People always say that there is a lowest point, a place so horrible that it can only get better from there on.
They do it to make hard situations look easier:
You are either in a place that's not so bad because there's someone doing worse than you, or you are in a situation that's not so bad because it can't get any worse.
It's simple.
Also, people like to create worst-case-scenarios in order to prepare themselves. They imagine the most awful situation they can think of and try to come up with solutions. They picture how they would react, what he would say, what she would do.
All to make it less scary. Come what may, I have already thought of a solution to a situation worse than this.
That's why they say there is an end to the road of heartache and sorrow.
Another thing people like to do is being dramatic.
I can't live without you.
This would kill me.
I could never survive a thing like that.
When all the silver linings about it getting better don't work, people take self pity in the thought of emotional pain physically taking their lives.
Either way, they say there is this mysterious place called ,rock bottom', which will either physically kill you or bounce you right back into feeling better the next day.
Sadly, people are wrong.
There is no rock bottom.
Whenever you think: This is it, I can't take it anymore, I give up -
it doesn't stop. You can't just cease to exist. Unless you do something about it, naturally, but feeling so miserable that you're too tired to fight it
doesn't mean you're suicidal.
And so you keep breathing. And hurting. And falling.
Because there is always a level beneath the one you're on.
No matter if you think: Okay, that's it, it simply can't get any worse than this -
it can. Just believe me, it can.
And when you've realized all of this, when you have taken it in and accepted it so fully that it numbs you in an exhausting kind of way,
you are embracing depression in its finest hour.
And that is exactly what Myka is doing, sitting outside on the porch, the open book in her hand. She doesn't read, she waits for the wave of nausea to pass and the iron fist of miserableness to ease. Holding a book is also a clear sign for everyone to stay away from her, especially if she does it outside the house were no one has to bother her.
She just wants to sit here, in a long sleeve shirt that is entirely too thin for this time of the year, and feel the cold pinch her skin. The wind gathering up her hair, maybe it will blow right through her and take everything with it.
„Hey, Mykes."
Right. Pete and clear signs have never been good friends. And the thing where he gets vibes and can sometimes tell when she's not doing so well is actually really annoying.
But he's a good man. A good friend. Just trying to look out for her.
Maybe she should say something. ,Hi' back. But the words don't come out, and if she's honest, she's a little scared something else will come out of her mouth if she opens it. And so she just fishes this pathetic little smile out of somewhere and plasters it over her face for him. He doesn't buy it, of course.
„Eight out of ten for effort. What's wrong?"
Well, he isn't her best friend for nothing.
„Fine", she manages to say, the beginning of the sentence swallowed somehow.
„Uh-hum."
He still remains seated next to her, even though he seems to let it go. At least for now.
There's nothing to tell, really.
It isn't even bad.
It's not like her boyfriend bled out under her hands and having been pre-med didn't change anything anymore. Well, that happened, too.
But that's not why she's making herself get a cold and not reading her book.
No, it's much more mundane, much sillier than that: just lovesickness.
It happens. It's just that Myka would much rather it hadn't happened like this.
„They say everyone has weak and soft spots", she suddenly tells him, it was meant as an introduction of some sort, but she got lost again, staring at her hands. The skin is dry from the cold, and stretches over her knuckles when she spreads her fingers. It looks funny. Feels weird, but clean, somehow.
She can feel Pete shift a little, leaning towards her the tiniest of bits. They still don't look at each other, but Myka knows that he's looking for the right thing to say with caution. He's a good friend.
„They do. And it's okay."
Myka wonders what he thinks she's talking about.
Does he tie it back to that time she ran away from the Warehouse, and what happened in Warehouse 2? In a way, it is about what happened in Warehouse 2. Or rather the other way around. What happened in Warehouse 2, and Yellow Stone, and before, and after, it's all about this. Even that she came back. A little.
She had everything under control, has, she has everything under control -
every last little thing but Helena, it seems.
But Pete doesn't know that.
Now he does look at her, waiting for her to say something.
They never talk about this anymore, about the time Myka didn't live in the Warehouse, there is nothing more to say. She came back. However, Myka will never forget the look on his face.
,This woman ruins everything'.
Isn't it funny? Because it's right, she does ruin everything. She also makes everything better. It's just like that with her; everything that rushes stops and everything that's supposed to be still proceeds to dash away, making Myka reel and tumble.
Pete's still looking at her, his elbows on his knees and his hands folded. Myka turns and takes him in, there he is. He listens and prods and if she sends him away now, he will go and leave her alone. He's trying to look out for her, and it makes some of it okay.
This is nice, actually. Sitting here with him. As if he slipped into her low-on-oxygen bubble of waiting for it to pass. It feels. She feels it.
She offers him a smile and he takes it. It doesn't matter anymore, what happened Yellow Stone. And afterwards. Helena has proven herself willing to sacrifice herself for the Warehouse thrice since then. Wyoming. The day that never happened. The disease.
Myka recalls what Helena wore on every occasion she has ever met her - photographic memory will do that to you. She remembers the way her ivory hands crept out of her black sleeves as she folded her arms in front of her chest. The day after the disease was banned and the astrolabe destroyed.
She remembers her reaching up to her hair, her hair, her hair. This hair. The talk after Dickinson's funeral. It's so silly how it bitterly yanks at her heart strings.
Like thinking about home.
„Just - Look, I'm here, I'm your partner, right? I can fight stuff other than artifacts with you. If you want me to."
Sweet, sweet Pete. He would be so much safer. Myka rests her head on his shoulder and suddenly it all escapes her, she's trying to chase after it, take it back -
but, of course, it doesn't work. It's like every last sip of water she's had in the past three days just decided to leave her body through her lacrymal sacks.
She doesn't move, sob or weep. It just flows out of her and she lets it go.
It's not so bad. It's just tiring.
They said it could have happened to anyone, but it happened to her, and besides -
they didn't understand anything. She didn't understand anything. There had been things between them, and then Yellow Stone happened, and Myka had thought she'd imagined it all. But Helena came to visit her and deranged her, like she does.
And Myka knows that Helena drinks her tea with milk, which is a little weird, and she died (for her?) and Myka can't remember. Shouldn't she remember that?
She knows her. She saw her. She sees her.
Falls victim to her everything over and over. Cutting herself badly because everything about her is sharp and clear, her face, voice, the way she talks, so very british.
Isn't it messed up, how she she's so obvious and explicit and right there in one moment and blurry, mysterious and gone the next?
Myka doesn't pity herself. It happens. People fall in love.
She just wishes it wasn't so inconsistent, she wishes it was a non-changing condition that she could wait for to subside, but it doesn't work that way.
„Everyone has chinks and soft spots", Myka finally says again, wiping at her face.
Nothing is that easy. Especially not love. Or heartache.
Myka is Myka and Helena is Helena, they have lost and been through the worst and survived, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.
Because Helena is also still gone. And Myka still in love. It happens.
„Helena just fit into mine like a matching jigsaw piece."
Pete doesn't say anything, he's just there, solid and present and permanent like nothing Helena ever was. Or is ever going to be. And the twisted part is that it just makes Myka miss her more.
