We Can Build You
Was it so wrong to want to live? Her father had always told her that she must never be ashamed to ask for help, that there was nothing wrong in depending on others when your strength failed you as long as you were prepared to lend your strength to them during their own moments of doubt. She had believed that, ever since childhood, she had believed that, holding onto it even as the boy she loved had turned his back upon her, even as he had pushed her away.
A smile touched her lips, the blood welling up in her throat. But he had come around, hadn't he? After all, her feelings had reached him, hadn't they? She reached up, her gloved hands, the white tips of her fingers, the black steel of his mask.
All the doctors, all the specialists, all the dieticians, all the therapists, all the consultations, in the end it had only been Shocker that had been there to lend strength when she faltered—Shocker and Haruhiko.
"Don't move," he said, his voice breaking, the tremble of his grasp as she lay in his arms reaching through the armour, as if the two of them were naked once more. "They can save you, they can fix you."
She kept smiling, the blood spilling down her chin. She kept smiling because she wanted to believe him, she wanted to make him happy, to agree with him, to tell him that yes, she could be rebuilt, she could be healed as once she had been before, but she knew it was not true. This time, there would be no coming back, this time, the wound dealt her was more severe than the illness that had claimed her youth—this one would claim her life.
The blood formed bubbles in her mouth as she tried to speak, her teeth dyed red.
"I-I know," she lied.
In youth, the sickness had excluded her from so much, her bloated body wasting away in the shade of her hospital room whilst outside the summer breeze carried the sound of girls at play, girls her own age laughing, and joking, and falling in love. She wanted to believe that she could fall in love also, she wanted to believe that even with a body like hers, she could feel the heartbeat of another thunder in time with hers. She had wanted to live, to love, she had wanted so much to be better that it had only made her worse.
In the hospital, they weighed her every day. In the hospital, they monitored her diet, they took notes on every little thing she slipped between her lips, they watched her around sharp corners, sharp edges, their attention forever on her, the shape of her, growing thinner and thinner with each passing moment, forever holding their gaze.
Never thin enough though, she told herself. Never perfect, never enough of a girl, never like those girls outside who laughed, and joked, and fell in love. Then had come Haruhiko, sick like she was, so thin they could have been twins, his chest as sunken as her own. It had made sense that he had rejected her, it had been what she had expected, that had been why she had done these things in secret. After all what was she, imperfect, scarred by acne, her voice too deep, each footprint too heavy. Of course, he had rejected her, of course, he had turned away from her.
Then had come that night, the moment when, as she reached past him to place flowers by his bed, he had reached back for her, a firm grip upon her wrist, a fierce gaze in his unhappy eyes. That had been love, she told herself, and though he did not know it at the time, over the coming months, the half-year of hospital white and paper-thin sheets, she wore him down.
Now here she was again, held in his arms, looking up at him, only this time, she could not read his expression, only this time, she could not see his eyes.
A momentary thrill of fear, a dangerous stirring of regret. No, she told herself, chiding her childishness. No regrets, no apologies. In the time granted her, she had lived the life Shocker had given her to the fullest; in the short time before she had felt the weight of that boot on her chest, the Rider Kick that had shattered her ribs and pierced both her heart and her lungs, she had danced, and sung, and lived, and loved. Yes, she had loved, most importantly, she had loved.
The blood welled in her throat, running out from between her lips. How fitting that she was dying from a pierced heart, how fitting that she was drowning as she gazed up at him, at the boy she loved, and even if it was not his face, she told herself, it was the face that Shocker had given him, and she loved that as much as she loved him.
"They can fix you," came his voice once more, "don't worry, they can fix you."
Her sight grew dim, the image of him swimming away from her.
Ah, my love, she thought, but I'm no longer broken.