(no subject)
Title: Burning Memories
Author: Emelie
Pairing: Frank Iero/Jeph Howard
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Frank tries to escape his memories
Note: This is for youthstate because she asked for this (there’s a little surprise for you in here;) This is not true and all that stuff. And this sucks, and I’m sorry…This didn’t turn our at all as it was planned…Finally a thank you to forever_drownin.
The blood runs down my cheek. Thick rad blood. The pain stings through my head in intervals, like birds are attacking me with sharp knives that stab right into my brain. I punch my head back against the sharp doorframe again, causing a new attack from the birds. The pain rushes through me, making me pleased for the moment. Until it disappears and it has to be refreshed, to keep my head from working and keep the memories from coming back.
“Frank!” The birds had something new to bring me this time, instead of pain the bring me the sharp sound of a voice, throwing it in my ears and forcing me to hear. “Frank, open the door!”
Something sticky touches my bare foot. It takes me almost a minute to realise that it is my own blood that is making a little pool on the floor. The door shakes behind me. If I had energy to lift my arm I would try to calm it down, but I haven’t so I leave it to its fate.
The shakes gets stronger, like an earthquake is shaking the door and once again the birds gives me the sound of words and my own name.
Suddenly the door disappears behind me, if it wasn't for the doorframe I would fall with it. Light fills the small, previously dark, room, shooting arrows into my sore eyes. The bright light of fire.
I close my eyes to try to block out the mean light and make the darkness stay with its soft arms around me.
I feel a hand touch my hair and the sound of someone sitting down in front of me. Slowly I open my eyes again and my blurry vision locates the frame of a man in front of me. His face is filled with worries and his mouth is moving soundlessly. The birds have abandoned me, so there is nothing to bring the sound to my ears. His brown eyes scream to me, I can’t stand to meet them but I can’t take my eyes away from them. His two lip piercings glitter in the light that he took into the room as he moves his lips, still forming sounds my ears can’t hear.
Jeph, you shouldn’t be home yet. You weren’t supposed to see this…
He takes my bleeding head and holds it to his chest, slowly rocking me back and forth. And suddenly the pain overwhelms me, waves of sharp pain that make my mind go blank and my lungs almost stop functioning.
At least it keeps away the memories.
*
The edge of the bathtub is cool against the back of my head. I open my eyes reluctantly, I have no clue how I got here and it takes me a few moments to recall why every part of me seems to be in pain. The small bathroom is looking different from the last time I saw it. Now it’s brightly light and it hurts my eyes, before it was dark like it only can be when all light is shut out by thick walls.
When my eyes have got used to the sharp light I see that what I once thought was a shadow turns out to be a person. And the memory of Jeph breaking into my black world comes back to me.
He sits cross-legged on the floor in front of me, holding my right hand in his left with the palm up. In his right hand he has a yellow cloth that he used to carefully clean my wrist and hand. For each time the cloth makes contact with my skin it absorbs colour that more and more reminds me of dark, blood red. He’s concentrating on his work and he hasn’t seen yet that I have woken up.
A little bit of hair has fallen into his face, but not enough to block my view. His usual strong and confident brown eyes are now wet with tears that he won’t let escape. I want nothing but to make the sad look go away from his face. He’s not supposed to see this, he’s supposed to be at work and when he gets home everything is supposed to be fine. He’s not supposed to know. But he does.
He puts down the dirty cloth at the floor, where a pile of other used ones are and takes a new one from the pack beside him, wetting it in the washbasin, before he turns back to me and sees my open eyes.
His face immediately turns into a shy smile and his sad eyes get stars of happiness behind the unshed tears. His strong arms are around me, pulling my head against his chest. With that hug he tells me about all the happy sadness that is filling him, and I tell him I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. There need to be no words, but it will be. In the future it will.
He puts me back against the bathtub and takes up the yellow cloth again that he lost in his excitement of hugging me. This time he lifts his hand to my face, carefully cleaning the left side of it. His face is close to mine now, and his dry lips kiss my forehead while his hand keeps on cleaning.
And on his white shirt it's marks of red blood that my head left. Slowly a memory gets back to me from the dark room that was here before. The doorframe, the pretty sharp edge of the doorframe, not sharp enough to hurt anyone but if you punch your head against it time after time after time it will hurt you. And the pain that it brings is satisfying because it blocks out the rest of the world and all unwelcome thoughts.
*
Jeph crawls down in the bed beside me, his warm skin close to mine. He takes my right hand in his once more, stroking the white bandage he putted there to stop the bleeding. A small pink dot is showing on the white, telling us that the blood hasn't given up yet.
"Why did you do it?" he whispers, his voice dripping with hurt and sadness.
My head spins, still dim with pain. I can't make myself talk now, I can't stand making any noises with my mouth. I move close to him, lying as close as I can, burying my head into his chest, the part of the head that isn't damaged. One day I will tell him, but not now. Not yet.
"Why did you come home earlier?" my voice is stifled against the soft flesh of his chest.
"I didn't," I can easily make out the confused sound in his voice. He hugs me tighter. "What made you think that?"
I shake my head, nothing, nothing at all. And I immediately regret my action as a sharp pain shoots through me. Sometimes I scare myself. I don't understand how I can do things like this to myself, but I do. And I don't mean it. I want the pain, in a little amount. Just to make the thoughts go away, for a moment or two. But as the sharp razor blade slits my skin from the first time I'm gone. I lose all concepts of time and pain. It's like fainting, but as I'm passed out I hurt myself, more and more. Without seeing an end if it. Not wanting an end of it.
Not before I wake up from my trance and I see what I have done. It's like there's a little demon Frank inside of me, whose only purpose in life is to kill the real Frank. But I don't want to die. The real Frank wants nothing but living a happy normal life and be fully alive.
"Don't let me die," I whisper into Jeph's chest, trying to hold on to him like he's my only lifeline.
"You're not going to die," he answers, his strong arms around me, "I won't let you." But it's not Jeph I'm pleading to, it's the demon inside of me. I have no control of what It will do to me next.
Finally I fall asleep, still safely wrapped in Jeph's arms, as a shelter to the world around us. But he can't save me form myself.
*
The rank smell of smoke wakes me up. The room is hot and the air has a slight smoky colour, making it swimming a bit in front of me. Maybe it's the smell or the constant swimming or the heat, but my head feels heavy and dizzy.
I sit up in the small bed, I'm in the attic room in my grandparents house. The tiny room they made for us grandchildren to play in.
I get out of the bed and walk on small feet to the steep stairs. Something is wrong, but my dizzy child brain can't tell what.
The first half of the stairs goes easy, but abruptly I sit down as I come closer to the ground. Just sitting there, hugging my dear stuffed seal and looking out at the room below.
It's the living room I'm looking at, or what once was the living room, before I went to bed. Now it's a sea of fire. The couch looks like a sparkling ball of red and orange and over the floor a wave of fire comes closer to me as it eats up the carpet. The little wood house that granddad made for the kitten to play with doesn't exist no more.
I stare paralysed at the flaming scenario, the rumble from the fire filling my ears.
Suddenly I'm flying, a pair of strong arms is helping me to escape from the hot room. Grandma is holding me hard, just above the fire as she runs out, like she is a super hero. I hug her back, letting the smell of smoke change to her sweet smell of old women.
Suddenly I realise that my beloved seal is missing. I scream to grandma that we can't leave without him, but she doesn't listen.
After what feels like an eternity of running through rooms that the fire is eating alive, we reach the door. Grandma stumbles out on the green grass and only a few feet away from the house she collapses, falling on the ground with me beside her. A second later a man is carrying me away from her, he is strong in a hard way and he smells evil. I turn my head to look a grandma, a few ambulance nurses is standing beside her. Her feet are black from too much contact with fire.
I scream, I scream to the strong arms to let me go back to my grandma, to the fire for eating my grandma's feet and my seal. But the arms hold me even harder and carry me away from the heat and the smoke.
*
A sound wakes me up, or rather the sound of a sound that moments before were in the room, and I realise that it was the screams in my dream that made it out to the real world. And the arms that are holding my cold, sweaty and shaking body is Jeph's, not some man I never seen before.
"Did you have a nightmare again?" his soft voice whispers in my ear.
I nod into his chest, yes I had and it was the same as always. And I crawl closer to him to escape the fire that is haunting me. He sings softly into my ear, a lullaby about trolls that tied their tails together, and I fall back into dreamless sleep, for once a sleep without fire and the death of my grandma.
*
The bed is empty when I wake up the next time, but from the kitchen I can hear the sound of someone making breakfast. I sit up, on my way to join Jeph, but the quick movement upwards stops me with a sharp pain in my head that almost make me throw up. I fall back down at the pillow. Dizzy with pain and the horrible feeling of almost throwing up. One thing is for sure, I'm not going to move at all if it will go on like this.
To my right is a cat sleeping, she is black with big spots of orange and white. Actually, she isn't black, there is no colour that dominates her soft fur. But her proud black spots are now dotted with grey hair and the tip of her tail is only grey. Jeph must have helped her up in the bed, she's too old to jump this high anymore.
It scares me to see her age. That cat and me, we have been impossible to separate ever since that time a fireman put her in my arms and we watched my grandparents and her home disappear into the flames of the fire. She was just a kitten at that time, a kitten whose biggest interest was to bite anything that came close to her. But she let me hug her, as hard as it was surprising that she didn't suffocate as the fire devastated the house in front of us. And ever since she hasn't bit me, she still bites anything that moves but not me.
But how hard it ever has been to separate us, soon her age will tear us apart forever. For each day she gets more and more tired and it gets harder for her to move and her colourful fur turns into sad grey, starting at the tip of her tail.
I don't know how I'm going to survive without her the day her age will take her away, she's the only one that understands me when I talk about the fire. She should probably have forget it herself by now, if I didn't remind her every other day, but she listens at my endless rambling and she understands, cause she was there. And she purrs something soothing in response, something that always makes me feel better.
The door opens to the bedroom and I wake up from my cat thoughts. Jeph appears in the doorway with a tray with breakfast in his hands. If my head didn't make me feel as sick as it does, this would make me really happy.
"Good morning, sunshine! How are you feeling today?" he says.
"Like crap, but seeing you makes me feel a bit better."
"Hungry?"
"No," I shake my head, causing the sick feeling to come back again. I have to learn not to move.
He sits down at the bed beside me and placed the tray on the bedside table.
"I tried to take the day off, but my boss didn't let me," he says with a sigh. "But I'll be home at lunch, okay?"
"Okay," I nod slowly, trying not to move my head.
"I'll leave the food here, if you want anything later."
"Do you have to go already?" I pout.
"You know I don't want to..." He bends down and gives me a kiss, and he's gone with a little wave goodbye. I close my eyes and let sleep take me over again. It seems like there's nothing else I can do today.
*
The sound of the door closing wakes me up, I glance at the watch beside the bed, 11.21. Jeph shouldn't be home yet, and the footsteps in the hallway definitely aren't Jeph's. I curse to myself over the fact that I can't move. The cat beside me is awake too, she glares at the sound, like me. At moments like this it would be good to have a big, scary dog.
"Hey?" a pale girl face sticks in through the door.
"Tracy! You scared the fuck out of me!" I say accusing. Tracy, she's Jeph's childhood friend. Sometimes it feels like she lives here as much as we do, not that I mind - she is great.
"Sorry," she answers. "Jeph told me to look after you, he wasn't able to leave work." I suddenly feel my heart sink, I've been looking forward to having him home again.
"Aww, are you so sad to see me, Frankie?" she sits down at the bed.
"No," I smile guiltily, "not at all. But I miss Jeph." Now, that made me sound like a little child, but it is true.
"I guess I was the best replacement he could find. Now tell me how you are."
"Better than this morning, but it still feels like a giant used my head as a chair. How are you?"
"We're fine," Tracy pats her big, pregnant belly. She's in the 7th month now and starts to get a very, very pregnant look. Sometimes her belly scares me, it tells me that people around me, people my age, are growing up. They get engaged, they get kids. And all I do is acting like a kid, the little kid that is scared of fire and life itself.
"I'm going to make some food now," Tracy gets up. "Do you think you can eat ? I'm starving! Are pasta and vegetarian meatballs okay? I can make a salad too, if you want?" It always cheers me to be around her, she's always so full of life. Her black hair is in a ponytail and leaves her pale, round face free from disturbing elements, and lets her blue eyes spark freely. She's a beautiful girl.
"Do what you want, as long as it's eatable," I smile and she is gone.
Carefully I move up to a sitting position in the bed, resting against the wall. Every part of my body still hurts, but not as much as before and I don't feel sick at all.
Tracy gets back with the food after a while and we sit together in the bed and eat and watch Shrek 1 and 2. Sometimes a TV in the bedroom can save the day. Her big belly jumps as we laugh at Donkey and that makes us laugh even more. And sometime during the second movie I fall asleep, not because I don't like the film, just because I'm tired. All my energy is gone, leaving only a pounding headache.
*
Jeph comes home a few minutes after four, almost an hour earlier than usual. I guess I get that instead of the missed lunch break. Tracy and I are still sitting in the bed when he comes, but now we're watching re-runs of That 70s Show.
He looks like a respectable young man, dressed in black suit, white shirt and black tie. His face tells different though. His pierced lips and ears and the tattooed neck that sticks up from he shirt tells that inside of this orderly young man lives a little rebel. But I can bet he's the one that works the hardest in the office where he works, the metal signs of irresponsibility in his face force him to work twice as hard as everyone else to reach the same goals and get the respect he deserves. Just because he has a few more holes in his face then the usual human. But he is strong, he can work himself up to that level of respect he needs, the level where his co-workers forget that the surface isn't the whole person and realise that he will never take out his piercings, whatever they say.
"Good evening, darlings!" he lays down in the bed between us. "How are you?" he kisses my cheek and goes on to kiss my lips, before I have a chance to answer.
"I'm much better," I answer when he pulled away. "How was your day?"
"Horrible," he sighs, "I've just wanted to come home to you the whole day." He kisses me again before he turns to Tracy. "And how is the soon-to-be-mother?"
"She just had a great afternoon with your boyfriend, so she's fine," she smiles cheekily.
Jeph places his hand on her stomach, trying to feel the baby move and tells the baby that it has to take care of its mother. Tracy glares at him, she can take care of herself.
A while later Tracy excuses herself and goes home, leaving Jeph and me alone.
I still haven't left the bed, but the pain isn't at all as strong as before, and even though moving still makes me feel a bit dizzy and sick, I can make small moves without feeling anything. Jeph is sitting beside me, changing the bandages at my wrists. As he removes the white and blood stained bandage he reveals arms that are so torn with scars in all directions that I doubt they can be called arms. I turn away, not wanting to see anymore.
He finishes his work, moving to sit in my lap when he has thrown away the used bandages. He rests his forehead against mine and places his arms around my neck.
"I'm sorry I didn't come home at lunch," he says, "but I had to make some phone calls."
"Don't worry, you're here now," I smile.
"I figured..." he closes his eyes.” You said yesterday that you didn't want to die, but that is what you are doing, dying. So I decided,” he opens his eyes again, still close, close to me, "I called a therapist for you, you've got an appointment at Monday. If you want to go." I smile at him, he's so cute when he tries to do the right thing, but don't know if I will agree that it is right.
"I don't want to die," I repeat, but this time I say it to him, not the inner demon. "And I will go to that therapist." I hug him, pressing his body towards mine. "Thank you, thank you, thank you," I whisper into his neck, thanking him not only for this, but all the sleepless nights he spent with me and my nightmares, all the times he taken care of me, all the times he listened. It wasn't enough to make everything good, but without that the demon I would definitely be in control of my body now.
Maybe this can be the start of something better.
Author: Emelie
Pairing: Frank Iero/Jeph Howard
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Frank tries to escape his memories
Note: This is for youthstate because she asked for this (there’s a little surprise for you in here;) This is not true and all that stuff. And this sucks, and I’m sorry…This didn’t turn our at all as it was planned…Finally a thank you to forever_drownin.
The blood runs down my cheek. Thick rad blood. The pain stings through my head in intervals, like birds are attacking me with sharp knives that stab right into my brain. I punch my head back against the sharp doorframe again, causing a new attack from the birds. The pain rushes through me, making me pleased for the moment. Until it disappears and it has to be refreshed, to keep my head from working and keep the memories from coming back.
“Frank!” The birds had something new to bring me this time, instead of pain the bring me the sharp sound of a voice, throwing it in my ears and forcing me to hear. “Frank, open the door!”
Something sticky touches my bare foot. It takes me almost a minute to realise that it is my own blood that is making a little pool on the floor. The door shakes behind me. If I had energy to lift my arm I would try to calm it down, but I haven’t so I leave it to its fate.
The shakes gets stronger, like an earthquake is shaking the door and once again the birds gives me the sound of words and my own name.
Suddenly the door disappears behind me, if it wasn't for the doorframe I would fall with it. Light fills the small, previously dark, room, shooting arrows into my sore eyes. The bright light of fire.
I close my eyes to try to block out the mean light and make the darkness stay with its soft arms around me.
I feel a hand touch my hair and the sound of someone sitting down in front of me. Slowly I open my eyes again and my blurry vision locates the frame of a man in front of me. His face is filled with worries and his mouth is moving soundlessly. The birds have abandoned me, so there is nothing to bring the sound to my ears. His brown eyes scream to me, I can’t stand to meet them but I can’t take my eyes away from them. His two lip piercings glitter in the light that he took into the room as he moves his lips, still forming sounds my ears can’t hear.
Jeph, you shouldn’t be home yet. You weren’t supposed to see this…
He takes my bleeding head and holds it to his chest, slowly rocking me back and forth. And suddenly the pain overwhelms me, waves of sharp pain that make my mind go blank and my lungs almost stop functioning.
At least it keeps away the memories.
*
The edge of the bathtub is cool against the back of my head. I open my eyes reluctantly, I have no clue how I got here and it takes me a few moments to recall why every part of me seems to be in pain. The small bathroom is looking different from the last time I saw it. Now it’s brightly light and it hurts my eyes, before it was dark like it only can be when all light is shut out by thick walls.
When my eyes have got used to the sharp light I see that what I once thought was a shadow turns out to be a person. And the memory of Jeph breaking into my black world comes back to me.
He sits cross-legged on the floor in front of me, holding my right hand in his left with the palm up. In his right hand he has a yellow cloth that he used to carefully clean my wrist and hand. For each time the cloth makes contact with my skin it absorbs colour that more and more reminds me of dark, blood red. He’s concentrating on his work and he hasn’t seen yet that I have woken up.
A little bit of hair has fallen into his face, but not enough to block my view. His usual strong and confident brown eyes are now wet with tears that he won’t let escape. I want nothing but to make the sad look go away from his face. He’s not supposed to see this, he’s supposed to be at work and when he gets home everything is supposed to be fine. He’s not supposed to know. But he does.
He puts down the dirty cloth at the floor, where a pile of other used ones are and takes a new one from the pack beside him, wetting it in the washbasin, before he turns back to me and sees my open eyes.
His face immediately turns into a shy smile and his sad eyes get stars of happiness behind the unshed tears. His strong arms are around me, pulling my head against his chest. With that hug he tells me about all the happy sadness that is filling him, and I tell him I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. There need to be no words, but it will be. In the future it will.
He puts me back against the bathtub and takes up the yellow cloth again that he lost in his excitement of hugging me. This time he lifts his hand to my face, carefully cleaning the left side of it. His face is close to mine now, and his dry lips kiss my forehead while his hand keeps on cleaning.
And on his white shirt it's marks of red blood that my head left. Slowly a memory gets back to me from the dark room that was here before. The doorframe, the pretty sharp edge of the doorframe, not sharp enough to hurt anyone but if you punch your head against it time after time after time it will hurt you. And the pain that it brings is satisfying because it blocks out the rest of the world and all unwelcome thoughts.
*
Jeph crawls down in the bed beside me, his warm skin close to mine. He takes my right hand in his once more, stroking the white bandage he putted there to stop the bleeding. A small pink dot is showing on the white, telling us that the blood hasn't given up yet.
"Why did you do it?" he whispers, his voice dripping with hurt and sadness.
My head spins, still dim with pain. I can't make myself talk now, I can't stand making any noises with my mouth. I move close to him, lying as close as I can, burying my head into his chest, the part of the head that isn't damaged. One day I will tell him, but not now. Not yet.
"Why did you come home earlier?" my voice is stifled against the soft flesh of his chest.
"I didn't," I can easily make out the confused sound in his voice. He hugs me tighter. "What made you think that?"
I shake my head, nothing, nothing at all. And I immediately regret my action as a sharp pain shoots through me. Sometimes I scare myself. I don't understand how I can do things like this to myself, but I do. And I don't mean it. I want the pain, in a little amount. Just to make the thoughts go away, for a moment or two. But as the sharp razor blade slits my skin from the first time I'm gone. I lose all concepts of time and pain. It's like fainting, but as I'm passed out I hurt myself, more and more. Without seeing an end if it. Not wanting an end of it.
Not before I wake up from my trance and I see what I have done. It's like there's a little demon Frank inside of me, whose only purpose in life is to kill the real Frank. But I don't want to die. The real Frank wants nothing but living a happy normal life and be fully alive.
"Don't let me die," I whisper into Jeph's chest, trying to hold on to him like he's my only lifeline.
"You're not going to die," he answers, his strong arms around me, "I won't let you." But it's not Jeph I'm pleading to, it's the demon inside of me. I have no control of what It will do to me next.
Finally I fall asleep, still safely wrapped in Jeph's arms, as a shelter to the world around us. But he can't save me form myself.
*
The rank smell of smoke wakes me up. The room is hot and the air has a slight smoky colour, making it swimming a bit in front of me. Maybe it's the smell or the constant swimming or the heat, but my head feels heavy and dizzy.
I sit up in the small bed, I'm in the attic room in my grandparents house. The tiny room they made for us grandchildren to play in.
I get out of the bed and walk on small feet to the steep stairs. Something is wrong, but my dizzy child brain can't tell what.
The first half of the stairs goes easy, but abruptly I sit down as I come closer to the ground. Just sitting there, hugging my dear stuffed seal and looking out at the room below.
It's the living room I'm looking at, or what once was the living room, before I went to bed. Now it's a sea of fire. The couch looks like a sparkling ball of red and orange and over the floor a wave of fire comes closer to me as it eats up the carpet. The little wood house that granddad made for the kitten to play with doesn't exist no more.
I stare paralysed at the flaming scenario, the rumble from the fire filling my ears.
Suddenly I'm flying, a pair of strong arms is helping me to escape from the hot room. Grandma is holding me hard, just above the fire as she runs out, like she is a super hero. I hug her back, letting the smell of smoke change to her sweet smell of old women.
Suddenly I realise that my beloved seal is missing. I scream to grandma that we can't leave without him, but she doesn't listen.
After what feels like an eternity of running through rooms that the fire is eating alive, we reach the door. Grandma stumbles out on the green grass and only a few feet away from the house she collapses, falling on the ground with me beside her. A second later a man is carrying me away from her, he is strong in a hard way and he smells evil. I turn my head to look a grandma, a few ambulance nurses is standing beside her. Her feet are black from too much contact with fire.
I scream, I scream to the strong arms to let me go back to my grandma, to the fire for eating my grandma's feet and my seal. But the arms hold me even harder and carry me away from the heat and the smoke.
*
A sound wakes me up, or rather the sound of a sound that moments before were in the room, and I realise that it was the screams in my dream that made it out to the real world. And the arms that are holding my cold, sweaty and shaking body is Jeph's, not some man I never seen before.
"Did you have a nightmare again?" his soft voice whispers in my ear.
I nod into his chest, yes I had and it was the same as always. And I crawl closer to him to escape the fire that is haunting me. He sings softly into my ear, a lullaby about trolls that tied their tails together, and I fall back into dreamless sleep, for once a sleep without fire and the death of my grandma.
*
The bed is empty when I wake up the next time, but from the kitchen I can hear the sound of someone making breakfast. I sit up, on my way to join Jeph, but the quick movement upwards stops me with a sharp pain in my head that almost make me throw up. I fall back down at the pillow. Dizzy with pain and the horrible feeling of almost throwing up. One thing is for sure, I'm not going to move at all if it will go on like this.
To my right is a cat sleeping, she is black with big spots of orange and white. Actually, she isn't black, there is no colour that dominates her soft fur. But her proud black spots are now dotted with grey hair and the tip of her tail is only grey. Jeph must have helped her up in the bed, she's too old to jump this high anymore.
It scares me to see her age. That cat and me, we have been impossible to separate ever since that time a fireman put her in my arms and we watched my grandparents and her home disappear into the flames of the fire. She was just a kitten at that time, a kitten whose biggest interest was to bite anything that came close to her. But she let me hug her, as hard as it was surprising that she didn't suffocate as the fire devastated the house in front of us. And ever since she hasn't bit me, she still bites anything that moves but not me.
But how hard it ever has been to separate us, soon her age will tear us apart forever. For each day she gets more and more tired and it gets harder for her to move and her colourful fur turns into sad grey, starting at the tip of her tail.
I don't know how I'm going to survive without her the day her age will take her away, she's the only one that understands me when I talk about the fire. She should probably have forget it herself by now, if I didn't remind her every other day, but she listens at my endless rambling and she understands, cause she was there. And she purrs something soothing in response, something that always makes me feel better.
The door opens to the bedroom and I wake up from my cat thoughts. Jeph appears in the doorway with a tray with breakfast in his hands. If my head didn't make me feel as sick as it does, this would make me really happy.
"Good morning, sunshine! How are you feeling today?" he says.
"Like crap, but seeing you makes me feel a bit better."
"Hungry?"
"No," I shake my head, causing the sick feeling to come back again. I have to learn not to move.
He sits down at the bed beside me and placed the tray on the bedside table.
"I tried to take the day off, but my boss didn't let me," he says with a sigh. "But I'll be home at lunch, okay?"
"Okay," I nod slowly, trying not to move my head.
"I'll leave the food here, if you want anything later."
"Do you have to go already?" I pout.
"You know I don't want to..." He bends down and gives me a kiss, and he's gone with a little wave goodbye. I close my eyes and let sleep take me over again. It seems like there's nothing else I can do today.
*
The sound of the door closing wakes me up, I glance at the watch beside the bed, 11.21. Jeph shouldn't be home yet, and the footsteps in the hallway definitely aren't Jeph's. I curse to myself over the fact that I can't move. The cat beside me is awake too, she glares at the sound, like me. At moments like this it would be good to have a big, scary dog.
"Hey?" a pale girl face sticks in through the door.
"Tracy! You scared the fuck out of me!" I say accusing. Tracy, she's Jeph's childhood friend. Sometimes it feels like she lives here as much as we do, not that I mind - she is great.
"Sorry," she answers. "Jeph told me to look after you, he wasn't able to leave work." I suddenly feel my heart sink, I've been looking forward to having him home again.
"Aww, are you so sad to see me, Frankie?" she sits down at the bed.
"No," I smile guiltily, "not at all. But I miss Jeph." Now, that made me sound like a little child, but it is true.
"I guess I was the best replacement he could find. Now tell me how you are."
"Better than this morning, but it still feels like a giant used my head as a chair. How are you?"
"We're fine," Tracy pats her big, pregnant belly. She's in the 7th month now and starts to get a very, very pregnant look. Sometimes her belly scares me, it tells me that people around me, people my age, are growing up. They get engaged, they get kids. And all I do is acting like a kid, the little kid that is scared of fire and life itself.
"I'm going to make some food now," Tracy gets up. "Do you think you can eat ? I'm starving! Are pasta and vegetarian meatballs okay? I can make a salad too, if you want?" It always cheers me to be around her, she's always so full of life. Her black hair is in a ponytail and leaves her pale, round face free from disturbing elements, and lets her blue eyes spark freely. She's a beautiful girl.
"Do what you want, as long as it's eatable," I smile and she is gone.
Carefully I move up to a sitting position in the bed, resting against the wall. Every part of my body still hurts, but not as much as before and I don't feel sick at all.
Tracy gets back with the food after a while and we sit together in the bed and eat and watch Shrek 1 and 2. Sometimes a TV in the bedroom can save the day. Her big belly jumps as we laugh at Donkey and that makes us laugh even more. And sometime during the second movie I fall asleep, not because I don't like the film, just because I'm tired. All my energy is gone, leaving only a pounding headache.
*
Jeph comes home a few minutes after four, almost an hour earlier than usual. I guess I get that instead of the missed lunch break. Tracy and I are still sitting in the bed when he comes, but now we're watching re-runs of That 70s Show.
He looks like a respectable young man, dressed in black suit, white shirt and black tie. His face tells different though. His pierced lips and ears and the tattooed neck that sticks up from he shirt tells that inside of this orderly young man lives a little rebel. But I can bet he's the one that works the hardest in the office where he works, the metal signs of irresponsibility in his face force him to work twice as hard as everyone else to reach the same goals and get the respect he deserves. Just because he has a few more holes in his face then the usual human. But he is strong, he can work himself up to that level of respect he needs, the level where his co-workers forget that the surface isn't the whole person and realise that he will never take out his piercings, whatever they say.
"Good evening, darlings!" he lays down in the bed between us. "How are you?" he kisses my cheek and goes on to kiss my lips, before I have a chance to answer.
"I'm much better," I answer when he pulled away. "How was your day?"
"Horrible," he sighs, "I've just wanted to come home to you the whole day." He kisses me again before he turns to Tracy. "And how is the soon-to-be-mother?"
"She just had a great afternoon with your boyfriend, so she's fine," she smiles cheekily.
Jeph places his hand on her stomach, trying to feel the baby move and tells the baby that it has to take care of its mother. Tracy glares at him, she can take care of herself.
A while later Tracy excuses herself and goes home, leaving Jeph and me alone.
I still haven't left the bed, but the pain isn't at all as strong as before, and even though moving still makes me feel a bit dizzy and sick, I can make small moves without feeling anything. Jeph is sitting beside me, changing the bandages at my wrists. As he removes the white and blood stained bandage he reveals arms that are so torn with scars in all directions that I doubt they can be called arms. I turn away, not wanting to see anymore.
He finishes his work, moving to sit in my lap when he has thrown away the used bandages. He rests his forehead against mine and places his arms around my neck.
"I'm sorry I didn't come home at lunch," he says, "but I had to make some phone calls."
"Don't worry, you're here now," I smile.
"I figured..." he closes his eyes.” You said yesterday that you didn't want to die, but that is what you are doing, dying. So I decided,” he opens his eyes again, still close, close to me, "I called a therapist for you, you've got an appointment at Monday. If you want to go." I smile at him, he's so cute when he tries to do the right thing, but don't know if I will agree that it is right.
"I don't want to die," I repeat, but this time I say it to him, not the inner demon. "And I will go to that therapist." I hug him, pressing his body towards mine. "Thank you, thank you, thank you," I whisper into his neck, thanking him not only for this, but all the sleepless nights he spent with me and my nightmares, all the times he taken care of me, all the times he listened. It wasn't enough to make everything good, but without that the demon I would definitely be in control of my body now.
Maybe this can be the start of something better.