38
Huxley
Ican’t think straight. Every time I look at Valentina, my heart breaks in half. My beautiful girl, who I always thought knew exactly where her life was going, has wanted to end that exact life. She tried to kill herself Sophomore year. The same year I…
The point is, now I don’t know how to leave her alone. I catch myself glancing at her wrist, as if her cuts will suddenly open and I’ll lose her. When I hold her hand, I always end up tracing lines over her skin, wishing I could wipe away the lines on her wrist that almost took her from this world.
She’s caught on to my actions, and I know she’s annoyed with me, but I don’t know how to stop worrying about her.
I don’t want her to ever get to that place again.
I’ve read through countless articles that state that someone who has tried to kill themselves once before and failed will most likely try again if they don’t seek proper help.
I don’t know if she got proper help before, but I’ve noticed moments where regular things hurt her more than they should. And I’d never forgive myself if something like that happened to her again while she was with me.
So I’ll keep checking up on her. I’ll keep watching over her to see if I can notice any signs of change.
I won’t lose this girl.
I can’t.
Right now, she’s sitting in my living room, drawing for one of her classes. She hasn’t spoken in a while, though, and it’s driving me insane.
I lean closer to her and look at her paper. “Whatcha drawing?”
She shrugs. “Nothing special. I haven’t been able to complete an assignment properly for my art class, so I’m just doodling.” She keeps on drawing like those words didn’t just send a knife through my chest.
“What do you mean you can’t complete an assignment?”
“It’s nothing,” she sighs, still staring at her paper. “I’m just not inspired right now.”
“Are you okay?”
She takes a deep breath, and I know I’m irritating her. But I’m not going to stop just because she’s annoyed. I’m just trying to show her that I care and I’ll always be here for her. That’s a good thing, right?
“Yes, Huxley. I’m okay.”
“Then look at me.”
“Huxley.” She looks ready to snap her pencil in half, but I’m not giving in.
“Look at me, Valentina,” I snap, and she finally turns to me.
“Happy?” she grits out. “I’m all right. You don’t have to worry about me.”
She turns back to her paper and continues to draw. I’ve never met someone who got angry when someone cared about them. But over the past few days, since she told me what she did, I’ve been thinking about what type of mindset someone would have to be in to try to take their own life.
Sure, I’ve had bad days. Days when I wanted to end it all, too, but I never went through with it. I couldn’t. The idea of actually taking all of my mother's hidden pills or slitting my wrists and watching myself bleed out horrified me, even if my reality scared me just as much.
So, for someone to feel so lost and so scared that they felt they had to end their life, she must not have had someone there to really worry about her.
When people don’t care about you, you get used to that feeling.
My mother tried to care, but she was in her own head too much to really take care of me.
And all my siblings are too young to worry about me. And my dad…
Val moves her hand from her paper, so I pull her notebook from her.
“Huxley.” There’s fear in her voice, so I study her picture a little harder, trying to see if I can find a hidden meaning behind the lines she’s drawn. It’s crazy, and I know I won’t find the key to her mind through this, but I just need a piece of her so maybe I can help. “Huxley, give it back.”
“I’m admiring,” I say calmly, staring at her simple drawing that looks more like a doodle you’d draw in class when you’re bored. I’ve seen her work before, and this isn’t close to her best.
Maybe that’s the piece? Her tired artwork means her mind is spiraling?
“I’m serious, Huxley. Give it to me.”
I ignore her and flip the page over to look at her other drawings, only to find words instead.
…feeling comfort in the dark
where my mind can fall apart…
…but what if I lose myself again…
…maybe I should get some sleep
one little shot of eternal peace…
…I thought that I could pretend it all away
pretend I didn’t care…
“Valentine,” I barely whisper, my body going cold over the words I’ve just read. How could I have missed this? How did I not see that she was falling apart right in front of my eyes?
“Don’t.”
My head snaps in her direction as she stares back at me. Her eyes shift to the notebook and back to me.
“Don’t? What do you mean, don’t? We need to talk about this.”
She pulls her notebook from me while all my focus is on her. But I let her take it. Because I’ve read the words she wrote, and I honestly don’t want to read them again.
“There’s nothing to talk about.” She closes the notebook and starts shoving it into her bag.
“Yes, there is.”
Her whole body turns back to me, anger and fear colliding in her eyes. “And what if there is Huxley? What are you going to do about it?”
I just stare at her. I don’t know what I’d do, but I’ll figure it out and help her in any way I can. But I’m just so confused as to why she doesn’t even want me to help her.
“I have to go.” She starts grabbing all of her things, bringing me back to reality.
“What?”
“I’m leaving.”
She’s almost to the door already. I push myself from the floor and run after her, my hand slamming the door shut as I catch up to her.
I let out a deep breath to try to center myself so I don't yell at her. “Talk to me,” I whisper.
She trembles in front of me, still staring at the door. “Please let me go.”
“I’m not letting you run away.” I keep my voice soft and my actions softer as I turn her to face me.
Her eyes don’t reach mine, and I so badly want to lift her chin and stare into her deep eyes and beg these words to her.
“Just tell me what’s going on, Valentine.
I want to know so I can make you feel better. ”
She swallows roughly before she lifts her eyes to mine, forcing a calm expression that I can see through, even in the darkness she’s trying to hide. “It’s really nothing, Huxley,” she struggles to say. “You don’t have to worry.”
“Don’t worry?” I scoff. “How could you possibly think I don’t worry about you? Especially after you told me what happened Sophomore year.”
She shakes her head slowly. “You still don’t have to worry about that.”
“And why not?”
Then she says the last thing I expected her to say. “Because I called 911 on myself.”
Confusion and pain fight in my mind as I stare at her. Pain because I never want to think about what she did to herself two years ago. Confusion because… “You. What?”
“Before I even did it, I called 911.” Tears line her eyes, but she doesn’t let them fall. “They barely even considered me a hazard to myself because of how little blood there was.”
Jesus Christ. I close my eyes and try not to think of her with any kind of blood on her body. “Don’t say that. I don’t even want to think about that.”
“The point is you don’t have to worry about me.”
I stare down at her and watch the hope in her eyes that I’ll look past all this fade.
“I read what you wrote, Valentina. People don’t write that kind of thing when they’re okay.”
She looks at her bag and doesn’t say anything. But what is there to say right now? She’s not going to magically be okay just because I want her to be, and I’ll never forget what happened and the words I read.
I turn from her, just needing a minute to think this through.
To think about how I’m going to make her see that she’s the reason I’ve smiled so much lately.
The reason I still force myself to go to classes so I can see her.
The reason I’m still trying to achieve an impossible dream.
How do I tell her all that and make her believe me?
“Do you want me to go?” I barely hear her whisper, but her words still knock into me.
I spin back to her. “Fuck no.” Her wide eyes fly up to mine. “Why would you think that?”
Her arms fly out to her sides, pain deepening in her eyes as she nearly yells, “Because I’m insane! I’m crazy! I’m a freak!”
I step back up to her, and she falls back against the door. Both our chests rise and fall quickly, but while she trembles in pain, I tremble in fury.
“Who told you that?” I barely grit out through my anger. “Who told you any of those things because of this?”
Her tears finally fall as she whispers, “I heard people talk on campus.”
I take hold of her face, wiping away the tears that continue to stream down her cheeks. “They’re wrong,” I whisper to my girl. “All of them are wrong. You’re not insane. You’re not crazy. And you’re not a freak.”
I lift her face more, forcing her to look directly at me as I say, “You’re my beautiful girl.”
She stares at me like she’s never heard that before. Like those words are foreign and not for her. But they’re all for her. Every beautiful word in the world belongs to Valentina Demarco.
I slip my hand further into her hair, and she leans into my touch like I’m the only thing keeping her upright.
“I’m supposed to believe you,” I tell her softly. “So you need to believe me, too.”
She nods too quickly, but I’ll take it. Because maybe this means that she’s willing to try. Lord knows I’m still trying to believe her, so I’ll give her some time. But I won’t ever stop making her believe me.
Even if it takes the rest of my life, I will try to make this woman in front of me realize how special she is. And that if I ever lost her, I would lose myself just the same.