Tori

I freeze because I've never gotten caught before. I just stay on the ground, my wrist raised and a blade in my hands. I don't think I'm breathing. I analyze his behavior trying to predict what he's going to do next, whatever that might be. Although he's just… He's just looking at me, not saying anything, not doing anything, and it's torturous. My heart feels tight and small, so heavy and dense.

He's probably going to leave, and forget I ever existed. That would be the smartest move on his part, free himself from my being. Maybe this is how everything ends, he's leaving and I'm going to be alone, and…

"Fuck." He says, and I recoil on the floor out of reflex, hoping somehow I would disappear. He walks towards me, and gets down to the floor, sitting in front of me. He raises his hands, holds my shaky right hand by my wrist, while taking away the blade. I look at his sad, sad eyes. I shouldn't put him through this, he doesn't deserve it. He takes a deep breath, and breaking my gaze he get back up. I bring my right hand to my chest, but the left one is bleeding, and it doesn't even hurt. It feels like it doesn't belong, shouldn't be there, I… I shouldn't have done it, I'm so stupid.

He sits down next to me, on my left. He holds my left arm very gently, and I can't help but burst into tears. "I'm so sorry." I say, my head falling down to my chest. I feel my teeth chattering, and I wish I would just somehow lose consciousness.

He cleans my cut with wet toilet paper, and it takes seconds for the blood flow to stop. He wraps his arm around me, and takes my left hand raising it up. He kisses my palm, and the edge of my wrist. I cry. He brings his arm down to my legs, and brings them up to his lap, curled against his torso. I shrink into him, my head buried in his chest, arms gripping his shirt.
"It's okay." He says, tightening his grip around me. "It's okay, Tor."

He holds me, and he doesn't let go until my crying stops and I pull away. And even then he doesn't move, waiting to see how I proceed. I sit in front of him, still on the bathroom floor. I realize the gripping of his shirt was too much pressure on my wrist, so it's bleeding again. "Shit…" I say, staring at his chest. "I stained your shirt."

He looks down, finding a small blood stain on his chest. "It's fine."

"No, no it's not. Nothing about this is fine."

He nods, resting his back against the tile wall, he brings his elbows up and rest them over his knees. One of his hands covering half of his face. He looks exhausted, drawn out and hopeless. He looks like me.

I get up, and walk over to the sink. I hide from the mirror as I wash my wrist again, and search for a Band-Aid box on my cabinet. I take it, and offer him my hand. He takes it, getting up. We walk back inside my room, and sit on the edge of my bed. I turn on my nightlight, and raise my wrist again. "I'll do it." He says, taking the box from my hands. He puts it on, and leaves the wrapping on the bed. He holds my hand, intertwining our fingers together. I lie down on my back, bringing him with me. "Tor?"

It's easier to talk staring at the ceiling. "Yeah?"

"Try to explain, please."

I swallow thick air. "I just… It's the only way I know how to handle things. When I feel bad I disappear, I'm nothing and doing that makes me feel…" I rub my thumb against his index finger, trying to comfort him in any way that I can. "I do it, because it's the lesser of two evils. It's what keeps me alive."

I feel tears running down my cheeks again. "How long have you been doing it?"

"Three years."

He rolls over, hovering above me. "Have you tried getting help?"

I chuckle, rolling my eyes. "Have you seen my family? They are very against the idea mental disorders." I raise my hands up to his shoulders. "They would probably force me into an institution, or pretend like I'm fine just to keep pretending that I'm as perfect as the day I was born."

He kisses me soft, and brief. And I wrap my arms around him pulling him down to me. He lays his head next to mine, his body weight falling slightly over me. I love him, and I'm putting him through this. Forcing him to question everything that I myself question daily, forcing him to stay in this dark cloud that follows me. I continue to cry.

Beck

I wake up, and find Tori passed out beside me. I wonder how early it must be for her to still be asleep. I sit up as carefully as I can, trying to leave her with a few more minutes of peace. Yesterday is still printed on my brain, and I'm pretty sure the image of her bleeding on the floor will haunt me for a long time. She was so helpless. While I thought things were better, she… I don't understand how she doesn't see how amazing she is, how much she deserves to be happy. It's nonsense, she shouldn't punish herself because of how her family and everyone else treats her.

I find my phone buried among the sheets, and pick it up. I turn on the screen, and my first thought is confusion. It's almost noon, and she hasn't yet woken up. I don't know whether that's a bad, or good thing. I hope this means she was able to finally let go of her dark thoughts for a while, allowing her to sleep for longer. Maybe that's why she sleeps so little, to punish herself.

I grab my backpack and bring it to the bathroom, to keep to room quiet for her. I shut the door, and suddenly last night becomes more real than when I woke up. The blade is still over the sink, where I left it, stained with blood. Tori's blood.

I take a deep breath, and take the blade. I wrap it in toilet paper, and place it inside my bag. I know she probably has many others, but it wouldn't feel right to leave this one around for her to be tempted by it. Or feel bad that I saw, or… Whatever she feels that forces her to do it.

I brush my teeth, and tie my hair up before sitting down on the floor. I get my laptop, and the clock shocks me. It's already after ten AM, and she's still sleeping. I push the bathroom door open, and stare at her. She's sleeping on her back, one arm over her stomach and the other resting above her head. I stare at her chest, just to be sure that's she's breathing. Her chest goes up and down steadily, and I turn back to my laptop with a little more ease.

I want to google search self-harm, cutting, and depression. I just want to find something, anything that can help me understand why she does it. Even more so, how to stop her from doing it again. She refuses to ask a professional for help, so I have to do something. I don't know what yet, but I will find out, I have to. Though I don't think it's a good idea to search all of this here, I don't want her waking up and risk her seeing the research. Instead I open our project file, with all of our song drafts.

I try to piece several of our verses together, but nothing fits right. None of it really sounds genuine, our lyrics are too polished and too fake. Written for other people to enjoy it, not for us. What's the point of presenting something to show the world who you are, when none of your words are genuine. Sikowitz is too smart to believe in what we are writing. I read it through, and delete everything that sounds bad, or forced. We were writing a song based on the timeline of our relationship, but the parts that we can talk about in a classroom are too short, and boring for us to present. The two of us…

I start to type down anything that comes to mind, worrying about all of it coming together later. I figure writing about Tori and I, why we are together and why we love each other might be a good way to get inspired. I've never written a song before, so I don't really know what the proper way to write a song is. However this weird essay-like text that I'm writing already feels better than what we had before.

I feel a hand on top of my head, and I look up, startled. "Good morning." She says, with a smile. "I don't know if you're familiar to chairs, but they are things you can sit on, instead of the floor."

"I didn't want to risk waking you up." She walks over to the sink, and takes her toothbrush. She's only wearing T-shirt and panties, and it just adds to the list of reasons of why I love spending mornings with her. "It's eleven fifteen."

She turns around with eyes wide, and an agape mouth full of toothpaste, which makes me laugh. I turn the laptop towards her and point at the clock. She nods her head, and spits on the sink. "I don't believe you." She walks back in her room, probably to check the time again. "What?!"

I follow her, and find her staring down at her phone, confused. I place the laptop down on the bed, and sit beside her. "Hey, sleeping beauty."

She turns her head to me with a smirk on her perfect lips. "While you slept for a hundred hours, I wrote a bunch of stuff for our project."

"Let me see." I give her the laptop, and she reads it through. "Can I change a few things?"

"Go ahead." She types eagerly, smiling ever so often. I keep up as she pieces some things together, arranges what makes sense and what doesn't. The difference between our artistic minds become evident in moments like these, she can see a song within my ramble of a text. I on the other hand see movie shots, places and soundtrack. We talked about making a short film, but it take much more effort and we would probably not get it done considering our inability to focus for a long time.

"I think we finally have something decent." She says, motioning at the screen.

I'd give up forever to touch you
Cause I know that you will help me somehow
Together we are the closest to heaven that we will ever be
And I don't want to go home now

I finish reading the first verse, and smile. "We have a verse!" She nods, putting my laptop aside. I see it, the bad-aid over her cut. For a second I forgot that was an issue.

"Don't worry about it." She tilts my head up, and kisses me. "I'm okay."

I nod, kissing her back. Although I don't believe her, I can't help but think about what she told me. 'It's the lesser of two evils'. I want to forget about this, pretend that I don't know what the alternative to cutting is.

I pull away, and look at her. I swear she looks happy, really happy. "I love you."

"I love you too, in spite of your roof complex.


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- KIRIBATI