Disclaimer : What a pity I don't own any of these characters !
I wrote this as an assignment for my english class. English isn't even my first language, so there might be a lot of mistakes. I'm sorry, I did my best ! Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it, because Allydia is my obsession.
« don't frown, someone could be falling in love with your smile (and i do) »
Since everyone around me was saying I was too dangerous to live in society or even to go to school, my parents had thought about it many times before sending me here. I hated them for that. I wasn't crazy. Well, I could be kind of agressive sometimes (like breaking a kid's legs because he was pissing me off), but nothing to be afraid of. It wasn't even a mental illness. I told them I could change and try to be less violent in my gestures but, it was stronger than me and I hurt another kid a few days later. And they finally brought me here. Do you believe that ? Seventeen years old and already considered anable to be part of society. I fought till the end but there was nothing to do. And here I was. In this freaking psychiatric hospital.
In there, every single day was the same. There was no difference. I was sleeping, wandering, staring at those deranged kids with a blank look, wandering, talking to the crackled walls, wandering, hating the whole world, and still wandering. Everything was so long and boring that I started to wonder if I would spend my entire life in that rubbish hole.
Nevertheless, one day, everything changed. The day she came. I was walking in the hallway when I saw this tiny ginger-haired girl. She was obviously lost – who wouldn't be ? - even with these two adults by her side. The girl couldn't stop glancing at everything surrounding her in frantic movements, looking for some help. She tried to find some support in the adults eyes – her parents, I guess – but none of them seemed to care.
At that moment, I started to clench my fists and grit my teeth. These monsters were bringing their daughter in the most awful place of the world and they weren't even trying to show her they were broken to leave her alone with all those feelings of insecure. I could hear the sound of the blood beating at my temples yet, but I made a big effort and remained sitting just to see the rest of the scene instead of jumping on my feet to punch those two idiots in the face.
Furthermore, to be honest, though I wanted to hurt them, I couldn't help but stare at the girl. I noticed she was already wearing the long white jacket the nurses give us on arrival, but this was just a detail.
I couldn't explain why, but everything in her was so fascinating that I could almost regret the rare times I blinked it was seconds I wasn't looking at her, so it was wasted time. She looked so young, you know, I wasn't come to believe she was at least fourteen or fifteen years old – where the age range of my department started. Her long ginger hair were sweeping her waist as she was moving her head. I couldn't see a lot of her but her hair and her bare feet because she was too far from me and I was so spellbound by this little thing that I couldn't move closer. However, I could see the girl pressing something against her chest – a doll. She seemed to hold it very hard, as if it was the only way for her to get reassured. That's how I knew. I knew why at this precise moment I was sitting here and watching this scene in spite of myself. The universe was sending me a message, and it was very clear. I had to be her new doll I had to protect this little thing.
As I realized that, the girl started to cry and scream. The nurses had just arrived to take her somewhere else – her cell, just like they had done it for me weeks before – and I saw the woman and the man turn the back and leave the hospital without a last gaze at their daughter. She was struggling and shouting at them with her mouth wide open, but everybody acted as if nothing was happening.
You should have listened to this scream. Heartbreaking. I had never heard anything like this before. It sounded like a baby cry full of distress, agony and torment. No any baby is supposed to cry like that. Not mine.
They were already vanishing when I started to run after them. It was too late. I thumped the wall to let all my anger escape before venting it in someone's face.
I had to see her again. I had to be the shield of this skinny body, and protect it from this awful world and all those crazed people. I needed to see this face, this hair a bit closer, touch it, see her eyes, know her name and so many other things my existence craved to be completed with.
I spent the three next days waiting and looking for her. I know it. I counted them. Actually, I counted every second, every moment spent until I would see her again. And this moment finally came.
She was there. Stuck between two walls, in a corner. She was, once again, crying, but in silence this time. Her doll was still in her arms, but, there too, it couldn't really protect her from what was standing in front of her – I mean who. I immediately reconized him.
His name was Ned, and he had been at the hospital longer than me. He was one of those deranged patients who were in this place for reasons I didn't know (and didn't care about). But this was going to change when I saw that this moron was about to hit my girl.
This time I wasn't motionless anymore. That's why, less than two seconds later, Ned was lying on the floor, inert after I had punched him in the face. Usually, I would have beaten him to death for what he was going to do but, I had to do something way more important.
I turned toward the girl and I hugged her. I held her as tightly as possible, just as she was doing with her doll. I smelled her hair, touched them, closed my eyes and imagined I was the protective barrier she had always needed.
Then I heard a groaning. I glanced at Ned, still on the floor, and I warned him with my fiercest voice :
« Try to touch her again and I'll kill you. »
And I'm pretty sure Ned had never run that fast in his entire life. I refocused all my attention to the girl, who was still in my arms. She was whining, deeply looking at me with her big green eyes. She wasn't saying anything. I mean, not with her mouth. Her eyes, them, they were saying something. But there were too many things, too many words in them that I couldn't catch them all – gratitude, fear, a little bit of curiosity maybe, and so much more.
I ran a finger across her childish face – her full lips, her nose, her cheeks, even her eyelashes – and, for the first time since something like my six years old, I smiled – well, I tried to make a smile at least. I didn't remember how to do. Smiles, eyebrows raised, laughs all these impressions hadn't been part of my langage for many years. My only way to speak, to make people understand me, make them feel how I felt, was my voice. Talking from the dawn to the sunset. And all of that had been so from the day I realized words could hurt way more than a look, as much as it could relieve someone. Speech was the best weapon I had – after my hands.
But now that I was looking inside her eyes, I wasn't that sure anymore. I knew that, no matter in which way, these green eyes were going to be my death – either because I could already die to save them, or because I could drown in it at any time.
« It's okay », I said. « He's not going to annoy you again. Nobody will from now on. I'll protect you at any cost. I promise. »
I wished my words would calm her but she couldn't stop whining, and she was breaking my heart doing this, so it was time for me to use my words, and find a way to make her breathe, or draw a smile – God, I was sure she chould make the brightest one.
« Hey, look at me – it's okay. He's gone. He won't hurt you, and if he ever does, I'll do something. What's your name, sweetie ? I'm Allison. Do you like it ? You can call me Ally, or whatever you want, I'll agree anyway. So, how do people call you ? »
The only answer I got was a look. A deep look. As if she was trying to tell me her name by staring at me. I said with a comforting voice :
« It would be easier if you were telling me with your mouth, but don't worry, I'll find something else meanwhile, like, uh... Oh, what do you think about Weenie ? Yeah, that sounds great, doesn't it ? You like it ? Because I do. It's sweet, and kinda pleasurable when I say it. Weenie. Yeah, I definitely like it. »
I looked for an answer somewhere in her expression, unsuccessfully. Only silent tears – and I finally understood why. I was still holding her... too hard. And it was hurting her (I was hurting her). That's why she was kept crying. I immediately unclenched my embrace and, as my stomach was turning upside down, I delivered in a horrified tone :
« Oh my gosh I'm so, so, so sorry baby I didn't want to harm you, I swear I just wanted you to be okay and stop crying 'cause you know I hate seeing you cry, that breaks my soul in a way you don't imagine I swear to God, please Weenie forgive me, I've been waiting for you for my entire life and – and I'm very, very sorry. I was so relieved when I saw Ned hadn't injure you and look at me, I'm doing worse while all I want is to protect you. Trust me. Can we start over ? »
I didn't remember how crying felt like neither but believe me, I felt like I was about to break into tears. Weenie and I had just met and I already had screwed everything up. So here again, I realized another thing. And what if she and I couldn't be friends ? What if we couldn't even stand next to each other ? She was so frail, and I was so... Well, I was so me, so brutal. How the hell was I supposed to protect her while I could break her at any time without wanting it ? I was still wondering how this little bird could walk without breaking her own legs, holding her hand could be a serious risk. Weenie was the porcelaine and I was the vicious hammer. However, I didn't have to worry about it because I was sure Weenie would be afraid and run away from me, and never accept my apologies.
I was wrong. She just stared at me once more for a long moment, and then examined me from head to toe. Weenie was incredible. I could have been the weirdest girl of the world (and I kind of was) and told her I wanted her to be my toy, she would have reacted the same way. The fact that I suddenly appeared and told her I wanted to look after her seemed perfectly normal to her, while if I had been in her stead, I would have had a very, very violent reaction. I loved her a little more then, if it was possible to do so.
Her stare was indecipherable. Full of a billion things that no one could figure out. She inclined her head a bit, wedged her doll under her arm and, very, very softly, as if I was the one who needed to be treated carefully, she slipped her small hand in mine, and her eyes told me to be confident and to follow her. I did.
I had no idea where she was taking me but honestly, I was too focused on our hands to be really intrigued. I was too fearful to dare to press her hand though I wanted it more than anything else. I started to listen to the wet sound her feet were making as she was walking – nothing to do with my elephant steps – and I was pretty shocked she was actually walking and not flying like a small fairy.
As I was thinking that, I felt the wind caressing my and I were now outside, in the garden. I had never been there before, I didn't even know this disgusting hospital had such a beautiful place somewhere. There were trees, a multitude of flowers, and the greenest grass I had ever seen.
Slowly, I kept following Weenie's steps across the garden, and stopped gazing at the vegetation to bring my look back to her. There was no doubt she was where she had to be this time in an extraordinary place, just like her. Not stuck between some putrid walls.
Suddenly, Weenie stopped walking next to a flowerbed, sat on the grass and looked at me, inviting me to do the same, which I did. And then, she did something very surprising she, as I had done an hour earlier, raised her hesitant hand to my face and, very softly, started to touch my ears, my thick eyebrows, my straight nose, my lips, my cheekbones. Even my traits were firm, raw, and the perfect opposite of hers. She buried her big green eyes in mine, and I am almost sure I saw them twinkling.
Then, still in an uncertain motion, she took her doll more carefully than if it were a baby and put it down between us. It felt as if it was the first time she was doing that. The doll was messy haired and a bit dirty, but not as much as its dress – it must have been white formerly.
I was noticing something else about this dress when I felt Weenie's little hand reaching to my dark and drab hair, that is to say hair that had nothing to do with hers, except maybe for the fact that they were both tangled. First she was only touching it, but then, she was frankly playing with it, and I swear she had never looked like a little child more than then. Her look seemed concentrated, while her lips were breaking into a lovely smile I fell in love with, her tongue stuck between her teeth.
As she kept playing with my hair, I refocused for a short while on the doll's dress. Something was written on it, but it was so old and dirty that the letters had faded. Nevertheless, by screwing up my eyes, I could read them : it was « Lydia ». I turned my face toward Weenie's and asked :
« Is Lydia the name of your doll ? »
I was scared of having to guess the answer by looking at her eyes but fortunately, she nodded after she had looked at me for a while. I couldn't help adding :
« Is it also yours ? »
This time, Weenie looked down, avoiding my eyes, and nodded again.
It didn't take me long before understanding what that meant. And it is certainly at the same time one of the most grievous and beautiful things I have ever seen. Weenie's actual name was Lydia, and it was also her doll's name. Her doll was protecting her, the only one who was there for Lydia, and who was taking care of her, in a way. So if Lydia was sheltering Lydia, that meant Lydia was the only one who could take care of herself.
« I love your name. I love your doll's name. It's beautiful, it sounds just like the name of a flower. I love flowers. I love you little flower. »
Days went by and I spent each of them with my Lydia. Every day, she was holding my hand and was taking me to the garden. Sometimes, when she wasn't playing with my hair, I was sitting on the grass and I could look at her for hours, falling in love with the way she was smiling as a butterfly was brushing past her tiny nose, her childish laugh, the way her hands were doing my hair, and how the world seemed wonderful because her heart was beating. I didn't live a single day without wondering how I could have even breathed before I knew her – well, even with her, I was breathless just by gazing at her shape. Some other times, we were talking – with mouth for me, with eyes, tears or hands for her. We could talk about absolutely nothing, as much as we could talk about very painful things, like, for example, our past. Hers was the worst of all. I saw way too many horrors in the green ocean of her eyes than words could say. And we were always there to support and love Lydia, her doll and I. I mean until that day.
We had just sat down in the garden when I noticed Lydia hadn't taken her doll with her.
« Lydia, where is your doll ? », I asked with apprehension.
Before I could find the answer in her look, my little love came closer to me, wrapped her fragile arms around my shoulders, and I stopped breathing as she said :
« You. »