Louise Belcher looked at the tile floor of her family's bathroom. Then she looked to the ceiling. Who was she again? Why did she do what she did? She looked back down at her hands and the sharp blade in them, one of her dad's prized kitchen knives, remembering. The sarcasm and the impishness, the cheap jokes and violence that was her nature, it was just to keep herself safe. Was there any other way? All those fools exposing themselves like... like they want to get hurt. She just couldn't take that kind of pain. She didn't want to, anyway. It would be so easy, to take the knife and clip her throat with it, to cut open her wrists. To end it all.
She was already a disappointment to her family, anyway. Everyone had these preconceived ideas about who she would grow up to be, the drunk, the stoner, the divorcee. At eleven, she still hadn't figured out how to shake off all these impressions and theories, when really, she hadn't even decided on what she wanted to do with her life yet, much less who she wanted to be. She just wanted to not do this whole thing anymore, this terrible life, her terrible self, she didn't want to be her anymore. She wanted to be someone who could talk to people and care about them, not just be a void of emotions that fell through when she need them. Her first crush she had wanted to slap for goodness sakes! She threw her hands up to her eyes to cover the tears that had started leaking out, dropping the knife with a loud metallic clang in the process. A loud whimper escaped her lips, and then another, as the tears began to fall and the sobs racked her body. She heard a knock at the bathroom door and her mom's tentative call.
"Louise? You good baby?" Panic strattled her heart. She couldn't have her mom finding her with a knife! The reasons for her being in the bathroom with it would be all too obvious. "I hear you crying in there!" Her mom called out again, sounding more frantic. "Baby, we're looking for your dad's missing knife!"
"I'm fine, there are no knifes in here, mom!" She tried to yell through the door, but only succeeded in sounding so fake and creaky and sad.
The door opened. Her mother stood, frozen from horror, in the doorway, the light haloing her like an angel.
"My baby! Are you okay, what happened?" Her mom cried out after a second of staring.
"I'm okay," Louise said, cursing her inability to express her emotions appropriately.
"For some reason I don't believe you. Bob, I found your knife!" Her mom shouted at the top of her lungs. Linda had always had the vocal cords of an opera singer.
Her dad appeared in the doorway a moment later, and gasped.
"Louise?" He asked her, seeming to not quite being able to process the sight in front of him.
Finally, for some reason beyond all reason, as often happens in desperate scenarios, Louise found her voice.
"I'm so sad all the time and everyone hates me. I want to die!" She shouted, and it felt so good to say it out loud for once. Like a cleansing measure. The tears kept pouring out of her eyes, down her face, and into her hands.
"Oh, baby, oh, my poor baby, I promise you, we'll get you some help. Whatever you need. And I promise no one hates you." Her mom said, her eyes wide and honest, wrapping her hands around Louise, who seemed so small now.
"Okay," she sniffed. Maybe this would all turn out okay.
It had been five years since that night, exactly. It was one of the few dates that Louise could remember with perfect clarity, as it stuck out in her mind like the sun stuck out in the sky. Not much had changed since then. She had gone to the hospital a few different times for "mysterious" cut wounds, but almost everyone close to the Belchers but Teddy had figured out that Louise was sympathy worthy, a.k.a depressive, "a disaster waiting to happen," if you thought she couldn't hear, or if you were Jimmy Pesto "a would-be Kurt Cobain." The comments really didn't bother her as much as they should have, but what was the point in caring about that kind of thing when you were already overflowing with hatred of yourself? Her mom and dad had tried near everything to fix her mind, or at least make her feel better when she was having an episode, but nothing had really worked yet. Not even rehab had made much of an indent on her. If anything, it had made her want to die more. The various landrylist of meds had definitely helped her mood, but most of the side effects had changed her mind for the worse in other ways, one of the worse side effect was causing something her psychiatrist had called "manic episode." It was nasty, because she couldn't stop her mood swings, or working on things when she wanted too. It was like being high, but more productive. She felt invisible, but at the same time so vulnerable.
She still wore her bubblegum bunny ears everywhere, even though she was sixteen, because everyone who knew her accepted by now, and she enjoyed getting mystified looks from those who didn't passing her on the street. Tricking people had not lost it's joy for her, and she had found a new one in reading. Though before she discovered that Game of Thrones had come from a book series, she had disliked it quite a bit, but after reading the whole series in two weeks, absorbing word after precious word like they would never end, she began to see the beauty in escaping reality so easily. A book was a shield you could take anywhere, and it could protect you from almost anything, unlike television shows.
"Louise! Are you up yet?!" Her mother called from presumably the kitchen/dinning room of their small apartment. Louise didn't want to respond. She wanted to stay in bed all day and fade away, but that wasn't exactly something she could do. So she just yelled back to her mom.
"I'm coming!" She yelled without sitting up. She wanted to stay here for as long as possible. Blankets don't think you're a charity case just because you're sad all the time and couldn't say you would mind if you were to die. They surrounded you with warmth even when inside you were cold and numb and they didn't get you up before you were ready to, they don't make fun of you behind your back while pretending to feel bad for you. They don't hurt you when you're already bleeding. Louise wrenched herself up from their grasp, feeling the warmth leave her body slowly. Her small feet hit the floor with a light thud and she groaned, regretting her choice to get up. She, in theory, had to get to school, but she really couldn't find herself caring if she were to be late. She didn't have any friends except Gene and Tina, who were both away at college. Most of her teachers, including Mr. Frond, had given up on taming her a few years ago, when she had a mental breakdown at school and started threatening to kill people in their sleep. Thank goodness for being a minor. She could have pled insanity anyway, but that seems so cheap, you know? She got away with a warning and a two hundred dollar fine.
Louise walked slowly, trying to forget things before they happened. It was an odd practice, but sometimes it worked. She opened her bedroom door, praying that this was a dream. There wasn't the usual relief of a stubborn fog that clouded her mind in one, but she liked to believe that sometimes, things would get better. Sadly, she couldn't trick herself. Life was Hell. She arrived at the kitchen table with a perplexed look on her face that one could only describe as "utter discontent." Her mom frowned, but didn't say anything, just putting a pancake on the plate that sat in front of the spot where Louise had sat down. Louise started on it almost instantly, hoping that it gave the illusion that she was actually hungry. Linda sat down at the seat across the table from her younger daughter, suddenly smiling.
"So, honey, I have a new idea to help you..." Her mom said, trailing off, but still smiling. The caught Louise's attention and she stopped eating for a second, a little bit of hope sparked for the first time in a few months.
"What is it?" Louise asked, wanting to have a grounds for the spark.
"So you might not like it very much, but I've invited your old buddy Logan to spend next month with us. He always seemed to get a reaction out of you, so it might get something, anything, better than this statue state you've found yourself in."
Louise froze. She took a small, tense breath. "You what?" She asked, trying to believe she misheard her mom.
"Logan, you know, the one you threatened to cut off of the ears of?" She nodded. "Are you angry?" Her mom asked, her voice higher than normal.
"Whatever. I'll deal with him." Louise sighed, resting her head in her hands. Her mom nodded and walked away silently, seeming the least bit defeated. She wanted to be angry with her mom, angry with Logan, but there was no anger left within her to be pointed at anyone but herself. She trudged off, once she had finished half the pancake, to go get ready for school.
"Hey Bob!" A blonde head pushed itself past the glass door and into the restaurant.
"Oh, uh, hey Logan. Louise is in the storeroom getting lettuce. I don't know if you need her right now, but-" Bob said, smiling slightly.
"I don't. I mean, uh, I'll wait, I guess." Logan said, stumbling over to the counter and sitting down at one of the stools. He still wasn't exactly sure why he was here, Linda had just called him one day, pleading him to come down to the restaurant and help Louise with something. He was in it for the cash, the five hundred dollars in it that Linda had promised him. Also, whatever this was would probably look good on job applications. He was twenty two, and still unemployed. His mom, needless to say, wasn't happy. Suddenly, Louise appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, her attention focused on her dad rather than the tall blonde boy - man, she guessed, now - that was sitting by him.
"Oh, hey Louise, Logan's here."
"Oh, hey, dad, I don't care. I got the lettuce." She sounded desensitized. Her dad thanked her and walked past her to the kitchen. She turned to leave, but Logan stopped her with a question.
"What's wrong with you?" He asked, sounding more insensitive than he meant.
She turned back around, rolling her eyes. "I'm surprised mom didn't tell you. She's told the world, because apparently I'm depressed. Yeah, whatever, don't feel bad. I've got that part down."
Logan looked at her oddly. "Why aren't you, like, attacking me?"
"It doesn't matter." Louise said, her voice never breaking. "Just enjoy it."
"You've never told me, ever, to enjoy myself. This is unsettling, Louise! Just, like, punch me or something!" Logan yelled, losing his cool. He was getting pretty freaked out.
"No, I don't want to." Her voice was void of everything, rage, fury, pleasure, even sadness.
"What kinda meds are you on?!" He screamed, flinging himself out of his chair.
"Nothing, I just don't feel like it, okay?" She said calmly, her eyes fixed on the ceiling, pleading to the sky that he wouldn't see the small tear that had escaped. When she said that, Logan calmed down a little bit, but his gaze intensified a little bit. If she had bothered to look at him, she would have seen the concentrated worry in his eyes that had never been there before. He took a few steps toward her.
"Why don't you feel like it?" He asked, his voice as soft as an angel's feather.
She looked him straight in the eyes, but there was nothing there, not a single visible emotion. Somewhere, buried deep, you could've found a sadness that seemed to hold her together, but Logan couldn't get that deep. "Because I don't care." This made him freeze in his slow advance, like a deer in the headlights. Now it was Louise walking towards him, not slow or cautious at all. She walked like it was a threat, like maybe she wanted to be public enemy number one because it would make her job a little bit easier. Once she got close enough for him to hear her, she whispered, "I don't care because it doesn't really matter, does it? I don't really matter. You might be my nemesis, the super villain of the century, but we're all gonna die sometime. I've wanted to speed up that process for the longest time, but it doesn't happen because I'm a coward."
"Thank God for cowards," was all Logan said, and Louise seemed to understand.
"No," she said simply, shaking her head. "No, I'm a loose screw. I know, Cynthia probably would hate it. I know my mom said we'd meet each other twenty years from when she first saw us together and we'd get married and live life like nobody was watching, but it won't happen. I'll be dead and gone long before that happens."
"But Louise, I'm seeing you now, and now, you're beautiful. I know we were messed up kids, but look at you now..." He trailed off, gazing at her with a regret she couldn't understand.
"I'm only sixteen, shove off."
"I can wait. Just let me get to know you again, please, Louise!" He begged her, and she half thought that he was going to get down on his hands and knees. She looked a little taken aback, but after a second a smirk flashed across her face. Logan looked startled, then he broke out smiling. "I got you to have an expression on your face!" He cheered, giggling like a small child.
Louise smiled a little bit at how much he was laughing, but it faded away quickly. It did, however, occur to her that maybe her mom had something other than wine in her head when she asked this favor of Logan.