Chapter 19 #3
Davian looked past me before he stepped to the edge of the table where I was standing and lowered his voice. “There's nothing you ever had to be sorry for.”
His gaze was steady, and even though his jawbones were grinding against his cheeks, the little child in me wanted to believe him.
From The Lake To The Land
Foreign Fields
He gently took my wrist, bent my arm at the elbow, pushed my sleeve up way too carefully, and stared at the thin, crusty wounds that formed an ugly, irregular pattern.
Panic overwhelmed me, and I braced myself for whatever judgment he might pass, this time determined not to pull my arm away from him like a cowardly toddler.
The warmth of his hands was something I would never get used to.
Don't cry. Don't cry.
Davian looked up, sought my gaze, and I remained strong.
“Are you intending to stop?”
I suppressed a dry laugh, raised both eyebrows, and carefully withdrew my arm. Fortunately, he let go, although the hesitant twitch of his fingers, which briefly brushed my skin, almost flustered me.
“You seem to have never deliberately hurt yourself.
Otherwise, you would understand that self-harm is not harming.”
What one saw was often not what was behind it. It was easy to judge.
Many worried that the person was ruining their skin and causing themselves pain, that one day they would cut too deep. But the greatest damage had already been done before a blade had ever had the chance to find the skin.
Davian hesitated, as if he wanted to be careful about what he said next. He touched me with kid gloves, as if I were a fragile vase. But I already lay in shards.
“What does that give you that writing cannot?”
I looked one last time at the mess I had left on my skin before pushing my sleeve back into place.
“Now that you mention it...” I couldn't look at him anymore, so I started wandering through the lecture hall toward the staircase-like window front and looked out at the adjacent park, which was lined with apricot-colored rose beds.
“Both are a form of control. Both allow me to let go. Both hurt when I do them well enough.” Melancholy pulled the weak corners of my mouth upward.
“But these blades?” Knowing he was watching me, I raised my right arm.
“When I do this, it's as if I'm expressing all the pain that's been inflicted on me emotionally.
As if I'm physically letting out what's weighing on my soul.”
There was more to it than that, but I didn't know how to explain it all to Davian when I was saying it out loud for the first time myself.
The fact that it was so easy for me to put my pain into words with him left me in a state of mental paralysis from which even the students playing football outside, as if that sport existed here, couldn't rouse me.
I flinched when Davian appeared beside me, his hands clasped behind his back, also gazing out.
“Your pain is getting a validated source. Because you’ve been made to feel that emotional pain isn’t equal to physical pain.”
Slowly, I nodded, feeling our blue threads continue to intertwine.
How could he know me better than I knew myself when he had never gone through this sort of pain? He was the most empathetic soul I had ever encountered.
“Talking might help you.”
His words meant something like, “You're a wreck, Quill, but there's still hope to fix you.”
“Lara offered, but I don't want to burden her with things she's thankfully never experienced.” I smiled, grateful that Davian existed, and this time not for selfish reasons. “You're a good father, Davian.”
I felt his gaze on me, but I stared after the leather ball before one of the guys caught it.
“Is that what Lara says?”
“Lara doesn't have to say it. Her smile and her lightheartedness speak volumes. Your home speaks volumes.”
And even though those things had reinforced that feeling, it was something else that assured me that Davian was the best father Lara could ever have.
I tried to push away the thought that he had stood on that exact same bridge long ago and had looked into the same abyss I had. That he had stayed here, for his daughter.
My mother had chosen to leave. Because of me.
Davian had decided to be strong a long time ago. If he could do it, maybe I could too...
I turned away, closed my leather bag, and walked to the stairs.
“Quill?” I turned to him. He was still standing at the window, both arms crossed. “If you want to talk... you know where to find me.”
Smiling wearily, I nodded before turning around and walking up the stairs, trying to keep all the emotions inside me.
I wouldn't come to him, would keep my physical distance. For his sake and his picture-perfect life. It was the only picture book in this town I would ever want to leaf through.
But I had decided on one thing. Before I would leave this town, I would give this man back something he had lost somewhere along the way. I would bring Davian Rydell back to writing.
Her unstoppable ink flows onto the white pages of those
whose paper was made for pencils, while my parchment
yearns for every single one of her drops.
– Leaking Batteries Diary