Chapter 52
Mireya
Play - Take Me To Church by Hozier
Incapable of love
Blue is sleeping peacefully in front of the window and I just scrubbed my skin until it stung, until the heat of the water almost burned the memory of his touch. I’ve been doing it since the beginning of the week now.
But when I looked up, the girl staring back at me looked just as ruined as before the shower. The reflection is disgusting to look at.
What is it about hating yourself enough for anyone to feel it the moment they see you?
This new scar on my stomach isn’t painful physically. It’s strange how easy it is to think everyone sees you the way you see yourself. My fingers brush the fresh wound lightly and a tear falls down my cheek.
A single, lonely tear.
Some of the marks happened because I chose them, because my skin carries the handwriting of my worst days. The others… The others weren’t mine.
Men have been carving these letters on my body for years, men who were never supposed to be close enough to leave anything behind.
And Damien… he took care of the same body that was abused so many times I lost the count of it. People think abuse stops the moment you’re out of reach.
It is not true, it follows you in every moment of your life.
When you sleep, and when you’re awake. When you try to dress and see the scars left on you like ruins that were never meant to stay. The way you dissociate every time your mind fails to push the memories back down.
And then it follows you into softness. Into hands that don’t hurt you. Into moments where nothing is wrong and your body still behaves like something is about to be.
Because even gentleness can feel unfamiliar when you were never given it cleanly.
Damien stopped trying to contact me after I avoided him all week long.
He probably got tired of trying to understand me. And I don’t blame him. I don’t want him to see me, to know my story and finally admit that nothing is worth it.
I want to keep the memory of him softly soothing my pain without ruining it with what would happen next. Because I know something wrong will happen, it always does.
Days have passed since that night, and without ever sitting down to make a conscious decision to avoid him, my life has gradually revolved around that idea.
I started by skipping a few training sessions under the pretext that my injury was still causing me pain, then I asked the nurse to excuse me entirely for a few days.
She had stared at my stomach a little too long when I explained that my cat had scratched me.
Her gaze lingered on the marks as if she were trying to reconcile my explanation with what she was actually seeing, but in the end she said nothing, and I left her office with the strange relief of someone who has just been believed when they would almost have preferred to be exposed.
I call Milo and Edna every night, smiling like I hadn’t been cut open not so far from where they were waiting for me.
I play with Blue and cuddle him, hoping he won’t feel my pain.
Classes followed the same pattern.
I started arriving late, leaving too quickly, and walking around certain buildings without even realizing it.
Ethan and Hayzel think I’ve been spending more time with my little brother these past few days.
It became the official lie, the one I repeat with enough naturalness that it no longer raises any questions.
The truth is way less reasonable.
I’m changing my habits, my schedule, and my routes to avoid a single man, and every time I catch myself recognizing him, I feel like I’ve become someone else.
I opened his texts several times, often late at night when I needed to stop thinking.
I would read them, then lock my phone almost immediately, like these few extra seconds might turn those words into a conversation, and that conversation into something I wasn’t ready to face.
The most ridiculous thing about all this is that I know exactly why I’m acting this way.
It’s not his reaction that scares me. If I’d seen judgment in his eyes that night, I probably would have already found a way to live with it.
Judgment is simple. I’ve known it my whole life.
What’s been haunting me for the past week is the tenderness in his eyes when he looked at parts of me that I spent my entire life hiding.
The morning I finally decide to go back, I tell myself over and over that the academy is huge, that the odds of running into him are impossible, that he has his own classes, his own responsibilities, his own life.
But when I walk down the hallways, I understand what terrifies me the most. I’m scared of finding pity there, or questions, or finding nothing at all.
I’d just sent a message to Hayzel to let her know I was on my way to Mrs Green’s class when I turned the corner of a hallway and a hand closed around my arm.
My heart recognized it even before I looked up.
For one absurd second, all I notice is the familiarity of that touch.
That same hand held mine when they were trembling.
It tended to wounds no one was supposed to see or inflict.
It brushed against scars I already can’t even accept to have, so being aware that he knows about them sometimes feels sickening.
I’m pulled inside the classroom and the door closes the moment I realize I’ll have to stop pushing him away and have a conversation with him.
Damien's there, motionless in this space he occupies effortlessly. He looks at me for a long time before saying anything.
Our eyes meet, no pity and no judgement is in his.
“You avoided me,” he says softly.
I should reply immediately, but I can't find the speed to lie properly, so I lower my eyes as I reply, “I didn't avoid you.”
When I look up, he's moved closer to me, his hand approaches me, fingers brushing beneath my eye, precisely where the scar is.
“You speak to me less than your eyes do.”
I missed his voice.
“Don't do this.”
He withdraws his hand gently, as if he doesn't want to break what he's just brought into being, but he doesn't back away either. “You disappeared after that night,” he says finally, and his voice is harder now. “Next time, don't do that.”
“I don't want you to judge me.”
I shouldn’t have said it like that. I was afraid he would look at me differently, as if I were something fragile and broken.
I am not. Even if I was, my mind was the only place allowing this version to exist. Instead he tilts his head slightly, and I see the same respect I found in his gaze when I first met him.
“I'm not judging you,” he says. “I'm worried.”
“Don't be,” I reply, softer this time. “It's not worth it.”
“If you think isolating yourself is better,” he answered, without changing his serious tone, “then it is worth it.”
I bite my tongue to avoid saying something stupid.
His presence is suffocating, it’s stealing the air out of my lungs, and when I meet his eyes only to see how soft they are, something in me breaks.
I could never let him get too close. I would ruin him to push him away forever.
“Why are you doing this?” His voice brings me back to our conversation. And I clench my jaw, not understanding why the question bothers me so much.
“Doing what?”
“Leaving whenever you could stay and talk to me.”
I look away immediately before whispering, “I am here.” But it sounds false even to me.
He smiles sadly, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “You're hard to read.”
I let out a small, humorless sigh. “Why would you want to read me?”
“Because I don’t understand when you change like this,” he protested. “One day you’re looking at me, the next you’re gone. Disappearing without a word.”
I shake my head slightly, “I’m not disappearing.”
For a second, I think he’s going to give up. Then I feel something brush against my hand, and look up. His fingers have caught the tips of mine without me noticing. My breath catches, and I want to pull my hand away, but physically can’t.
“Yes you do, Miss Vitelli. You disappear all the time.”
I frown slightly. “Where?”
Something flickers in his eyes, then he breathes, “In your head.”
I feel the warmth of his fingers against mine, and I hate how my body is already getting used to it. “And how do you know that?”
His gaze flickers down to my hand for a second before returning to mine. “Because I'm looking at you.”
He’s looking at me.
“That's inappropriate, then.”
“Maybe.” His voice softens. “But I have so many questions.”
“About what?”
This time, he smiles slightly, “About you.”
“You’d be disappointed,” I spit out this while looking away. I don’t see him move, I only feel his fingers lightly tighten around mine before releasing them.
“Show me, and let me be disappointed then.” He looks at my hand rather than my face when he continues. “It doesn’t matter what it is. It doesn’t matter what’s wrong.” He pauses, as if searching for something simple to say. “Don’t hide it from me.”
I finally look up. “You say it like it’s easy.”
He shakes his head very slightly. “I didn’t ask easy.” He exhales a long breath. “I asked you.”
I freeze for a second too long. Then, he gently releases my fingers, and I feel myself recoiling despite the fact that my heart suffers from the lack of warmth his hand was giving me. But I still feel the ashes of the contact when he takes a half step back.
“Mister Caldwell,” I call before leaving.
He smiles softly, his hand mid-air where he stopped touching me and replies, “Yes, Miss Vitelli?”
“You were flirting with me,” I admit, confused about the way he softens whenever we’re alone.
He shakes his head twice, then looks at me. “No. It would be way too unprofessional.”
“Then what are you doing?” I ask, taking another step back.
“Losing control,” he breathes carefully. My breath catches and I don’t even have the time to reply before he adds, “Library, tonight." Then, after a pause, “And try not to disappear before then.”
“I won’t,” I murmur one last time before opening the door and leaving him once more alone.
I won’t disappear anymore.