Chapter 22 – “Unknown / Nth” - Hozier #2
“Stop trying to peer pressure me, Augustus,” she mutters with a full mouth.
“Have you ever thought that maybe your grief exacerbates your PMDD, or vice versa? That your diagnosis might be affecting you differently than it does others?” She drops her eyes to her lap but doesn’t respond, so I continue, “Maybe a therapist could help you sort through that. Get you on antidepressants or something that could help.” Her jaw tenses at that suggestion, and I know she’s about to get defensive, so I put my hands up in surrender.
“I know years ago you said they didn’t make sense for you and that you didn’t want to take any medication like that, but…
you’re suffering differently now, and that’s okay.
It’s also okay to treat yourself differently too. You deserve a little grace.”
Her jaw relaxes, but she still doesn’t address me as she continues eating.
Elena reminds me of a wounded animal. Defensive and vicious, but it’s only a mask for her fear and pain.
Coaxing her into accepting care is like she’s finally let me examine her wounds without biting, and that’s enough for tonight.
I stop pressing, settling against my pillows and allowing her to eat and watch her show in peace.
A half hour passes in silence before she asks, “Therapy has helped you?”
“Yeah.” I smile softly. “It really has, I think. Some days are still bad, and I’ll be working through this shit for the rest of my life, but…it doesn’t feel as heavy as it used to.”
She’s on her side, facing me, cheek pressed against her hand on the pillow as she nods. The dim light of the lamp on my bedside casts her in a warm glow, but her eyes are withdrawn and cold. Her dishes are stacked atop the table on her side, her tea now tepid and forgotten beside them.
Because old habits never die, I throw caution to the wind and pull my hoodie over my head, tossing it to the floor before flicking off the light and the television, and crawling into bed beside her.
“Can I ask you something else?” she whispers into the darkness.
“You can ask me anything.”
She shuffles closer to me, and on instinct, I open my arm so she can rest her head on my chest. I don’t think either of us meant to let it happen, but cosmic forces seem to be at work when it comes to Elena and me. We don’t have any control over it.
“Did you ever feel like it was your fault?”
The question unsettles me, sends my chest spiraling into the pit of darkness where my soul used to rest. Only the feel of her hair sliding between my fingers keeps me grounded to earth, to this room, and this bed with her.
“Yes.”
“Did therapy help with that?”
I inhale deeply, buying myself time. I know the unspoken question she’s asking, but what I don’t know is how to answer it. Her eyes bore holes through the side of my face, but my gaze remains fixed on the ceiling.
“I think so. Therapy has helped me separate reality from the hauntings of my own mind.” Emotion wells in my eyes, and I bite my cheek, breathing through my nose to quell the burn in my throat.
I don’t want her to hear it. “There are things I could’ve done differently that would’ve resulted in a different outcome, and I’ll never escape that, but therapy helped me understand the difference between intention and impact.
The impact will always haunt me, but I’ve learned to understand my intentions, and at the very least, I can accept those. ”
She’s quiet, and I wouldn’t know she was crying if I didn’t feel the wet prickle of her tears as they drop against my chest.
“Can I ask you something?” My voice breaks on the question.
“You can ask me anything.” Her voice breaks too.
“Do you think it was my fault?”
Trepidation chokes me, hard enough to sever my throat as I wait for her response, for a voice to the truth I’ve been terrified to hear.
“No,” she whispers, her tone steady. “I’ve never thought that.”
Pressure lifts off my neck, my airways opening once more, and only now do I realize the weight pressing down on me the past four years. Only now do I realize that I’ve been living without oxygen—that her empathy is my atmosphere.
“I do think that we’re both responsible, though,” she admits quietly. “In our own ways.”
“I think that too.”
Her hand brushes over my chest, like she’s searching for hope beneath my skin. I run my fingers through her hair before cradling the back of her head, like I’m searching for healing in her arms. Solidarity in a catastrophe only the two of us can understand.
“Can I ask one more thing?” Her voice is low, hollow, and distant after sitting in silence.
“Always.”
“Do you think I’m crazy?”
A surprised laugh escapes me, and she tenses at the sound.
I’d do anything to root inside Elena’s mind, to understand her thoughts and how they surface, how she finds the courage to voice them all, her unrelenting curiosity—a force more powerful than any fear she has or the reaction it may garner. “Maybe a little.”
I expect her to laugh back at me, but she doesn’t. Her voice is stoic in the darkness of my room as she asks, “Is that why he never loved me? Why nobody can?”
I turn my head, finding her eyes blazing through me, still wet with the tears she just stopped shedding. New ones brew behind her lids, glistening in the hazy moonlight slipping through my curtains.
“No, Elena.” I kiss her forehead. “I think we’re all kind of crazy—wild—with the right people. He was never your brand of wild, but that doesn’t make something wrong with you. Just wrong for each other.”
“So, if I’m crazy…” Her delicate throat works as she swallows. “Does that make you crazy too?”
“I don’t know how else I’d describe any of this, Elena,” I admit, stroking her hair.
“The complexity of wanting to hate you, and love you, and fuck you all at once.” I trace the outline of her beautiful face in the darkness, halted by the way she bites her lip as she watches me.
“I want to run away from you and hold you closer at the same time. There are moments I wish I’d never met you, while painfully aware that I’d die without your existence.
” My hand finds her jaw, thumb resting on her bottom lip and pulling it from her teeth.
“I miss you even when I’m right next to you, and I loathe you when you’re far away.
But one thing I always know for certain is that I’ll take you any way you come, any pain you cause, no matter how brief the moment, because simply experiencing you…
it’s more valuable to me than the air I breathe. ”
I expect her to react with surprise, to gasp or widen her eyes at my heart-wrenched confession, but she doesn’t. She blinks, eyes glowing with something like understanding, like she already knew those words because they came directly from her soul too.
“Is it wild that I feel the exact same way?” she asks, bringing her hand to my face.
I choke on a laugh. “Yeah.”
“So, we’re each other’s brand of crazy?”
She makes the same motion to my lip that I did with hers, and I wonder which one of us will cave first. Who will finally put us both out of this unending misery by replacing their hand with their lips.
Neither of us do.
“Yeah,” I finally respond, feeling her thumb bounce against my mouth with the movement. “We always have been.”
She nods, moving her hand over my chin and down my chest, back to the same spot it was resting before. She traces the tattoo of raven wings beneath my sternum.
“I should go to my own room, Augustus.”
“No,” I rasp. “Stay here with me. Please.”
She lifts her eyes to mine, uncertainty shining in her chocolate-colored irises.
“Just tonight,” I beg. “One last time.”
“Just tonight,” she echoes. “One last time.”