Chapter 72
Mireya
Play - Hailey’s Comet by Billie Eilish
My own addiction
I’d been clean for four days. Four days of pretending my skin wasn’t trying to crawl out of itself. Four days of breathing like it was something I had to remember how to do.
My hands were not shaking this morning. That was the lie I told myself first.
Then I saw him. He was just existing, waiting for everyone to get inside the classroom. And my body reacted before my thoughts did, a small, humiliating shift in my chest happened, as if something recognizing its own poison. It hit me so quietly.
I didn’t think Damien. I thought need.
And for one terrifying second, my brain didn’t bother distinguishing what kind.
He held me that night, four days ago. He held me and stayed with me on the ground for hours, letting me cry and scream the pain out. He cleaned my dorm, played with Blue when I was dissociating and couldn’t take care of myself.
It scares me how fast I reach for what hurts me. It scares me more that he knows how easily I ask for poison to calm me down.
I spent the entire morning focusing on him talking to the students but I can still hear his voice comforting me. He doesn’t know how strange what he did feels to me.
Hayzel is coming in late today, when she sits next to me, I focus on her and stop the hyper-fixation I have with Damien.
“You disappeared for a day and weren't answering your texts, woman,” she whispers in a worried voice.
“I got sick after the Gala, probably ate something bad.”
Her eyes soften for a second. “You look really tired, Reya. I’m worried.”
“Don’t be, I’m okay, I promise,” I smile, hoping it will convince her. I feel her hand taking mine and squeezing before her eyes draft back toward Damien.
There’s a moment where I realize I’ve been listening to his voice more than the words. And then I realized something else after that. I keep thinking about him.
He’s at the front of the room talking about profiling and behavior patterns and I try to follow, but I keep slipping back into the sound of his voice instead of the words.
You don’t get to tell me what I’m willing to lose.
It’s easy to talk to him. Easy in the way I breathe without feeling like something inside my head is going to break apart. In the way I don’t feel on edge all the time when I’m near him.
I don’t even realize I’m watching him until I already am. Sometimes his eyes move across the room while he talks, and every time I look down too fast, because I wasn’t supposed to be caught thinking anything at all.
It’s easy with him.
That thought keeps coming back.
That night is still there, in my head, in my soul, invading my thoughts, compromising my own self-hatred just because he thought I was worth whatever he did.
I tighten my grip on my pen without noticing.
He keeps talking, and I keep thinking, without meaning to…I think I like him.
And I don’t know what to do with how easy it feels.
Because it has never been easy. I never even knew what easy meant. Nothing that came without a cost ever lasted.
The day passed, Ethan and Hayzel kept talking to me, and I kept pretending that everything was okay. Then I went back to my dorm and that’s when my phone vibrated.
Library: Meet me outside, we’re going to the amusement park.
I read it, and reread it as Blue kept passing through my feet to welcome me back. And I smiled without stopping.
I do like him.