3. Chapter Three #2
No one is shouting or fighting or pacing or pointing.
No friends are talking to me, filling my head with too many words, looking at me with pleading eyes like if they just want it badly enough then maybe I’ll be able to act normal again.
There are no words at all under the bed.
They can’t prickle my skin here. They can’t make my head ache, and ache, and ache, or my gut fill with shame.
It’s just me and the softest little blue bunny.
I won’t ruin you, I promise him, pressing our foreheads together as if I can make the words teleport from my mind to his. I won’t ever ruin you. I’ll keep you so, so safe. I’ll keep you soft. I promise.
Here, with me, you can be soft.
Someone is lying on the floor beside me. There's enough light in the room for me to tell it's Bryce. He's curled up on his side, knees pressed to my hip, his face half-shadowed. He smiles when he notices I'm looking at him, but it's his worried smile.
“Hey, Matty.” He puts his hand in the air between us and wiggles his fingers, his way of asking if he can touch me. I'm rewarded with his fingers in my hair when I nod. His nails scratch just a little along my scalp. It's nice. Good, even. “You hungry?”
Now that he asks, I can feel the cramping of my empty stomach. It's still manageable. It doesn't hurt yet.
If I could, I would ask what there is for me to eat.
I'd make sure there was something safe before admitting my hunger.
Otherwise I'll wind up downstairs eating something triggering while he sits and watches me struggle to keep it down.
I can't ask, though, and I'm not hungry enough to take the risk of not knowing.
So I shake my head. No, I'm not hungry. A lie.
He frowns, seeing straight through me. “I could bring you something?”
I shake my head again. It'd be even worse to have to eat it here in this room, maybe even under the bed where I've felt safer than anywhere else in a long time.
There'd be no choosing between bad and worse options, then.
I'd just have to try whatever he brought me.
And if I couldn't keep it down, he'd be right outside the bathroom to hear me fail.
“I'm worried about you, Matty,” he murmurs, his hand moving in my hair again. It hasn't started to grow out yet. Most of us underwent maintenance before Mast - Travis's - fancy party the night of our rescue. That was only yesterday. Or two days ago, maybe? Three?
Regardless, it wasn't a long enough time to let my hair grow. There’s barely enough of it for him to even card his fingers through.
Maybe I’ll grow it out, now that it’s my choice.
I wonder if he'll be patient enough to still play with it like this if I do.
It'll tangle so easily when it’s long, especially if he isn't careful, but it feels so nice when he does this. It makes my head go quiet.
It makes me feel safe. Calm. Almost happy.
My mamá used to do this all the time, on good days and bad.
She’d gesture for me to lay my head in her lap or on my pillow and spend countless minutes working her long, slender fingers through the curls.
Sometimes she’d do it quietly, or while chatting with papá, but my favorite was when she’d do it while she sang to me.
Her fingers would move in swirls and strokes to the tune of her favorite canciones de cunas, never once tangling in my crazy curls.
Is that just some sort of magic mamá thing?
Would Bryce be able to learn? Would Nolan, since he does this too sometimes?
I could keep it short, if it meant they'd keep doing this for me.
I do miss my curls, though.
Going through that bag of hair products the man - what was his name again?
- brought me was like coming home. The coconut oil he bought was the exact brand mamá used on me growing up.
When I closed my eyes and smelled it, I swore I could feel her behind me, ready to start my hair routine. It had hurt, but in a good way.
There's a word for that. For when something is painful but nice at the same time. Not a sexual thing - not masochism. It happens in your chest. It happens in your heart.
God, what's that word?
“Matty?”
I flinch. I forgot Bryce was here. He has his sad smile on now. That one is even harder to look at than the worried one.
“If you won't eat, can you maybe go up on the bed at least? This floor is so hard and it's freezing under here.”
He's such a mother hen. I don't mind that. I like it, even. It makes me feel cared for in a way nothing has since I was last with my mamá.
“Come on,” Bryce says. He backs himself out from under the bed, then reaches for me.
I hesitate. This place is nice. Safe.
It's not where I'm supposed to be, though. Places like this are for the ghosts. The monsters. I'm supposed to be human. I'm supposed to be real.
I’m supposed to at least try.
I take his hand and let him pull me out.
He tucks me in on the bed, pulling a soft blanket up over my shoulders. It's a nice blanket. Warm. Not too heavy. The mattress is soft, too, but not so soft I feel like I'm going to fall right through. It’s nicer than the floor.
It… should feel nicer than the floor.
Nolan is in his own bed across the room, fast asleep. I wonder when he got there. If he even noticed I was under mine. I wonder why I didn't hear him come in. I didn't think I had fallen asleep, but maybe I had. Or maybe my mind just drifted far enough away from my body to not be aware.
The thought scares me, but not in the way it probably should. It means I left myself open to danger, which anyone in my position would be freaked out by - and I am, a little. It’s just not the safety of my body that I’m really worried about. It’s the safety of my mind.
What if one day it drifts too far away? What if one day I can't find my way back?
I'll be a ghost for real, then, even if my stubborn heart keeps beating.
“Get some rest, Matty.” There are more fingers in my hair. Quick this time. Light. Just passing by. “I'll make sure I come get you both for dinner, okay?”
He smiles, no more worry or sadness, and I pull my bunny up to cover my mouth so he can't tell I'm not smiling back.
Bittersweet. That was the word I had been trying to remember before. The painful-nice thing that happens in your heart. Bittersweet is what I feel as I watch him walk away.