5.2
The worst is over now and we can breathe again
I wanna hold you high, you steal my pain away
There's so much left to learn, and no one left to fight
I wanna hold you high and steal your pain
Seether Ft Amy Lee - Broken
The night finds her, not for the first time, hunched over the toilet.
She doesn't close her eyes often. When she does, she's betrayed, left to drift off to where dreams become explosions and nothing is in order anymore. Control slips from her grasp and her senses are on overload. None is worse than the smell. She can smell the burning of human flesh. Burnt hair, muscle tissue, hands. All her own. She can see the panic in Will's eyes before everything bursts into flames. She can hear Harvey's voice, her name torn from his throat, as he's begged not to be saved if it means he won't have her. It's the last memory she has of him and this is wrong.
Slumping back down on the cool tiled floor, she's tempted to empty the wine bottles they've acquired for their friends. Then she remembers there's a twelve-year old across her room and she's still Rachel enough to know she can't.
She'll try to make breakfast for Molly tomorrow. She'll work on painting Pepper's room. She'll walk Shadow. Maybe she'll visit Matt again. Maybe she'll call Clint. Maybe she will ask Jean-Paul for lunch.
You can't live this way.
The violent clenching in her chest doesn't subside, and she curls into a ball to place pressure on it. John says survivor's guilt. Lauren says pills. Everybody else says PTSD. Everyone has voiced their thoughts and she has accepted them because she's Rachel and she listens. Everything she does she does conscientiously, carefully, leaves nothing ignored because she's always cared. She nods, and says she's okay, and sometimes she'll believe it so she figures they believe it, too. Being lonely is unbearable but it's safer and she wants safe now.
She doesn't want to listen. She just wants better. She wants to rid herself of the empty space. She wants...she wants and that's not enough.
She doesn't close her eyes often. If she does, she's betrayed, left to pretend the cold of the tiles are the soft of his bed where they're tangled limbs and hopeful promises. Laughter floats to the surface, and her arms around her own frame are someone else's. She's no longer cold.
This betrayal she can live with.
I wanna hold you high, you steal my pain away
There's so much left to learn, and no one left to fight
I wanna hold you high and steal your pain
Seether Ft Amy Lee - Broken
The night finds her, not for the first time, hunched over the toilet.
She doesn't close her eyes often. When she does, she's betrayed, left to drift off to where dreams become explosions and nothing is in order anymore. Control slips from her grasp and her senses are on overload. None is worse than the smell. She can smell the burning of human flesh. Burnt hair, muscle tissue, hands. All her own. She can see the panic in Will's eyes before everything bursts into flames. She can hear Harvey's voice, her name torn from his throat, as he's begged not to be saved if it means he won't have her. It's the last memory she has of him and this is wrong.
Slumping back down on the cool tiled floor, she's tempted to empty the wine bottles they've acquired for their friends. Then she remembers there's a twelve-year old across her room and she's still Rachel enough to know she can't.
She'll try to make breakfast for Molly tomorrow. She'll work on painting Pepper's room. She'll walk Shadow. Maybe she'll visit Matt again. Maybe she'll call Clint. Maybe she will ask Jean-Paul for lunch.
You can't live this way.
The violent clenching in her chest doesn't subside, and she curls into a ball to place pressure on it. John says survivor's guilt. Lauren says pills. Everybody else says PTSD. Everyone has voiced their thoughts and she has accepted them because she's Rachel and she listens. Everything she does she does conscientiously, carefully, leaves nothing ignored because she's always cared. She nods, and says she's okay, and sometimes she'll believe it so she figures they believe it, too. Being lonely is unbearable but it's safer and she wants safe now.
She doesn't want to listen. She just wants better. She wants to rid herself of the empty space. She wants...she wants and that's not enough.
She doesn't close her eyes often. If she does, she's betrayed, left to pretend the cold of the tiles are the soft of his bed where they're tangled limbs and hopeful promises. Laughter floats to the surface, and her arms around her own frame are someone else's. She's no longer cold.
This betrayal she can live with.