A/N: This is the fic prompted by a dream I had on my first relatively full night of sleep after a week of not sleeping due to coughing from pneumonia. It didn't turn out quite as well as I'd hoped, but I hope you like it anyway.
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"And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses." – John Keats "La Belle Dame sans Merci"
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I.
They're coming. The shadows are coming. They'll eat you up and swallow you whole and never look back. And you deserve it.
I try to push the voices from my mind, block out their chanting. I can't flinch. I can't blink. I have to keep the calm, cool, smug exterior that everyone sees. I can't let them see the hidden depths of the madness in my backwards brain. They wouldn't understand. No one would. The only person I can even begin to let my guard down around, though I couldn't have anticipated this in a million years, is Katie Fucking Fitch. She's so much stronger than she thinks she is. Ever since that smoking lesson along the river, when she revealed her vulnerability, then just kept going, I've begun to realise that. Now that she's learned the value of silence and no longer speaks about crap incessantly, I've found that I rather enjoy her company. In fact, she's the only person who I can really stand these days. Naomi and Emily are too loved up to be overly aware of anyone else. Panda and Thomas are swept up in their own dramas. As for the three musketeers, Cook, Freddie and JJ, they're nothing but blind fools, all believing themselves in love with me when I'm but a hollow shell who surely can't love anyone back. I can't stand to be near any of them these days. They make the voices seem even louder, driving me deeper into the coming insanity.
Katie doesn't, though. Katie is the only one I can be near and have the voices stay relatively quiet. She's the only one that I don't feel the need to remain aloof around because she simply smirks right back at me and seems to see through me. Remarkably, she's become the one person who I can simply sit with and explore my thoughts, not worrying about appearances. We're the secretly mental and the secretly broken, and neither of us shares, but neither of us pushes the other to share either. Perhaps that's why she seeks my silent company more often these days.
She's stronger than me, though. There are times it feels that she's the only thing keeping me up. I don't know how or when exactly, but Katie Fitch has become my anchor. Not that I'd tell her that. For her, I think it's simple enough that we're now finally, truly friends.
A clamour startles me, jump starting my brain into hypersensitivity, making the real world around me seem glaringly dangerous, the colours too vibrant, the light to bright, the people almost unreal. Someone's shouting, but I can't make out the words or focus enough on the scene before me to decipher what's going on, so naturally my brain jumps to its own conclusions and anxiety has already closed its clammy hands around my heart by the time my eyes fall on the small figure face down on the ground.
My first thought is Katie, and my mind won't let me deter from it as I instantly jump off the wall I've been perched on, silently surveying the, until recently, fairly empty field and race towards the fallen figure. No, no, no, no. Katie has to be okay. As I approach, I realise something's wrong, and my heart, that has been pounding in my chest starts to even out its rhythm. It's the wrong hair. Remember, Katie dyed her hair. That's Emily. And look, she's just tripped. My brain attempts to process as Emily pushes herself up and examines a cut on her knee, Naomi kneeling beside her in concern. But where's Katie? The nagging thought won't leave me alone as I search around wildly for any sight of her. The anxious feeling in my gut twists again, gnawing away at me.
What if something has happened to her?
It's irrational. Some part of me still knows that, but I can't control it. My mind has run away with an idea and I don't know how to leash it in. My heart begins to race again as my thoughts become more and more frantic, until finally, mercifully, I spot her.
I don't know what possesses me, but I'm hardly in control of my own mind let alone my body. I sprint towards her and wrap her in such an effusive hug that it bowls her over so that I'm lying on top of her in the grass.
"Ef, what the-" she begins to protest, but I cut her off with the ghost of a kiss, my lips brushing just barely against hers.
I freeze when I realize exactly what I've just done, and with potential witnesses not far off.
Katie's simply staring back at me with wide confused eyes. I see concern written on her face, and I know my own eyes must be wild. "I thought you were- I thought it was you that fell, and I thought- I thought something had happened to you," I attempt to explain my convoluted thoughts.
"I'm fine," Katie mutters. "Or I was until you attacked."
"No rocks this time," I reply, aware that I've got ground to make up here, and a good tease is probably the best route to go. I don't know if it's having Katie so close, touching me, or simply being able to reassure my mind that she's safe, but either way I'm starting to gain control of where my thoughts are going again.
"Ha, ha, very funny," she says sarcastically, rolling her eyes.
I climb off of her and offer her a hand to help her stand. She takes it and dusts herself off, before looking back up at me, her brows furrowed. "Are you okay?"
I force a smile and nod. "Fine. Sorry."
She simply nods. She doesn't push, and that's exactly why I need her in my life. She doesn't mention the kiss, or question me about it. Thank God. I really don't think I have an answer.
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II.
I place the pill on my tongue without thinking. The bitter imprint of it is left at the back of my throat when I swallow it dry. The drugs are both good and bad. Sometimes they let me escape, other times they help the shadows chase me down, pushing me further over that precarious edge between sanity and insanity.
Katie's here, wherever here is. Some party at some wanker's house that Cook knew about. The house is hot and stuffy. Too many people packed in to not enough space. The air smells like sweat and arousal and alcohol. It's sickening, but I throw myself into it anyway, closing my eyes, letting the bodies move around me, bumping into me, as I sway my hips, not caring if I'm moving in time with the music. It's overwhelming, but I go with it, fighting away the panic rising in my chest each time an unfamiliar body presses into mine.
I can't help wishing Katie were nearby to dance with. I don't know why, but I know she'd calm the racing of my heart. My lips tingle when I think of her. They have since I stupidly kissed her. We haven't talked about it. I try not to dwell on the way my heart skips a beat at the thought of doing it again. Nothing good ever comes from skipping hearts. Hearts lie.
Despite my efforts, I feel the panic rising in me. Apparently tonight is not a night where the drugs are going to help. Shame. Those are always the best nights.
Maybe some fresh air will do me some good. I stumble through the crowds of people. It feels like I'm trying to battle my way through an impenetrable wall, but somehow I eventually make it to the back door and step out into the garden. The hedges seem to be spinning, so I lean back against the wall, feeling something solid, hoping it's enough to keep me grounded.
I light up a cigarette and inhale deeply, but the nicotine does nothing to calm my ever fraying nerves. It's dark out here, the only lights are the occasional flash of red, green and blue from the disco lights someone had set up in the house. I inhale again, wishing that the way the end of the cigarette flares up provided more light.
There's no one else out here, and, as I tap the ash away from the end of my cigarette, I begin to wonder why I thought it was a good idea to come out here at all. The shadows loom large, and it's stupid, because I've never been scared of the dark. Even as a kid I welcomed it. But now, here, the shadows seem to grow towards me and the voices start up in my head as my heart races out of control. The drugs were definitely not a good idea tonight. Did that shadow just move?
They're coming. The shadows are coming. They'll swallow you whole. They'll envelope you and smother you.
Fear clutches at my chest, and I try to force the voices out, but my eyes are playing tricks on me and the shadows seem to grow around me. I throw my cigarette at one of them, hoping the sparks will be enough to scare it off, but it keeps coming, and I can practically feel them starting to curl around my ankles.
I gasp for air as the clammy hands of panic envelope my heart, squeezing tight. "Get off," I screech, attempting to sound threatening but it comes at as more of a desperate whimper. I try to move, pressing myself back further into the wall, feeling the bricks digging into my shoulder blades, but the shadows won't be deterred and the blackness is starting to be overwhelming. The pounding beat of the music inside becomes another enemy, a ploy to cover any potential cry for help. I want to run, but I can't move my feet. Automatically I realise that the shadows have them. They're in control, and soon they'll have all of me.
It feels like the world's going black, and as much as I blink nothing changes.
Except then suddenly I'm being shaken. At first I think it's the shadows, but then my eyes focus and the most beautiful vision in the world is suddenly before me.
"Effy!" Katie shakes me again, and I feel relief flood through me. "Effy are you okay?"
I am now, I think, but can't seem to find the strength to say it. Instead, I focus on her face, on the delicate ways that the lights from inside play over her expression of concern. I manage a smile and then I pull her to me, cupping the back of her head, threading my fingers through her hair as I press my lips firmly to hers. She rescued me. I have to thank her. I have to somehow convey how thankful I am that she's here, that she appeared when she did.
My lips tingle as I feel Katie's soft lips give beneath them. She lets me kiss her. I break the kiss before long. I know Katie and I'm probably pushing my luck as it is. Fortunately her face is still creased in worry when I let her go, and her hands still haven't left my arms where she's gripping me tightly. I silently thank whatever gods happen to be listening for that fact because if she lets me go, if she disappears, I'm sure the shadows will come back.
I ignore the way that my heart seems to now be racing for a completely different reason, the panic having vanished with the arrival of Katie into my field of consciousness.
She's studying my face, and I can feel the curiosity radiating off of her, but, to her credit, she doesn't ask. She purses her lips and frowns. "What'd you take?"
I shrug. I didn't bother asking the boy who pressed it into my hand what it was. I just took it, blindly, like I always do. It feels like that's the way I navigate my life these days: blindly feeling my way along a tightrope of sanity, tripping and slipping off the side into the cavernous pit below where shadows dwell, longing to pull me down.
She rolls her eyes and huffs. "Of course. You wouldn't fucking ask, would you? Better get you home. If what you took was laced with something else a party's the last place you should be. I remember Emily took this shit some boy gave her at a party once, and I told her, you always ask, but does she fucking listen? No, of course not. Anyway, it was laced with something that made her see devils and shit, and she freaked the fuck out. I ended up holding her in the bathtub of this guy's house all night with the curtains closed while she shook and whimpered. I was so fucking sore the next day, I'm surprised I could even walk. I have to say, that's the only reason I'm glad she's Naomi's problem now. Let Naomi have the fucking crick in her neck and ache in her spine. She's welcome to it."
Katie guides me through the house full of people and out the front door where the streetlights seem unnaturally bright as she natters away, raising her voice when necessary to talk over music or people, her hands still on my arm, guiding me, grounding me.
I'm thankful for her incessant speech for once. It's as if she senses it's what I need right now.
The walk home is a bit of a blur. All I know is that Katie talks the whole time, though I couldn't say about what if my life depended on it. By the time we get up to my room, my panic has subsided and the drugs seem like they're working their way out of my system because I'm seeing things a little more clearly.
Katie doesn't mention the kiss, even as we change into something to sleep in and collapse into my bed.
I, on the other hand, find myself thinking about it more and more. I've kissed her twice now. Both times I've felt very little control over it. Both times it's been...well, nice doesn't exactly begin to cover it really. She's got lovely soft lips. They're so inviting.
I turn on my side and let my eyes run over her serene face. I'm not sure if she's asleep yet, but her eyes are closed. Besides, even if she caught me, she's used to my constant silent staring. She wouldn't think twice about it. The moonlight is streaming in through the window, illuminating her face, making it appear almost luminescent. I let out a small snort in amusement as the thought that she, of all people, is my light in the dark right now. She's the light against the shadows, and she doesn't even know it.
She doesn't even know I need one. No one does. No one really cares enough to find out. That's just how people are.
Except without knowing, without asking, Katie somehow knew I needed something tonight, and she provided it.
Her breathing's getting deeper and I watch the gentle rise and fall of her chest, taking comfort in it.
I reach out and tenderly stroke her cheek. Just once. Just to feel the smooth skin beneath my fingertips. Just to remind myself that she's close.
When she's asleep like this she looks so peaceful. There's no hint of the brokenness I know lies inside, that I see flashing in her eyes from time to time.
Maybe it takes the broken to lead the mental to sanity.
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III.
The soft breeze blows against my face, and I close my eyes for a second to savour the way it feels. There's something about a cool breeze that I enjoy, the way it brings the promise of things to come. It makes me feel almost hopeful.
The sun is shining high in the sky, for once not obstructed by clouds. I feel the warmth from Katie's body seeping into my back as I lean against her, knees bent in front of me on the bench, serving as a place to rest my book. We've been sitting here on this bench for close to an hour, Katie having dragged me out here saying that I'm far too pale and we fucking better enjoy the sunshine while it lasts.
I don't mind. The light and Katie working together are keeping the shadows at bay. We haven't really been talking, just simply sitting, being, enjoying.
She elbows me in the back and I reach back over my shoulder to take the cigarette I know she's handing me. I inhale deeply as my eyes fall back to my book, something mindless to keep my brain occupied, to keep it from falling and failing. She tenses beside me, and I look up to find that a woman with a baby and two small children, a girl and a boy maybe five and six respectively, has settled on a bench nearby. The older kids clamber over to the nearby climbing frame, the girl heading straight to the monkey bars. I smile, thinking how I always loved those, manoeuvring myself so that I could hang from my knees, enjoying the way it felt having all the blood rushing to my head.
The girl begins to do them normally, however, until the little boy comes along behind her, moving faster, forcing her to drop off. He laughs, gets to the end and jumps off, but the girl's apparently no pushover and a chase ensues.
It's remarkable how much energy they've got.
I glance at Katie, angling myself a little bit so I can see her more clearly. Her eyes are trained on the children and her fists are clenched in her lap. I don't push. I know better. We don't do that with each other. Not anymore. Not now we're real friends.
Instead, I return my attention to the book, my eyes flowing over the words, but not really absorbing them anymore. My brain's too trained on Katie and her reactions. I can tell she's trying to steady her breathing, and I can't help wondering what's got her so worked up about these kids, even if I'll never ask her.
The baby starts to cry, and I look up again. I'm aware of Katie's gaze shifting to mother and child as well as the mother lifts the baby out of its carriage and settles it on her lap, bouncing it and cooing to it.
"I can't have kids," Katie's unsteady voice breaks into my consciousness, and when I turn, I see tears trickling slowly down her face.
I don't say anything. I can tell she's got more to tell, so I wait, allowing her to tell it in her own way, at her own pace.
"Ever. That's what the doctors say," Katie continues after a few long minutes during which she breathes deeply.
I turn to sit properly beside her, leaning my shoulder against hers, sliding my hand into hers and giving it a small squeeze. She continues to stare out at the mother and child, but I don't think she's really seeing them anymore, so much as looking past them, staring into a future she'll never have.
"I'm going through premature menopause."
"When did you find out?"
"That day of the hen party from hell," Katie replies.
"Day of your smoking lesson," I connect the dots, handing the almost gone cigarette in my hand back to her.
She takes a deep drag then twists it out on the bench beside her, exhaling shakily. "I thought I might've been pregnant, 'cause I'd missed my fucking period, and I was so mad at the thought that I might've let that arse-kisser, Sam, knock me up, so I went in for testing, and I got the results that day. When she told me, the doctor, I mean, I couldn't believe it. To go from thinking I might have a baby in nine months time to knowing that I'll never ever have that...I just-"
She cuts herself off. The tears are streaming freely down her cheeks now, and I squeeze her hand a little tighter. I can't imagine what she's been going through. I get it now. I understand why she's broken. I understand what finally broke her. Her own body betrayed her, just as my mind's betraying me. We are our own undoing.
She takes a deep, ragged breath and swallows hard. "It's not like I wanted kids now, obviously. And not with Sam, definitely, but I'd always thought that someday- I wanted children. I wanted the husband and the kids and the house and the life that comes with all that. Now I'll never have it. And, yeah, I know I can adopt, but it's not quite the same. There will never be a child that is the mix of me and whoever Mister Right turns out to be out there in the world. There's probably not even a Mister Right out there for me anymore. I'm damaged goods now."
I look straight at her at that comment, because really she's the furthest thing from it. She might be broken right now, but it's not beyond repair. Not being able to have children doesn't change that. She's strong. I've seen her strength.
She's not looking at me though, so I reach out and take her chin in my hand, guiding it so that she's facing me. I stare into her eyes for a minute, searching for the words to convey what I'm feeling, the way my heart reaches out to her, the way her pain stabs acutely at me as well, the way I know she's wrong about being damaged goods, the way I see her as strong, as my anchor. Words escape me, so instead I pull her towards me and lean it at the same time, pressing my lips firmly, but tenderly to hers. I feel her eyes flutter closed and tears spill down her cheeks and wet mine. I can taste the hint of salty tears on her lips, but I hold her there, hoping that she'll understand what I'm trying to say with the kiss.
When I pull away, she sniffles and wipes at her eyes. She manages a weak smile at me when her gaze finally looks back up to meet mine. I smile back.
"You're beautiful, Katie, and you're strong."
She lets out a small laugh, and shakes her head. I know she's ignoring the truth behind my words, but at least I've said them.
"God, I think we've had enough sun for today. It's starting to mess with our heads obviously. We're probably fucking dehydrated or something," she says, pulling her hand away from mine and standing, brushing herself off. Her voice is an attempt at her normal, masked self, but I see through it.
I stand beside her, stretching a bit, then grab my book. "Well, let's go get a drink then," I grin. I know she'll know I mean alcohol, which doesn't help dehydration in the slightest, the same way I know neither of us is dehydrated.
She nods and grins back anyway.
For today, at least, it's the mental leading the broken.
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IV.
The shadows are creeping up. Every day I feel them taking a stronger hold of my mind. I don't need drugs and alcohol to make me more susceptible anymore.
My grasp of reality feels like it's crumbling right through my fingers as the shadows loom up, threatening to envelope me, threatening to drag me down and keep me in my own mental hell for good.
Katie leaves my room to get some tea, and what little strands of sanity I've been clinging to in her presences seem to leave the room with her.
The walls begin to crumble around me as shadows rise. I can't control it, and hard as I fight my eyes lose focus on what's real. The small, logical portion of my brain that remains informs me that I'm hallucinating, but its cry is deafened by the thundering in my chest as my heart races. It feels like it might just pound its way out of my chest, and maybe it should, maybe that would be easier. It's not like my heart's doing me any good these days.
It's been lying to me, telling me I've got feelings for the only person I've ever considered a best friend, for the only girl I've ever severely physically damaged, for the only person who keeps me tenuously anchored in the real world.
It's dark out early these days, and my mind isn't handling the change well. It's night time, once darkness falls, that my grip on reality seems its most frayed. I'm sleeping less, although sometimes it feels like more, but that's only because it's at less and less convenient times that the sheer exhaustion catches up with me.
My brain feels tired all the time from the constant battle it's waging. It makes me even more susceptible, I'm sure, to the shadows waiting to claim me. They're wearing me down, waiting until I'm so weak that I won't be able to fight back at all.
Tonight, it seems, they're winning.
The objects in my room, objects familiar to me when my brain's functioning right, appear threatening. They're morphing before my eyes, ugliness tainting everywhere I look, as if it's the ugliness of my own soul reflected back at me.
I'm losing it. I can feel my grip on reality slipping away with my sanity. It's been a long day and I'm operating on less than two hours of sleep, but even still I've never had this onset so fast.
That fact alone is enough to scare the living daylights out of me, but I'm already in a panic from what my eyes perceive.
I don't know if I call out or not, but Katie's suddenly before me, and she alone stands out among the black and ugly as her inner beauty shines out at me.
I can see her lips moving but it's as if my brain won't let my ears focus on what she's saying. Her eyes are narrowed and her brow is furrowed.
I train my eyes on her lips, trying to let her get through to me, except they stop moving after a moment.
It's another second before suddenly her gorgeous, smooth lips are pressed to mine, and she's kissing me hard, pinning me to the wall.
The shadows shrink back as my eyes close and I kiss her back, more hungrily than I probably should, but her kiss has cut through everything I was feeling and brought me back to normalcy.
Her kiss consumes me, taking me over. I pull her in closer, trailing my fingers under the hem of her top, clutching at the bare flesh I find there. I want her, I realise. My body is aching for hers in such a primal way, and I'm pulling off her top before I realise exactly what I'm doing.
I push her away, both of us panting heavily as I eye her warily.
I can't use her, and if I do this, if I do what my body wants me to do, then that's exactly what I'll be doing.
A horrifying thought occurs to me. Katie might be using me, too. I know she hasn't had a date in ages. Not since she kicked Sam to the curb. She's probably just as sexually frustrated as I am. Are we simply using each other?
"What are you doing?"
Katie rolls her eyes. "What do you think I'm doing?"
I purse my lips. This has to stop. Whatever we'd been about to do can't happen. She's too important to me to let it happen. So I turn to the only thing I know how to do, the only thing I'm good at: pushing people away. "Seems like you're trying to be Emily. Did you forget that she's the gay twin? Or have you secretly been gay all along. It would explain loads of your homophobia."
I wait for the explosion, for the moment when she realises what she's doing, who she's with, and storms off, storms away. Instead, she puts her hands on her hip and shoots me a steely glare. "I'm my own fucking person, thank you very much. And I was never homophobic. Cunt. Anyway, you want this," she challenges, stepping closer.
I swallow as my failing brain grasps for a comeback. Nothing comes to mind. "So why're you doing this?"
Katie takes two more steps towards me, reaching out to stroke hair back out of my face. "Because you need it," she says simply, and then she's kissing me again.
I don't know how she knows that, but she's right. Even in the brief moments that I was trying to push her away, I felt the shadows creeping back, I felt the hints of terror starting to reach out for me just at the prospect of her walking out the door.
I give in and I kiss back, pulling her hungrily towards me as her hands tug my top upwards.
It's not long before we're falling into my bed together, all clothes carelessly discarded to the floor. It's so much more than a kiss, and I don't think that Katie realises exactly what it means to me. Then again, maybe I don't really know that either.
What I do know, as Katie's hands travel down my body, somehow both tentative and determined all at once, is that not only do I need this, but I need her. That realisation makes me kiss her harder and touch her softer. She responds just as eagerly to my touches, and I don't know exactly why, but that gives me hope (not that I know for what).
She gasps when she feels exactly how wet I am for her and wild, questioning eyes look up into mine. Maybe she does understand, or maybe she's starting to. I can't reply as she begins her exploration of my folds. Instead, I simply hold her gaze, watching all of her beauty shining radiantly back at me as she works up a steady pace. I stare into her eyes for as long as I can bear, until it feels like I'm about to break, and then I press my lips to hers as if my life depends on it. For all I know, it might.
It's not until later, when her walls are clenching tightly around my fingers, that her eyes lock on mine once more. She reaches a hand up to cup the back of my neck and pulls me down so that her lips brush lightly against my ear. "Maybe I need it, too," she whispers, her breath hot on my skin as her lips tickle my ear. She kisses me then, tenderly, slowly, deeply.
Maybe, if I can hold onto my sanity long enough, something good can really happen here. It's as much hope as I dare allow myself.
.
V.
Any dreams of sanity get dashed all too quickly. The shadows not only grow in my mind, but they multiply, laying claim to more of my mind. I'm hanging on to the tightrope that is my sanity by my fingertips, and they're slipping.
It's been days since I've seen Katie. It's been days since I dared venture out of my house. I've barely dared venture off of my bed. The shadows are waiting just beneath, snapping at my heels, wrapping tendrils around me as I sleep, plunging me deeper into darkness and despair.
It's crippling, the panic that grips my heart. And my lack of contact with the outside world means lack of contact with my only anchor to sanity. I wanted to give her space and time to process. Whether or not she needed what we shared, I know her well enough to know that it shook her. I didn't realise that giving her space would be signing my own death warrant.
To her credit, she could have called. I turned off my phone the first morning I decided that I didn't dare go to school, and haven't turned it on since. How could I go and let everyone witness my fall into insanity. Better I hide myself away, shut off from the world.
I have no idea how many days have passed. Day and night blur together in a terrifying tapestry of shadows and darkness, delusions and madness.
I'm grasping at straws but hardly any of them are "sanity" or "logical thinking" anymore. Maybe I should simply do the world a favour and disappear from it for good. Maybe I should let go, release the tightrope, drop the straws, and let the shadowy depths swallow me up like the continuously threaten to do.
I feel their steely grasp squeezing my chest, pushing the air out of it. It's getting harder and harder to breathe in the blackness that probably only exists in my mind but seems to exist everywhere nonetheless.
Maybe that's why I don't notice, at first, the intrusion into my room (serving as my sanctuary and my prison all in one).
"Come on!" an insistent voice breaks through, and I feel the tugs on my arm.
I can't focus through the darkness well enough to recognise who it is or what they want, but they tug on my arm again and I oblige, I stand, I let myself be led.
It's when cold water hits my skin, dripping down my spine, clinging to me, that my head begins to clear a bit. It's tortuous, this cold. I'm in the tub, still clad in a large T-shirt (one Tony left behind), and that only serves to make the freezing water stick to my back, as another stream of it is poured over my head. I blink against the cold and turn my eyes to my tormenter, who it turns out is no such thing.
Katie, eyes full of concern, brow creased in worry, pushes my wet hair from my face. "Are you here?" she asks.
I nod, unable to speak through the chattering of my teeth.
"Good," she replies. She grabs a towel off the rack and instructs me to stand.
I do so, gladly, shivering as water trickles from my hair down my spine, dripping off the bottom of my T-shirt onto the backs of my legs. She wraps me in the towel, helps me step out of the tub, and rubs my arms briskly before setting me on the edge of the tub. She reaches over and turns the faucet to hot, then sits beside me and looks me straight in the eyes. She takes my hands that were sitting idly in my lap and holds them tightly in hers. I can feel the warmth she's generating, and it feels oh so good against my skin.
"Effy," she begins slowly, and I know what's coming, but for once I don't mind that she's prying.
Maybe it's exactly what I need.
"What's going on with you? What's wrong?"
Her voice is so earnest, her eyes portraying no judgement, just caring. I realise that she's the only person who's bothered to ask, not that I'd have told anyone else, anyway.
"I think I'm losing my mind," I reply, vaguely aware that there are tears of relief burning down my cheeks just at the fact that now I've told someone. "It feels like I'm going crazy."
Katie doesn't scoff, or laugh, or tease, or make some sarcastic remark or do any of the potentially hurtful things she could do. Instead, she simply nods. "Okay. So let's get you some help."
Somehow, I really don't know how she did it, but she's just given me the perfect response. She's taken this massive weight that's been sitting on my shoulders for months, weighing me down more and more, and she's lifted it, sharing it with me. Implicit in her seemingly simple statement is the promise that she's there, that she'll help, that she won't leave me.
I feel like laughing and crying and collapsing all at once. I close my eyes and take a deep breath before I turn my eyes back to her.
"First things first. A hot bath. You look like you haven't bathed in days, no offense, babe. Then we'll call your mum. I know she's off enjoying Italy or whatever, but she needs to know. Then we'll go to the doctor, okay?"
It's strange, and so simple, but they're things I never would have found the strength to do on my own. I nod, and manage to smile.
Encouraged, she smiles back at me. "Good."
I can't stop myself then, I just have to. I lean in close, giving her a chance to pull away for once, giving her an out from the crazy person in front of her, but, instead, her smile holds, and she moves forward to meet me. Her lips are soft against mine, and the kiss is brief, but somehow it's the most important one we've ever shared. It feels the most two sided, like she's really there with me, and when she smiles at me again afterwards and gives my hands a squeeze, for the first time in what feels like ages I let hope really take hold.
Maybe, just maybe, with Katie at my side things can get better, I can get better.
I may not have faith in myself, but I've got faith in her. I let myself think words that terrify me: I love her. I don't know when it happened. Maybe I already loved her when I placed that first kiss on her lips. Truth is it doesn't matter.
I contemplate telling her, but instead I give her the most genuine smile I can and squeeze her hands back.
I feel the shadows slinking away, aware of their impending defeat. They're not gone, by a long shot, but, as Katie helps me disrobe and I enter the warm bath, letting the refreshing water glide over my, I think that maybe one day they will be.
She looks strong and beautiful as she pours a pitcher of water over my head, shooting me another smile and running her fingers through my hair after it. She looks less broken and more whole.
Maybe that's why Katie and I fit together. Maybe it's part of why I love her. Either way, it's just us: the mental leading the broken to healing, and the broken leading the mental to sanity.