You, my favorite teacher told, me I could tell you anything. When I came to you crying, dizzy and losing blood from the cuts on my wrist, you didn't even question me. You just put me in your car and drove me to the hospital, holding my hand the whole time. Thanks for keeping your promise.
I stumble down the halls, dizzy, my vision blurry from crying, bleeding profusely and barely breathing. I know you will be there. You're always the last one left in school, so I'm never afraid to yell for you through the halls. I promised you and Alice last time would be the last one. I'm sorry. After he did what he did, I couldn't find you. You weren't there. I thought of the next best thing.
When I feel the familiar razor slash through the soft membrane, a sigh escapes my lips. The scarlet liquid gracefully bubbled over and usually that's enough. Not this time. It didn't numb me. Screeching in frustration, I start sawing through my skin, with each push and pull, an ounce of security covers me. I keep going until I feel the sharpest pain I've ever felt in my life. I scream as loudly as my restricting lungs will allow me.
It's only us in the whole school. He had left already. Good. You would kill him, bring him back to life, and kill him again if he was still here when I told you. Stumbling down the hallway, my vision wavering, I couldn't remember where your room was.
Finally, I see a door that looks familiar. I throw it open and stare at you, trying to somehow catch air in the lungs that had shrunken to a lima bean's size. I collapse. You curse.
You run to me and lean over checking my pulse.
"Keep breathing," you yell. "Stay focused on my voice. Stay awake, sweetie. Stay awake. I'm going to help you. Open your eyes, honey, don't sleep. Stay awake for me, darling. You're shivering. Why are you shivering? Can you talk to me? Tell me what happened, pumpkin. Can you talk?"
"I can talk," I gasp brokenly.
"What happened, baby doll?" you murmur, sitting me up against the wall.
"Do you remember when I told you I get scared by the way touches me and looks at me sometimes?" I whisper.
You pause. I didn't even have to finish the thought. You understand. I watch your eyes through my tears and wavering vision. Fear, hatred, revulsion, protection, possession, love, passion, and despair fill them simultaneously.
"Oh Dear God. Where is he? WHERE IS HE? I swear to GOD if I find him-"I cut you off.
"Please." I rasp.
You calm down when you hear the pain in my voice.
"Sweetheart, you have to tell me. Did he... hurt you?" you ask. Your voice expresses the careful and measured manner you always use when I cry. I feel you clean the scars and hear lose your breath when you saw my blood stained wrist and blue tinged skin. You stand up and speak.
"Love bug, listen. We're going to have to go to the hospital. I have no idea how much blood you've lost but I know it's not good. "
I hear the door open. It's Alice. Thank Jesus.
"Hey Edward, have you seen Bella? Lucy called me shivering. She ran away from that social worker looking for Bel…" She trails off. She looks at me, then you, then back to me. Her eyes widen with horror and fury and she shrieks a stream of profanities. She flies across the room and crashes into you with all of her might, leaving you suffocated in a flurry of her raven colored tresses.
"What did you do to her? What's wrong with her?" She's whacking you in the chest with all of her strength. "Get away from her!" she weeps. You take both of her wrists in one of your hands and she barely hesitates before resorting to kicking.
"Alice! You know I would never hurt her and we can't help her if you keep hitting me! I need you to calm down, take her keys, go get the girls and keep them with you until I can call you." You demand.
Tears are streaming rapidly out of Alice's big brown eyes. They are rimmed with red. Taking shaky, gasping breaths, and my keys, she throws me a desperate glance and hugs me gently. I was crying with worry for Lucy.
"I'll find her, Bella. I'll get Mia. Just please be okay." She kisses me on the cheek then turns to you. "You. Take her now. I don't care what you have to do. Make her better. Do we understand each other?" Her voice had a gloriously venomous tone that neither of us had ever heard her speak in before. You nod, frozen in fear. She smiles sadly.
"Good." She gives you a kiss on the cheek and gives me one last fleeting glance. Her beautiful face was contorted in misery and pain. She speaks in her twinkling voice and it cracks. "I love you, Bells. Be okay." She takes a shaky breath and with that, my best friend walks out of the room already dialing rapidly on her phone and barking briskly to someone she was talking to.
"Anyway, we need to get going." You sound like you're going to cry. "Can you walk?"
I guess me trying to stand, moaning, coughing and crumpling to the ground sobbing was enough to convince you that I couldn't.
"Honestly, I wasn't going to let you walk anyway. You're too weak." you explain. "Are you hungry?"
I shake my heard to humor you. You know I'm never hungry. I never eat what you give me. I shake my head anyway. You swear I'm thin enough to be a bookmark. I think you blame yourself. You make up for it by doing anything you can for my "frail, fragile and feeble body" making your arm my private, personal pillow, wrapping your hoodie around me every time I have even the slightest shiver, singing me to sleep on the hard nights, keeping me safe. Your voice snaps me out of my thoughts.
"Sunshine, I'm going to carry you to the car. Brace yourself, it might hurt." You swoop down and seize me by the back of my knees and neck, enveloping me in your warm, protecting arms easily. I hiss from the pain and clutch at your shirt. You smile at me sadly.
"It'll be over soon, baby." You assure me. You start to walk.
I hear you mutter, "So freaking light...I can't stand it," under your breath.
I curl into your broad chest and cradle my mutilated arm with the other. I try to find anything else concentrate on besides the blood. I settle on you. I count the breaths you take, deliberate your smooth and speedy gait, anticipate the next time you will shift me in your arms.
You open the door. I hiss as the cold air as it finds its way into the gashes. You pull me closer to protect me from the frigid air, shift me to hold me in one arm, and wrap the hoodie hanging from your arm around my tiny, violently quivering frame. Carefully, you set me down. You say you forgot your phone and you'd be right back. My dizziness comes back as soon as I'm out of your strong, safe arms.
I watch you reluctantly retreat back into the building and I wait on the curb with my head between my knees. I try to focus on the scent of your jacket. Then, I sense another presence. It's not you. It's him. A gloriously evil smirk fills his face.
"You really think you can get away, don't you? Don't you get it? You. Are. Mine." He sneers.
I'm being dragged to the other side of the building. He is choking me against the wall. I hear you calling for me hysterically as he turns me, face to the wall and twists my arm behind my back. The pain is almost blinding. He reopens the wounds and I scream with all the air in my body. Suddenly, I feel a sharp smack on my cheek and I am on the ground.
Before I register what happened, I am flung up and spun behind you and he is on the ground. I cringe when I hear the crunch of his nose.
"You're lucky I don't kill you while I have the chance." You snarl.
You turn to me with the hate still burning in your eyes. I flinch and cower away from you. I feel so weak I have to sit down. Concern and fear has replaced the abhorrence in your eyes. My eyes sting. I feel the skin below them and there is a slippery liquid. More blood? From my eyes? I cough. Blood from my mouth, too? My arms and legs are numb. My torso feels hollow. The cuts are streaming more red. All I see is red. I look up at you. Your skin is pale and your mouth agape. You shudder.
I don't realize you are carrying me until you start running. You put me in the car and drive far above the speed limit. You hold my hand the whole way, squeezing it every time I try to drift off. I cry the whole way, and sometimes, you cry with me. I understand what is going on when you fly into the ER, with me safely encased in your gentle and strong arms, and demand to see someone immediately. The woman at the desk shamelessly flirts with you, despite the dying teenager in your arms. You show no interest. I feel like I'm about to die until you start to talk to me to keep me awake.
"Honey, how are you feeling?" you ask, worriedly.
"I can only see red and black spots," I choke out.
"I'm tired of this. I don't care anymore. Let's go." You declare.
You plow through the door in spite of the shrieking banshee nurse.
"Someone get a doctor. Now." You speak the words so coldly, I recoil. You hug me closer to your body, and I relax.
A doctor who obviously has a lot of authority walks up to us. He has a respectable build, but is nowhere near as strong as you are. The doctor speaks angrily.
"You cannot be back here, sir."
You look down at me then look back at the doctor. In the most casual tone I've ever heard you use, you simple say "Just look at her."
The doctor notices me for the first time. His eyes widen in horror.
"Nurse!" he barks. "Nurse, get this patient to emergency surgery immediately!"
The doctor tries to take me out of your arms.
"No!" I shriek. "No, please God, no!" I know if you let me go he'll find me. I'm sobbing so much I can taste the tears and blood mingling with each other.
"He'll find me! Please! He'll find me!" I clutch at your shirt as you both try to pry me off away from you."
The doctor whispers to you, "Can you carry her until we can sedate her?"
You nod your head. "Definitely. She's almost lighter than air." Odd. I've never known you to exaggerate. We set off walking, then running.
I relax with each step you take. Through my tears I watch as you periodically look up from my face to see where you are going. My head feels like it is floating. Everything is turning white.
"I…I..,"
"What," you asked absentmindedly, trying to follow the doctor.
"I…my…it's too bright in here. Everything is white. Stay with me. Where…," I trail off.
"Honey…" your worried voice trails off.
I see a beautiful angel opening her arms to me. She looks like your mother. Long, straight dark brown hair, bright green eyes and a soft, loving face. I hear her call out to me. I just touch her fingertips when I feel my chest explode.
"Keep her breathing!" a gruff voice demands. "Jesus Christ, she's bleeding to death! She is dying! Rapidly! Almost a third of her body's blood is gone. This is impossible. She's going to die!" I hear and anguished groan. "The ulnar artery is shredded! Christ, how did she cut this deep? She's lost most of her body's blood. Keep her breathing! We're losing her! Give her the transfusion! Can someone fix this artery? Now? Please?"
I feel a needle being jabbed into my arm and I scream out in pain. I hear you scream with me, only with a little more pain than me.
"She's responsive. Sedate her. Now!" Voices flutter around me.
Another needle is stabbed into my other arm. I groan from the pain. All I think is of your face. It numbs me to a point of happiness. I wait out the rest of the procedure with patience. Anticipation for you to call me sweetie, honey, sunshine. Expectation of your warm, strong protective arms to encircle me as soon as they can. I wait for my superhero. I drift into a peaceful sleep.
When I wake up, I see your head in your hands while you are talking on your phone. Probably to Alice. I hear her screaming in the background that she found Lucy. You tell her to shush because I'm still sleeping. She quiets down. You haven't looked up yet. In the meantime I prepare for a story because I know you'll want the full explanation. I try to avoid this fate by closing my eyes and visualizing you.
You have beautifully copper colored hair and bright green eyes. Just like the angel.
Eyes that show me your true emotion and comfort me no matter what the situation. Eyes that sadly stare at me, hoping to heal me with a glance.
Your mouth which always turns up into a smirk or crooked grin, especially reserved for me. The mouth that lovingly sings the lullabies that calm me into sleep after the fights and the nightmares. The mouth softly speak my many names. Honey, sweetie, sunshine, darling.
The ears that can hear my very soul and real feeling through my façade of a normal teenage girl.
Hands that hold mine through the times of uncontrollable despair. Hands that caress the scars as if to make them disappear one touch. Hands that wipe away my tears every day. I take a deep breath and open my eyes.
You stutter and tell Alice you'll call her back and she starts freaking out. You hang up on her mid shriek. I await the warmth of your voice and eyes. When you look up at me, I see a cold, freezing cold, deadpan look.
"Okay," you say in a frigid, distant voice. "Where do you want to begin?"
I sigh. "From the very beginning, I suppose."