She's got all these purple scars lacing up her pale, frail looking arms and I can't help but feel like I'm going to puke. Not because it's so awful, or because I think that she's ugly or anything like that, because she's probably the most beautiful girl I've ever met in my entire life. No matter what she looks like I'm going to love her and I'm going to think that she's beautiful and nothing can ever change that. It's just that this happened and she did this to herself and I didn't think that she was lying when she said that she fell into a bush or her cat attacked her even though every single one of those cuts was way too deep for a cat to ever do. It's just that this happened. It's that something's so wrong and she's hurting so bad and I couldn't make it better.

I know it's stupid, but it's true. I always promised her that I'd take care of her and I'd never let anything bad happen to her and I'd lay in bed with her and I'd hold her when she cried and I'd promise that everything would be okay because she's really not as much of a hardass as everybody thinks that she is. She isn't tough at all, actually. Not the tiniest little bit. She's probably one of the most sensitive people I've ever met and she's weak and she's vulnerable and it's so easy for just one wrong word to crush her world. She doesn't even have self esteem anymore and she's walking around through the days like she's just going through the motions and her heart's somewhere else.

She's broken. She's beautiful and she's broken and she came back home and she's sitting on my welcome mat and it's the saddest thing I've ever seen in my entire life. She's looking up at my through her blonde hair and she's got those adorable blue eyes and she looks like a puppy that's been kicked and she's waiting for me to make it better and it sounds selfish but that's how we work. She gets hurt and I make her better. And I love it like that--I love being able to be strong for somebody for a change instead of everybody always having to hold me up. I love how much she needs me and I love the way her voice cracked when she told me that if it wasn't for me she wouldn't have a reason to get up in the morning.

It sounds horrible, but I really don't think it is. I just like to take care of her and I like that I'm able to actually make things okay for her. I love how she comes to me with her heart broken in half and by the time she has to leave, she's smiling and laughing even though her eyes are still red and swollen.

She came back for me. She came back home after three weeks and she still needs me and she still wants to be around me even though she must've had dozens of people fawning around her and trying to help her and trying to hold her up and tape her back together. And those people just made her worse. She doesn't look happy and she doesn't look brighter and it doesn't look like she's had some life changing epiphany and god, those people just made her worse. She doesn't look happy. She just looks tired. She looks almost like she's past caring and it's breaking my heart.

"Sam.." My voice sounds rusty and stale, and it's like I'm learning to talk again after a decade of not even whispering. But it does it. It makes this real and it brings us back and it makes me realize that she's really there. She's sitting in front of me and she's begging me to take her back again and she's begging me to forgive her, but I have no idea what she wants forgiveness for because she hasn't done anything wrong, ever, in her life. Nothing she ever has done or ever will do will make me angry at her for even a moment. And it's not like how you can't get mad at retarded kids, because she is most definitely not retarded in any way, it's just that I care too much for my own good and I could never be without her.

I'm kneeling in front of her and I'm pulling her close to me and I can feel her body tense up and then relax, as though they put tons of invisible weights on her at that hospital and they only just came off again. And, oh god, I just want to hold her. I want to sit here and hold her and never ever let her go and I'm terrified to even let her out of my sight again. I'm never ever going to let her be in a different room as me and I'm going to always take care of her and I'm always going to make her smile and I'm going to love it like I do right now. I'm not going to get sick of her like all the stupid boys do and I'm not going to use her and then throw her away when she's all used up and I'm not going to leave her ever, ever and I think that I've already mentioned that but I'll say it again. Nobody is ever going to be more important to me than she is. No boyfriend or girlfriend will ever be able to make me blow her off or make me stay with them when she needs help.

And I don't even care how stupid we must look, sitting half in my apartment and half in the hallway, hugging the shit out of each other and all I know is that is anybody has the nerve to say anything or even show up on this floor and ruin this I'm going to push them out the window and I'm not going to feel sorry at all.

I'm looking at the little bit of her shoulder that's showing when her t-shirt pulls a bit from hugging me and there's scars even there--raised up, purple scars that look like the one on my elbow where I got stitches once, and then there's others that go down and they're white and I can see part of 7 different ones just there. Oh, god, Sam, why did you do this to yourself?

And then I'm crying. I can't help it and I don't think that she even notices it at all and I'm not sobbing or anything but I've got tears in my eyes and I can feel myself shake just a tiny bit and she pulls me closer to her and I'm reminding myself that I have to be the strong one. I can't break and I can't shake because she needs to know that nothing she tells me is ever too much and she needs to know that I'm indestructible, even if I'm not. I need her to need me and I need her to have something stable in her life, even if it's something as unstable and weak and destructible as me.

Because even if I break easy, I'm something.

She's trying to pull away from me but I'm holding her close because I can't let her get away from me yet and I still need to feel her against me and I can't let her see that I'm crying. I can't. I can't I can't I can't.

"Carly.." And oh my god, her voice. She doesn't even sound like herself. God, what did they do to her in that place? Oh my god she sounds so broken and she sounds sick and tired and I just want her to stay with me and never leave and nobody can ever take her away ever again, because I make her so much happier than those people and their therapy and their pills ever will. But it's her. It's her and she's talking and I'm hearing her and she's breathing on my back. "Is there something wrong with me..?"

Oh god, Sam, no. No, there's nothing wrong with you, it's just those people. It's all of those people. They're the ones that have something wrong with them and they're the ones that deserve to be locked up and forced to take pills and sit in groups and not be fed right and not be allowed to talk to anybody and sit and waste away. Sam, sweetie, what did they do to you? What did they make you think and what did they do to you, baby? It's okay now. I'm here. I'm here with you and there's nothing at all wrong with you because you're the perfect girl. You don't need pills and you don't need rehab or mental hospitals or whatever it was that they made you go to, you're just sad. You're just sensitive and you were breaking and they broke you even more, but it's okay now because I'm here.

I'm wishing that I could say that but I'm terrified to, until I'm feeling her shake the way I did, and then I do. I say it all word for word and she's holding onto me and she's mumbling that she never ever wants to leave again.

"Sweetie.. Come here.. You need a bath and you need to go to sleep," I'm mumbling, starting to stand gently and tugging gently on her hand and god, she looks awful. Not ugly awful, but she doesn't look like her. She doesn't look like Sam at all and it's scaring me.

She's standing up with me but she looks so scared and she's got both her hands around mine and she's walking right next to me, as though walking even a step behind me leaves her vulnerable and somebody's going to come up behind her and steal her away from me again, and christ, I don't what I'd be able to do if I had to spend any more time away from her, especially knowing that she's in some shithole hospital.

We're in the bathroom and she's standing there like a little kid while I peel her clothes off and turn on the hot water in the bathtub and pour bubble bath in because she told me a couple of times about how much she always used to love bubble baths and she liked to try to make castles out of the bubbles and she liked how they smelled.

She's beautiful.

There's just no other way to describe it--she's beautiful and she's like a dark angel or something, but not a dark angel like a goth girl with pretty makeup or something. She's like an angel who isn't ready to get up and shine like she's supposed to and she feels so bad about herself even though she's so beautiful and she looks sunken and tired and she just wants to sleep.

I want to cry again as I look up and down her naked body and there's scars like the ones on her arms all over her body. The ones on her torso don't look quite so bad and they're probably just healing scars but her shoulders and the base of her neck are both awful and there's 27 long scabs on her legs where I'm guessing there were stitches but they got taken out and now they're just healing the rest of the way.

Oh god, Sam, why do you do this to yourself?

I'm holding her hand while she steps into the water and she smiling just the tiniest bit and I'm pulling off my pants and I'm sitting at the edge of the tub with my feet in the water and I'm washing her hair, my leg brushing against her back and she's leaning back against me.

And half an hour later I'm holding her hand again and I'm making sure that the robe I gave her stays on and I'm taking her to my room and I'm trying to fix my bed and make it perfect but she's shaking her head, so I pull the blankets back and she crawls in, still soaking, and I'm tucking her in and she's smiling again and she's looking at me and I'm looking at her.

"Good night, sweetheart.." She's almost asleep already, her eyes drooping and she's not going to be awake for another minute but it's so sweet how she's still looking at me and I'm going to be the last thing she sees when she goes to sleep and the first thing she sees when she wakes up. "I love you.."

I'm kissing her cheek and I'm feeling my heart flutter when she reaches up and holds my hand in hers and she's blushing the tiniest little bit.

And then she's sleeping.

--

writing this one felt so natural.. it took me under an hour and I didn't stop or pause once the entire time..

:)

writing the end made me smile.

you can take their relationship however you want.. very very good friends, girlfriends, whatever. when i wrote it i was thinking that they were just friends.. they're in love, yeah, but they're friends. it's just one of those things.. if you know what i mean? it's hard to describe.. they dont want anything from each other except the other's happiness is the best way to describe it.