Warning: Contains self harm

Helena Wells confuses you.

Three days after meeting you, she announced;

"I am falling for you."

Your answer;

"I think you're confused."

And to that, she replied, "I know confusion and this is not it—I can no longer feel the ground underneath me and I am not flying, am I? So I must be falling."

You only imagine how that feels like and already your hands are itching for something sharp.

(Something blunt works too, but it takes longer for the pain to arrive.)

But she said it with an easy smile, like there is no other truth in this world that is truer than it.

You thought her vision may be blurred by her curiosity.

You excite her in the way physicists are excited by the so called God Particle that is so damned hard to find. You are an unknown in a messy equation but instead of moving on to a better, more elegant models than you, she spends a great deal of resources to search for the missing piece of a puzzle of a picture of nonsensical blotches of paint put together by a toddler.

That was what you thought—that she could only throw heavy words like 'love' to you because she hasn't seen the whole picture.

You were certain that when she does, she would run for the hills.

But she confuses you again.

As expected, shock and pity filled her eyes.

You look down, waiting for the sound of quickly fading footsteps but it doesn't come. So you wait for the weak apology and the condescending plea. Those don't come either.

No, she asks you to sit and reaches for your thigh before looking up again when you flinch, remembering that it isn't her body but yours.

"May I?"

You nod, possibly too embarrassed by your state of undress, with only a towel covering your body and your dirty little secrets, to think of another reply.

She traces the map you've etched on your skin.

"Do you know the story of the girl who could travel between two worlds?"

You shake your head, this time too embarrassed to be other than honest.

"The second world looks quite like this."

She gently grazes two lines you drew when your father chastised you for not getting a perfect mark while praising Tracy for getting a B.

"This is the River of Snakes. Not a good place to swim. Even a quick dip of a toe will kill you but the girl cools off in the river after a long day. The snakes do bite her but she somehow developed an immunity towards their poison."

Then she moves on to a collection of random dots you doodled with a safety pin.

"This is the Vulture's Desert. It is where the monsters throw their leftovers. If you walk through this desert, you have to keep moving or the vultures will think that you are a corpse."

When her eyes drop to the next destination, she lifts her fingers from your thigh. It is a recent sketch so it appears coarse and is still quite red.

"And that," she only points—she doesn't touch it, "is the Valley of Darkness where the Demon King resides. The girl has many scars from the countless battles she has had with the vicious creatures from this world, but most of the scars came from this valley. She never won a single battle with the Demon King."

"So why does she keep fighting him?"

"Because," she says, resting her hand on your knee, "even though she was born in the first world, the second world feels more like home to her. In that world, she is a brave strong warrior instead of the unremarkable girl she is in the other one. She can't accept her constant defeat to the Demon King as it makes her feel weak. But—"

She hesitates. You can feel a slight tremor of uncertainty in her hand. It is the first time you've witnessed her being less than complacent.

"But," she tries again, "what she never realized is that this persistence is a much greater display of her strength than any victory she will ever achieve."

Finally, she meets your eyes and tries to smile—a reassurance for you but maybe for herself too—but her lips twitch.

"I'd rather think it's a fair maiden she is fighting for," you say. Her anxiety has somehow negated yours.

She heaves a sigh, or laughter.

"Oh, but she has already won her."

The red returns to your cheeks.

"Really? I have a hard time believing a beautiful maiden wanting a fallen knight."

"Really," she says with her usual ease. It seems that some fraction of her confidence has been restored.

You still don't understand how she could say that but you can feel the ground underneath you slowly disappearing and—

And for some reason, it isn't making your scars itch.

.