to have options of making the pain go away, even if the method was unconventional, or even painful.

I turned away from Emmet and left the room, my reluctant feet dragging me towards the kitchen. I knew what I had to do now as inevitability. When I was a teenager or even just a bit younger it would have never have worked like this There was nothing calm about razors on skin and blood on bandages it was chocking but now it wasn’t like that. There wasn’t really anything to fight. It had gone past any fight and there was no one to stop me. Not to mention I was just too exhausted to care.

I reached the cupboard on the right above the sink and opened the door going up on tip toes and clenching my stiff fingers around the same metal box that was always there. It was so pretty yet hidden from view from the rest of the world because its tools that lurked inside were ugly. They were only there for me of course. Most families didn’t need a box for such usage but it had been here since we moved next to a bright yellow sharps box and first aid kit.

Very gently I rested the box on the counter and lifted out what I was after, unwrapping it so the soft brushed seal could glint up at me from the sharp end and without meaning to – even though the reaction repulsed me I smiled. I didn’t know what it was inside of me that made me feel like I needed the blood so much but my physical being new that it would make me feel better before the pain came again and it was happy about it.

I chose my arm as the spot to use; the fleshy underside of my wrist the destination for the new collection to the scars that already marked the skin in fury and held the edge at the skin teasing it.  I wasn’t sure why I chose there. I normally went for the legs as they were easy to hide and that was now important but they almost felt too far away. It would take too long to pull my jeans off and it was my wrists that pulsed with blood.

As I was about to press down Emmet came behind me his arms wrapped around on the outside of mine grabbing at my wrist and hands  trying to take the object that threatened my skin out of my hands and I pulled away from him unable to listen to his pleas or efforts to stop me.

The blade caught on skin as I jerked my arm back to shake off Emmet. The familiar tightness that I wanted to feel that was blade going through flesh pleasuring my fingers and there was the blood too. The warm stickiness washing over my hands and dripping to the floor giving me a slight thrill however the feeling still wasn’t right. There was no pain or no release from my body only more horror as Emmet dropped my arms with a shriek and grabbed hold of the bleeding gash that sped about six inches down his underarm from wrist to elbow. I had cut the wrong wrist.

Conditions of love (Esmee)

Conditions of love

I felt so mental drained time I got back to my car I almost gave up on the idea of driving and hoped on the bus that waited patiently outside the Hospital with the promise of taking me near enough to my front door without me having to do anything as strenuous as having to turn a weal or revers out of small places However, I needed the car tomorrow and I would have to take it home at some point anyway it may as well have been then.  I just had to stop being a baby and get on with it.

I swore, the language getting too bad to repeat as I stalled the car twice trying to reverse out of the ridiculously tight space that I had somehow magically managed to squeeze into but had no hope in hell of getting out off.

“I just want to fucking well go home!” I yelled whacking the steering weal hard with my hands then swearing again because it hurt. It took five attempts but finally I made it out of the tight gap and made my way home arguing with any red light that dared to hold me up.

I didn’t actually know why I was desperate to be back home. The familiarity of the place would bring me some comfort but mostly maybe it was just a place I could cry without looking like a fool. Pregnancy along with other things had made me a little too fond of crying and in fact it had the nasty habit of turning me into a blubbering heap at the drop of a hat. There was only one barrier to my overactive tear ducts when I was at home and that was Emmet. He obviously made no fuss about my tears but any fool could see they hurt him more than they were hurting me. Something about my tears just didn’t sit right with him, for whatever reason they always caused him pain. So for his sake I would try to hide any crying that was to be done from his view no matter how much it felt like I may have chocked in the meantime.

It only took me about ten minutes to get home – probably less than that – but it felt like hours. Finally I made it through but just as I was about to pull down the Handel and let myself in, so I could sink into the sofa and cuddle the cushions until Emmet go the idea he would made a better replacement, the door flew open anyway.

“Where the hell were you?” Emmet bellowed at me from the top of his lungs making the bundle of blankets that he held in his right arm shriek and grow tiny little arms and legs the stretched out in ridged panic. “I mean what is the point of your owning a phone if you never answer it?” He shouted again as he jiggled the arms, legs and blankets from side to side which only made them cry more.

“You’re yelling at me and you have a new-born baby in your bloody arms! I think you may owe me an explanation first before you rant at me!” I shouted back angrily even though it wasn’t anger that I really felt. It was the lump in my throat that was bothering me the most. The tears that I now couldn’t really justify letting lose to the world but they had to come out some one way or another and Anger was close to sadness in the strangest of ways. Anger I could justify, any woman could justify anger when faced with their husband carrying a strange baby they didn’t know about, but it wasn’t really what I felt.

“I tried to call you Esmee! A disgruntled social worker by the name of Sarah literally turned up on the door step with her and begged me take her as an emergency for 48 hours. What the hell could I say?”

“The word no was invented for this exact situation dick head! Or how about come back once I have gotten hold of my pregnant wife who I just asked to have an abortion a few hours ago!” I shouted at Emmet even louder than he had at me. I felt bad for doing so though. I would have done the same thing without thinking. The thing is Emmet wasn’t really anger either. By the strain on his face and the effort he used to shout I could tell that he really felt terrible. All the shouting was just serving to make us feel worse. Someone had to step up before we hurt the people we were trying to protect.

“Why are we even yelling at each other Emmet?” I asked

“I don’t know.” Emmet shouted back before he lowered his voice so it was just eligible over the baby wales. “I’m sorry,” he added, “about everything, but she is just a little baby. I can’t say no to a week old baby who has no one. Not when those eyes looked at me, I could never say no to those eyes.”

“I was in the hospital. I couldn’t answer my phone. I’m sorry too,” I moaned before realising I had said prissily the wrong thing to calm the situation any further and would make me closer to crying all over him even though he had a baby that would give me a run for my money on the battle for his attention.

“The hospital!” Emmet shouted, almost dropping the baby that was beginning to calm down in the safety of his right arm before he rushed over to my side and started examining me with his eyes looking for injury or illness before eventually his eyes landed on my slightly swollen tummy and he went white.

“What happened Esmee? Are you OK? What did the doctors say? You should have called me I could have been with you. Why did they discharge you without calling me to get you? I am so sorry Esmee I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I can be such an idiot.”

The flood gates opened before I could stop them. It had been easier when he was being hostile with me to bay them back behind walls. If he was yelling at me I could yell back at him but now he was my Emmet and he was soft and gentle and as he squeezed my hand it felt like he had reached right in and squeezed at my heart.

I buried my face into his shoulder before he could see the tears but they were still impossible to miss as my whole upper body shook and I could feel the tears drying into the fabric of his t-shirt. As I expected they made me feel better almost instantly every pent up feeling washing out of me but it came at a coast. The tears that freed me burned Emmet.

“Esmee talk to me, what’s happened? What went on at the hospital? Are you sick? Are you hurt?” Emmet asked his voice desperate now as he tried to twist his torso so he could look at me properly “Is it our baby Esmee?”  

The words made me cry more and I gripped on to his free arm with all of my might. I wasn’t sure what I felt when he mentioned her now. I had always assumed that pure elation was the only thing he had ever even considered when he thought of our baby but even though he apologized and I had believed him and forgiven him I still could not understand how it could go from a tiny insignificant foetus in his eyes to “our baby” in the space of hours. I wanted to scream.

“Esmee…”

“Would you care?” I sobbed unable to work out weather I desperately wanted to be as close to him as possible or weather I desperately wanted to run away again. “If I said she was dead. That I had killed another one of our children? Would you cry or get upset or think you had dodged a bullet? I can’t decide anymore.”

The choice was made for me as Emmet pushed me away from him like I had sent an electric current through his system. We had already spent to long doing that today, each one of us getting hurt as our skin was ripped from each other’s so harshly. We didn’t belong apart we both felt strange without each other

“Of course I care. What the hell kind of a question is that? We are talking about my child hear.”

“I thought she was a foetus- To you any way. I thought you wanted her scraped out of me. She can’t be your baby one moment and the next minute she is something you just want to be rid of. So which is it?” I crocked my tears more controlled now though in a way twice as sad. It had been hormonal explosion that had made me sob like a baby at first but, now it was just a genuine sadness; controllable yet devastating.

“I said I was sorry Esmee.”

“Well that isn’t enough, maybe it is going to take some more explaining then a basic apology. I love you. I love you more than can be explained by words or pictures or even touch and feel. It’s eternal and it’s magic and that will never change but right now I don’t understand you and I can’t accept you. This is meant to be amazing! We are meant to be sharing this miracle together and instead it feels like I should be protecting her from you. I mean what is this, you don’t want our baby but you want someone else’s?” I asked gesturing to the baby that was not more contented it Emmet’s arms. “Or is it me? You were fine until you realized I had outgrown a size 12. Are you scared I am going to get too fat for you to love?

 

“Just pull yourself together.” Yeah because life’s that simple. Idiot. (Esmee)

“Just pull yourself together.” Yeah because life’s that simple. Idiot.

 I finally took Kathy to the A&E and spent the four hours sitting in the waiting room with her while we waited for a doctor to do what I had known he would do all along. Panic. We did not talk much during our weight, but by then all the words that needed to be said had already been spoken. Kathy had told me to leave a million times but no matter what I missed and that included work, or how many times Emmet made my mobile shake in my pocket there was no way that I would leave her sitting in one of those seats all alone. I knew how that felt. I had waited for an hour, shivering and rocking curled up on the seat opposite from where I sat now until a nurse had come over to me and asked me what the matter was. I had never forgiven my mother for the way she treated me that day. Her excuse was that she was scared. My reasoning was that no matter what fear she felt she could not have been as scared as I had been.

In a way there was nothing much sadder than waiting in the A&E when your mind was sick. People came and go and you felt for them, babies cried from car seats and even drunk people made there presence known in the middle of the day but you knew that the reason you where there was a little different from the rest of them. That the triage nurse wouldn’t really know what to say even if your mouth could actually put into words why you were in the A&E on an uncomfortable seat, staring at the leaflets, rather than at home curled up on the sofa with a mug of hot chocolate. It was heard to vocalize a feeling that was like a pain but worse than that. It was not a sharp pain or a dull ache, it did not come and go or remain persistent and it was not localized to an organ or a joint. It floated around the skin and flowed in blood. It imbedded it’s self in the organs and most of all for no reason you could see or think off you wanted to make it all go away in any way you knew how. As for the reason why you weren’t drinking hot chocolate on the sofa - It was mostly to do with the fat that there was not enough strength left in your arm to lift the kettle and the sound of boiling water might actually make you cry for the rest of the day.

The outcome of the sad hours was even sadder of course. The stranger in green I had almost promised Kathy that would make it better said nothing and then left the room without an explanation. Kathy was so new to all of it I could have cried with the way her face looked when he had. It was hope at its best. A hope that I knew would be shot down, and it was half an hour later when a nurse entered the room with white wrist tags and an admission form before explaining there was no children’s psych  that could make it over until tomorrow morning to asses her properly and she would have to stay with them until that time. Of course that meant a call to her parents as well.

Kathy’s mother turned up fuming with her daughter. She was a short yet thin woman with little bird type legs that were slipped into grey tights and pushed into black designer boots. She had dyed blonde hair that was just growing out at the roots but would probably be touched up soon in some expensive salon with a posh name. She carried a designer bag and smelled of an overpowering designer sent. I could see what Kathy meant. Her mother would tolerate nothing but the best. Imperfection was not an option.

She demanded to know what the hell she was playing at as she texted someone on a smart phone; she also demanded that Kathy pulled herself together in a huff before throwing herself down on the chair I had vacated for her.

“She can’t just pull herself together,” I protested unable to keep my silence as roll after roll of defences blocked Kathy off from the real world she was sitting in the middle of. I had done this to her in some ways. I had took her here and now I saw the harm I had done and I felt sick to my stomach. I could not win in Kathy’s situation and neither could she.    

“Don’t be ridicules,” her mother shouted looking down her nose at my old tatty second hand size fourteen jeans and oversized t-shirt that hid my tiny baby bump from view. “Who the hell are you anyway?”

“I’m just a friend, someone who wanted to help. It doesn’t even matter,” I sighed turning towards the curtain that separated us from the rest of the A&E before turning once more and observing the shell that sat crossed legged on the bed playing with the white bands that had numbered her. “Take care of yourself Kathy,” I said gently, forcing a smile. She did not answer. She didn’t even look up. Then I was gone.

We hoped (Esmee)

Hell i am sorry i am really not sure of this chapter but i had to mfinish it some way. As i said it is only a rough working through here. The main story is on the other site. I may drop the whole Kathy thing entirly yet. Any way  for the time that is here. I hope this isn't to abismal!

 

We hope

 “The hospital; Yeah right. Not a hope in hell is that happening Esmee. Do you have any idea what my mother would say to that? My dad would never speak to me ever again either,” Kathy scoffed her voice somewhere between amusement and complete and utter fear.

“If you’re dead neither your mother nor farther would have a chance of talking to you ever again anyway.”

“Yes I know but if I am dead I wouldn’t feel it. If I was dead, if I was gone, I wouldn’t have to look into their eyes everyday of forever and see that the daughter they jumped through rings for was nothing, more than a disappointment to them – someone that could have changed the world but instead landed up in the A&E. It’s not really their feelings that I care about even though I should do. I mostly just care what my soul would feel like. What is the point of fighting to live if you spend the rest of your life wishing that you were dead?

I sighed running out of words to say to her suddenly feeling mentally exhausted as well as physically There was so many things that I could have and should have said to her and I wanted to but the ending seemed fixed. I would not change her mind that her parents would much rather haver her alive and in the hands of doctors for no matter what reason then having to watch as her coffin disappeared behind a curtain at the end of a ceremony of songs that tried to sum up the life of a girl that should have still had at least sixty more years spread out in front of her. It was devastating, so devastating that without any warning I found tears pricking at the back of my eyes that I pushed back down, biting on my bottom lip in protest that my emotions had betrayed me once again.

“I’m scared Esmee, I don’t know what to do, I am not as strong as I look. I walk around like I understand, like that is nothing that will ever get to me and here you are asking me to go to the hospital. I don’t want to be the freak. I want to be the super girl that everyone expects. I could be perfect if I could just pull myself together. If I didn’t cry over every small little thing – if I could stop waking up every morning and just hoping all day that someone would just give me a hug and tell me that it will all be OK even if it is a lie.” Kathy’s head dropped down and she pressed her hands into her eyes. I had lacked the words to help her because mentally for the smallest of time I had given up on her and now she thought it was hopeless. I had been the first person to every stop her and reach out my hand to her and I may have just made it worse. I should have known better. You never stop trying. You never stop talking, even if you have to say the same thing a thousand different times in a thousand different ways there should never be exasperation in your tone and you should never stop fighting.

“You are going to be OK,” I confirmed sternly as I shifted as close as I could to Kathy and wrapped my arm around her shoulders.  Her body was stiff against mine. Her back arched out like the contact may have burnt her in some way, her shoulders tort and body against the joint. I should have let her go but I couldn’t, her devastation making my arms want to wrap around her so tightly it took all my effort not to bundle her onto my lap. I wiped my eyes with my other hand discreetly. Hormones were making me a wreck over little things.

“I won’t hurt you Kathy,” I whispered gently

“I know, but you are the first person who has put there arm around me in nearly five years. It feels strange.” If she was trying to break my heart it was working. She was sixteen years old and no one had touched her in five years. They were only trying to help it was true but people laid on expectations that she couldn’t handle and never even bothered to reward her with a hug, never granted her any reassurance that she was going to be OK. That she would be loved even if she wasn’t perfect.

“You’re going to be OK sweetheart,” I said again turning myself towards her so I could wrap my other arm around her as well bringing her in close to me in a hug. I wasn’t who she wanted of course. My comfort and embrace meant very little to her on the inside. I could have hugged her forever and she would have given it all up if her mother or farther would tell her once that she was good enough, that they were proud of her just the way she was. That there love for her was unconditional and it wouldn’t go away if she produced something less than perfect.

 I was nothing too her. A passing stranger that in reality had been promising her something that I couldn’t really promise. It should have been that way of course, that a call for help wouldn’t go unanswered but the world was undeniably flawed. My hope had been offering her something that may not have existed. Parental compassion was not always guaranteed, and a doctor’s qualifications on paper were sometimes exactly that in the real world; paper thin and pointless.

“You are going to be OK Kathy. It will be all OK in the end,” I promised again because there was nothing more left to do in the situation. I could live with the hope that it was true and that was what we all did at the end of the day. When things seemed  impossible, when things were bad – we hoped.