Drowning in Regret

(Day 36: Sunday Midday)

Mal sits down on the stone and leans her back against the pillar of the ruin, as she keeps the sketchpad upright against her legs. She draws the image she remembers, the single moment of Audrey she can recall from the night before. How she ever thought they were only talking, she doesn't know. She draws the frown, shades the disheveled hair, and colors in those fearful eyes. In the end what is left is the perfect image of a victim, someone scared and unable to move or comprehend what's happening. She had no idea what she was up against.

Mal stares at the portrait for what seems like minutes, before she sets it down and stares out at the water. It's such a lovely and yet destructive thing, really. How the water glistens and the sun casts it's light through the trees, and yet the water is deep, filled with sandpits and leg-tangling seaweed, the cliff overseeing it all. The cliff. It's relatively high up, and the journey there alone would be potentially dangerous. Goodness knows I wouldn't be able to swim across. However, she wonders what it would be like, what Ben must have seen and felt as he stood on top of the world, nothing below but the potential embrace of death. Would things look different from above? What kind of feeling would she receive as she crashed below? She just has to know, and so she stands and then she walks.

It's nothing but her and her thoughts as she makes her way through the greenery. She remembers Evie's silence, she recalls Audrey's fear, and thinking further into it she remembers Ben mimicking that fear when he came to see her. When he found me and stopped me. He didn't come to see her. That was just her way of filling in the blanks. No. She knows now that he had been there out of fear of what she would do, probably ashamed to even be seen with her.

She looks down at the water, as she reaches the edge. It looks more solid from above somehow, like if she were to jump that she'd be falling onto asphalt, and yet the water is so much clearer. She can see everything from up here: the sand and rocks, the weeds and tiny fish, and the crabs and clams. There's an entire world down there, and yet when she looks back up and stares off down the sunlit ravine, she doesn't feel any more enlightened. No. It may even be the opposite. As far as she's concerned, there's nothing here, nothing but her, this cliff, and the water beneath, and she takes a step as she stares down below. It looks a lot higher up from here than it did from below, and she can feel her heart beat faster at the prospect of falling from here. She takes a deep, unsettling breath, as she inches closer and shuts her eyes; however, when she feels herself slip from the edge a tight grasp pulls her back and turns her around. She opens her eyes and is met with his wide ones, "Ben."

He frowns, "What were you doing?"

Mal glances back over her shoulder, "I just wanted to see what it was like."

"You shouldn't have been up here. You almost fell. You could have drowned." She looks back at him but fails to speak, before she watches the realization fill his expression. "But that was your intention, wasn't it? You wanted to drown."

It takes a moment for Mal to respond, "How did you find me?"

He looks down and slowly releases his hand from her arm, as he notices he had still held that tight grip. "Evie called me. She was worried." He looks back up at her, "When we realized you had left your phone I started to think of where you'd have gone to, a place where you may have felt safe." He attempts to smile, but it's unable to override his concern. "You haven't been here very long. It wasn't hard to figure out." She still doesn't speak and so he's left to take in her appearance before moving in to hug her, "I'm so glad you're okay." but she doesn't hug back.

When he lets go she questions, "Are you?"

"Yeah. Of course." He tenses a smile, "You're my girlfriend. Of course I'm glad to know you're okay."

"Even after what happened last night?" Mal continues to frown.

Ben's silent for a minute, as he seems to be remembering what she had referred to, "That wasn't you." He looks her in the eyes, "It was an accident. I know that."

"An accident?" Mal raises her eyebrows. "Is that really what you would call it?"

"No," Ben answers. "It's what we would call it." He glances down for a mere second, "My family has a very understanding viewpoint about these kinds of things." Mal doesn't speak, so he takes her hand, "Come on. Let's get you down from here." He looks around, "How did you get up here anyway?"

Mal shrugs, "Beats me."

He nods once, "Come on. I'll help you get back."

After they find a path down to the ground Ben helps Mal across the shortest distance of water they can find, and they soon make their way back to the ruin where Mal sits down on the concrete and watches as Ben shakes himself dry, "Why do you do that?"

"Why do I do what?" he asks as he sits down near her.

Mal shakes her head and almost smiles, "Never mind." before she reaches for the drawing she had made earlier.

Ben leans in to see it, "That's Audrey."

"It's just about all I remember," Mal tiredly comments as she stares down at it. "She looks so scared." She gazes up at Ben, "Did I scare you?"

He shakes his head, "No. Mostly, I was just confused."

Mal looks down at the picture again, "I don't know what to do."

"You should apologize."

Mal looks back up at him, "You said you thought it was an accident."

"Yeah." Ben reasons, "But that doesn't mean no one got hurt."

She glances back down, "I know." before setting the sketchpad aside.

He looks at her intently, "How are you feeling?"

Mal turns her head back up, "Tired." before she meets his and admits it. "Empty. Just tired and empty."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Mal shakes her head, before she moves closer to him and lies down so that her head rests on his leg. He partly smiles, "What are you doing?"

She moves her head back-and-forth as she gets comfortable, "You're a pillow now." He inwardly laughs, and after a minute of quiet he eyes the drawing pad and reaches for it. "Hey. That's mine."

He smiles, "Don't worry. I'll keep it safe for you." before he feels her relax again and he goes through the pictures. Apparently Audrey wasn't the only one she could recall perfectly from memory. Aside from that drawing, there are plenty of pictures of him and Evie in here as well, along with the occasional sketch of some random scenes or objects. The further back he goes the more different they become, and it doesn't take long for him to realize these are images of the island and its people. The scenes are darker and the objects in them are more frightening, weapons of all kinds shown in nearly every picture. He shakes his head, knowing that although it may seem frightening to him, to Mal it was nothing other than just her home. He closes the sketchbook and sets it aside, before he lays his hand on Mal's arm and she falls asleep.

- No. He did not just sit like that for three hours. You can kind of assume that he texted Evie to let her know that Mal was okay... On a side note, when I first thought of this chapter the only part of it I had planned was where Ben would guide Mal back down from the cliff and that as he did so there would be a moment where she'd imagine his hand turned into a hook; however, after I forgot about that scene and wrote this, I soon realized she probably wouldn't have trusted him enough to sleep next to him had she compared him to Hook like that (whether there had been a trigger and she thought about it intentionally or not). So, that lovely seen is just going to have to fade into oblivion, unless, of course, I can find a better place to put it, because this scene where she's all worn out and just falls asleep like that is just too calming and nice to throw away (this fanfic needs some good moments too, you know).

- Now! All I need to do is to get myself to write the next stupid chapter. It's just a simple... or not so simple dinner with Ben's parents... I just— it should be easy to write, right? *shakes head* I don't know... I probably should have written it back when I was thinking about it, when I was writing the chapter from about four chapters ago. *nods* Yep. *shakes head again* I'm never going to learn, am I?