Trigger Warning - Self Harm/Depression

"I love you too Santana"

Dani's POV

I'm warm, and safe. Santana's arms around me relax me but I don't get it. I'm not feeling happy; I guess you can't just flip a switch on your emotions. Or maybe it's something else; maybe I need to tell her about everything. My family, Becca, everything that broke me. I move gently out of her arms and get out of bed. Glancing back I see that she's still asleep, probably tired after spending all night awake. I tiptoe to the kitchen and turn on the light. Flipping the switch on the kettle I start my scavenger hunt through the few cupboards in my small kitchen. It almost makes the bile rise in my throat, it does disgust me the way I treat myself. When I can't find any food for love nor money, if I can't look after myself am I ever going to be able to look after San?

Pushing air through my teeth I pull two mugs out of the bare space, scrounging half a coffee can and some milk from the empty abyss of my cupboards and fridge. My hands settle into the familiar morning routine but I can't help my eyes from wandering to the patterns adorning my arms. Fuck fuck fuck fuck, how the fuck am I meant to do this? Too bad courage doesn't come the way coffee does. Instant.

Walking over to the bedroom I leave the mugs on the bedside table. Her hair is spread over her face, breathing slowly and softly in the most adorable way. Maybe there is instant courage, love. I need to tell her, I need her to know. Setting down the mugs I move to get the box. Its haphazardly shoved under the sofa with a blade missing. Photos, letters and a load of crap I should've thrown out years ago, these mix with the glinting metal in the battered brown shoebox. Secrets and memories in a box I shouldn't have dragged around with me for this long.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Coffee drained, Santana and I sit cross legged on the bed facing each other.

"Dani. What's in the box?"

I snap out of the dull emptiness occupying my head for the moments we had been sat there for. My mouth is dry and I can't summon whole words, only choke out syllables. Starts of sentences never to be finished only left in the air between us. With no words left to attempt I simply lift the old dented lid and place it aside. I sorted through the box while Santana woke up so I'm not going to slice my hand when I reach in for the stack of photos.

I lead her through them, my childhood. Backgrounds and seasons and other people changing around me, I explain my family. My parents both still alive but refusing to communicate with their own daughter since they realised she isn't straight. I talk about how I grew up with no siblings to play with and in the absence of social skills I had few friends. But I talk about how I wasn't bullied as a child, I was simply ignored.

This isn't a sob story, I don't have the reasons for my sadness hidden within these photos, there are no secrets and hallowing scars that my depression lives within. My parents weren't poor, I had a good childhood. I had no friends but I wasn't particularly lonely. This is where part of my guilt lies though. There are a million people with every right to feel like I do but I do not have this luxury, my emotions control me simply because they can.

I am not a damaged abused child and in short and unelaborate ways I tell this to the girl opposite me. The girl whose eyes darken as I show her the first pictures of me in NYC. Becca by my side in every photo, protective hands holding me into prize position. There are many photos; I was a trophy for her, nothing more…except perhaps a sexual release. These are the photos that make my blood run cold through my veins; the photos that make tears drip down my face and these are the photos that make Santana speak for the first time in over an hour.

"Who is that woman?"

So this is another short chapter but I actually have an idea of where this is leading so it shouldn't take too long to get the next chapter up.