"I want to help you", she pleaded.
"I know. And you've done your best, but...I'm beyond help."
"That's not true. That is not true."
"It is", I said, rolling over to face away from her. "I can't feel anything."
"I can make you feel. Look at me." She grabbed my chin and made me look her in the eye.
"I can save you." It was not a plea, or a command, but an offer. She knelt down on the bed, bent down and kissed me. "I can make you feel better."
Afterwards, I didn't feel any better or worse. I just felt different. I made a noise, something straddling a chuckle and a scoff. I always felt different. There was a film between me and my classmates, coworkers, and neighbors. Behind it, I was alone. I moved through life mechanically, never interacting with them in any meaningful way. Before I met Leigh though, I think it was worse. Those first few weeks were a blur. She showed me a side of myself I had been hiding for so long.
Looking back on it, sometimes I wish I had never met her.
I shake my head. Without her, I'd be a wreck. She keeps me sane, keeps me together. With her around, I can deal with my pain.
I move to get up from the bed, but Leigh tightens her grip around my left arm and I fall back into the mattress. I look over at her. She's beautiful in a strange way. It's a scary kind of beauty. There are depths to her that I don't fully comprehend.
She thinks she knows me, thinks she's got me figured out.
Maybe she's right. I'm not a complicated person. I wear my heart upon my sleeve, and she's been with me for a year.
Then how can she be so oblivious to the way I feel?
She does her best, she means well.
I look at her for a long time. I blink, and for a moment, the fog clears. Where I once saw comfort and beauty, all I see is a poisonous individual. In that moment, I hate her. I hate what she's done to me, what she's turned me into. I hate myself for giving into her, for drifting along according to her whims. I hate myself because I let her in. I hate her because she's clinging to my arm, a living monument to my weakness.
"We need to talk."
"That's...never good."
"You've been with me for so long, and...I'm scared that I'm relying on you too much."
She's silent.
"I don't want to rely on you anymore. You've been a crutch I supported myself on, and I'll never forget that...but…"
She clasps her hands together below her waist. Her foot taps on the ground in a quick staccato rhythm. Mine does the same.
"I have to learn to stand on my own."
The tapping of her foot slows gradually until it's still. Everything is still.
Then she begins to laugh.
Her laugh is bitter, cruel, but still melodious. Her shoulders shudder deliriously, her chest heaves, struggling to take in breath. She reaches out onto the bedpost to steady herself, and swings wildly on it like a door with a broken hinge.
When she stops, the laughter still hangs in the air. She's grinning at me, a cruel, salient grin.
"Okay, hero. I get it. Today is Day 1 of Year 1, is that it? You're cutting your losses, starting fresh, cold turkey, am I right?"
It takes an immense effort to avoid showing any sign of fear on my face.
"Maybe. But here's my theory."
She moves across the room toward me, her stride unbroken, flowing, until she's inches away from my face.
"You're afraid. Afraid that everyone will hate you when they find out about me. So you want to run as far away from me as possible. But you've forgotten something."
In a flash, she grabs my wrist, holds it in her iron grip. Her hands are cold.
"You can't run from me. I'm part of you now. I'm the only thing that makes you unique. Can't you see that? I define you."
"No you don't!", I shout, and she leans down to kiss my arm. I tear it away and step back.
"You're a mess," she says, laughing softly and stepping forward to cover the ground I've lost. "I want you to think about this: Where were you when we first met? What was it you said? 'I was out of control. I felt like an animal, and I hated it.'"
"You can't help me. I'm still out of control. You've done nothing but hurt me since I met you."
"Bullshit. Tell me this doesn't feel better", she says, and she grabs my arm again. I can only watch as she plants a gentle kiss on my wrist. It stings. Her lips are colder than her hands.
Then the warmth spreads. First, in radiates through my arm, then up my spine, into my brain. Everything's okay for just the briefest of moments before I hate myself again.
"You're fighting it," she says, like it's a drug trip I need to give into. It's the opposite. Her kiss makes me feel lucid. The fog is gone. The wall comes down, but there's no one to let in. No one but Leigh…
"I'm the glue that holds you together. Not your family, not your lithium, and, god knows, not your insatiable will to live. Me. How do you feel?"
"I feel real."
"Good. Don't hate me," she says, apologetic all of a sudden.
"I don't hate you," I say without thinking. "I just...you can't help me forever."
"Oh?"
I take another step backwards.
"You're not going to live forever," she continues. "I'm your life-support. It's that simple. I can't cure you. No one can. Like you said, you're beyond help."
She takes another step forward.
"What I can do is make you feel better while you wait around to die."
I step back, and bump up against the wall.
"And I can even make that feel good."
She steps forward and holds out her hand.
"It's your choice. I'm just letting you know that you'll be right back where you started without me."
I could tell her that I don't want to be different anymore. I could tell her that she made me weak. I could tell her that every kiss makes me feel worse, that I went years without needing her, that she wasn't a benevolent force keeping me together, she was my sickness. She was the black dog I carried wherever I went. I could tell her that I want to get better, because I do, I want it more than anything in the world. I dream about being able to respond to "How are you" with a resounding "Fantastic".
Instead, I take her hand, depress the snap on the handle, and slide my thumb upwards until the blade clicks into place. The blade-Leigh-kisses me down the length of my arm. I feel it again. Cold, then warmth. Relief. Guilt. The thick carmine fluid comes rushing up to meet me. A clean cut, I note, feeling a thousand miles away.
"See?", she breathes, adopting a tender note in her voice. "You're okay now. You don't want to give this up."
I'm like a leaf in the breeze. No control. No destination. I move physically, but that's about it. And that's okay. I'm content to ride the current.
Leigh's wrong about me. She doesn't feel good, not in any substantial way. But she keeps me even. Level. As long as she's with me, I won't be happy, sure.
But I won't be sad either.