Author's Note: Hey All! I'm still working (slowly) on Chief Bo, but as I was scrolling through some of my writing files, I came across this one that I finished awhile back. It is a tough piece for many to read, so please take this as a reissued trigger warning from the first two chapters. It's a huge challenge for me to write this material, but challenges make for the growth of a writer, right? Thanks for stretching and opening your minds with this one...
xxxx
Initial recognition of consciousness came with a sudden cough. Lauren's first two breaths burned as she choked out stale air, only to be replaced with more stale air scraping down her throat. Her eyes watered immediately despite remaining tightly closed; the tears soaking her eye lashes before trickling down her cheeks. She squeezed her eyes shut tighter, fearful to open them and gain visual realization of her surroundings. Doing so would confirm what she already knew: that she had allowed weakness to triumph so that a pleasurable pain would silence her demons once again.
Lauren's chest tightened as she rolled slightly to her side. A loud groan forced its way across her lips, echoing off the floor and walls surrounding her. Her tear-soaked cheek pressed against the cold concrete beneath her. She was aware that she was lying down, despite her head swirling in circles like the worst hangover combined with the worst carnival ride in the history of her experience.
Lauren's right hand immediately slid across her ribs, cradling her own battered chest as the pain throbbed through muscles, nerves and the raw skin meant to protect what lie underneath. As her hand traveled over the curve of her side, Lauren's fingers met the cold, damp cotton shirt shrouding the evidence of her defeat. The edges of the wet spots had begun to dry and had slightly stiffened the fabric, and Lauren knew those wet spots housed the blood that seeped from her very own wounds. What she didn't know was how the shirt found its way back onto her body, or who had put it there.
Another cough irritated her dry throat, but that irritation was overshadowed by the searing pain of her expanded lungs forcing her chest outward, tugging at her already torn skin. A sharp inhale of air pushed her chest outward, far enough that a partially closed chest laceration split open again. Warm blood trickled forth and soaked through the shirt, spreading under Lauren's palm. The heat of the blood contrasted greatly to the shivering cold temperature otherwise felt in her extremities, but it served a brutal reminder that her body was still very much alive in an imitation tomb of infinite torment.
Embarrassment flushed Lauren's cheeks red, not that anyone was present to see it. She knew she was alone, crumpled and on the verge of sobbing on a cold floor in a seedy, unkempt basement. Even with her eyes still closed, Lauren's other senses were acutely aware of her surroundings. She smelled the unfortunate familiar damp scent that periodically plagued her nightmares over the past several months. The lack of sound, save for her own movements, reminded Lauren of the isolated depths of this room, and even the rigid surface of the concrete floor beneath her hummed a familiar tune she had hoped to never visit again.
The tears fell quickly, and despite the residual aches across her chest and back, Lauren's cries erupted and her chest heaved. She forced herself into a sitting position, finding her center of gravity in hopes to calm her spinning mind. She continuously cried, a painful and deep rooted cry that sprung from the center of her fractured soul.
The immediacy of opening her eyes was delayed quite some time as Lauren battled the physical repercussions of the moment. She diverted focus to finding a less painful position, shifting this way and that until merely being conscious did not inflict such intense agony. But if anything ached beyond tolerable, it was Lauren's heart as her mind tried to make sense of the present.
Finally opening her eyes, Lauren absorbed the damage done. Initially, the tears fogged over the blonde's view until a quick succession of blinks brought her vision temporarily in to focus. Her gaze immediately caught the cinder block walls in sight, appearing just as they had been before she lost consciousness. The faint glow of light from a hazardously wired lamp cast a yellow tint across the floor and walls. Speckles of paint chips dotted the already dirty floor where the edges met those equally as dirty walls. A single wooden chair sat near the center of the room, and just the sight of it turned Lauren's stomach worse than any illness she had ever experienced. The memory of how she had sat in that chair, bound by request, was almost too much for her to bear.
Quickly shifting her view again, Lauren stared upon the lone window in the room. It was situated high on the wall and close to the ceiling, covered with a piece of black cloth intended to shroud the world from this hidden realm. Such irony that she, and so many others, came here to escape that outside world instead.
Lauren squeezed her eyes closed, calming her stomach from the threat of retching its contents. Upon reopening her eyes, a few tools of the trade caught her attention. They were tossed in a torn cardboard box with a filthy, stained towel draped over its corner. She forced her mind from formulating too many thoughts on the matter, knowing it could easily tip her over the edge from queasy to full blown vomiting.
Lauren looked at her bare feet and trailed her line of sight up over her bare legs. The skin was nothing more than dusted with bits of dirt she picked up from the floor. She wiped her eyes with her hand, clearing tears that were quickly replaced by others. Through blurred vision she scanned higher yet. Lauren saw the amount of blood soaked into her shirt. The splotches had spread quite a bit and even merged into one another, covering more cotton than not.
Lauren felt her chest tighten further. Shame swept through her heart with a roaring determination. Her own conscience belittled her, laughing and pointing fingers at what she now deemed her most pathetic weakness. Such a devious and twisted life Lauren wished to escape, yet here she sat: unable to walk away from that which tortured her most.
It was brutal irony that Lauren filled the role of doctor, healing the bodies of others while she secretly absorbed wounds into her own. On any given day she was praised for saving a life, all the while she felt her grip on reality slip further and further away from living. Her smile was as brilliant as the happiest of souls and could easily fool the wisest. It was only in the privacy of her own home, or in this case, a filthy underground room, that she removed such an emotional mask and allowed a true vision of herself to be seen: broken and hopeless, waiting for some deliverance of fate to end her misery for good.
Carefully, Lauren slid her fingers over her ribs. She applied pressure and her own medical expertise to recognize the extent of damage inflicted. Her mind lost focus when a searing pain literally made her vision fade to black and yet she pushed on, repeating the process until she was certain the amount of broken ribs numbered less than those simply bruised.
Her cries continued, quieter now but very much present and in control of her emotions. Barely protected behind that broken rib cage was Lauren's crumpled heart. Months of fighting urges to revisit a physical escape evolved into this inability to overcome her needs. Defeat echoed through her mind. The long years of yesterday carried a mix of emotional absence with emotional torment; emotions where she would feel nothing and seek out penance simply to feel something. Truthfully, Lauren had considered it a safety net: one that spared her from one form of agony while inflicting another of revered appreciation. But these present feelings were completely different, and Lauren found no resolve in anything they provided.
As tears continued to fall and sobs provided a blanket of sounds filling her ears, Lauren's thoughts waffled between self-pity and fear. Despite not knowing how long she had remained in this room unconscious, Lauren had lost no memories of what led her here or what happened upon arrival. With acute detail, Lauren remembered that she had finally given in to her demons and made the call. She had left home discretely and had driven to this location. She had entered through the unmarked door and had paid for her services with the nameless female she had met one time prior. She remembered descending the long narrow stairwell, entering this dark and damp room, shedding her shirt and reveling in the harsh delivery of fresh marks now etched into her flesh. Lauren even recalled demanding an unending punishment while offering nothing but a cold stare to her false savior clothed in red leather perfectly matched to her brilliant red lipstick.
Her requests transcended those she had ever made in the past, traveling well past providing release and approaching a heightened level of danger. She had the broken ribs to prove it, but it was not the level of harm inflicted that troubled her most. What plagued Lauren's memory was that she had left home, she had left Bo, for nothing but this.
Lauren had left home without so much as leaving a note for the woman who had saved her seven months ago: a note for the woman who had been saving her every day since. It was in those seven months that Bo held Lauren through mornings filled with tears or nights raging with fits of anger. Bo took every bad moment with Lauren as willingly as she took the good. Bo had transformed her own life proudly, proving utter devotion to supporting Lauren through her own path of recovery. Bo offered her a new lease on life and Lauren had taken it, but in this moment, Lauren had spit it back out like the unwanted seeds from the most rotten of fruit.
Lauren's stomach turned. Her own selfish actions pushed her to dry heave, further irritating her scratchy throat. Her behavior was a slap in the face to the only woman who gave her a sense of worth and an iota of respect. Realization of such made her heart hurt more than any lash on her body. It removed all the power from Lauren's physical pain and in turn, made her emotional despair surge to near blinding agony.
Between dry heaves and cries, Lauren willingly absorbed the pain stirring inside her chest. She had tried to heal and conquer a patterned reality, and for months she had succeeded. But in the end, the attempted avoidance ended up creating a mixed emotion in Lauren that became more powerful than the lack of emotion she once held.
In the past, physical pain allowed Lauren's mind to escape the emotional void filling her world. And then Bo came along and filled that emotional void in a very unfamiliar light. It was a pleasant change as Lauren began to experience emotions that gave her hope and happiness. But the little progress she had made with Bo placed Lauren in a purgatory of emotion that she did not understand, and she certainly had no sense of how to control it.
What once was a life void of emotion had now become a life overwhelmed by it. Now, Lauren had her preferred wealth of physical injury, but it merely acted as a partner to the abundance of misunderstood emotion she simply could not digest properly.
Lauren wiped her eyes but the tears continued to fall. Her mind lost focus as her consciousness ebbed and flowed through waves of disorientation. In those moments of clarity, Lauren kept her thoughts trained on her history with Bo.
Yes, Bo marked Lauren in ways she would never forget. But their business agreement then morphed into more and in time, Bo had found ways to penetrate Lauren's emotional steel shell and provide hope in a muddy cloud of despair. But the process was slow and unforgiving. Lauren's life had always travelled one direction until that night seven months ago when she was quickly propelled in another. It was not two weeks past that point when she had that breakthrough moment with Bo when her journey had taken twists and turns she felt ill prepared for; directional shifts that drove her further into Bo's arms or shoving them aside. And while Lauren knew this path was one of a life-long travel without end, the emotional swings she had begun to experience back then mixed her need to feel something with a need to understand the love she had already begun to feel toward Bo.
It became a no win struggle. Lauren could not deny that her desires for emotional release always came about with the greatest ease through physical pain, but now her heart waged a war between welcoming some emotions while attempting to lock the door on others. There was no filter to decipher the differences though, and the emotional strain quickly became a daily presence that held Lauren captive in her own mind. Seven months of daily struggle, and it had all led to this.
Lauren pressed her hand further against her damp shirt, digging against a slash cut deep into her skin. The more pain she felt, the harder she pressed. The increase in physical pain was welcome but fruitless to stop her heart from breaking. In fact, Lauren pressed against her wounds with such force that most of them began to bleed again, but still the ache pounding in her chest muted all the rest.
The old Lauren would not even think about justifying the act of coming to this place based upon her personal desires, but the old Lauren was gone. Partially upright on the hard floor, this was a different Lauren. This was one whose heart had struggled with realization that her behavior impacted more than herself. Her decisions also impacted Bo, and she found no justification for disappearing on Bo with no regard for her feelings.
It was in this moment that fear struck Lauren to the core. She could not survive a day without Bo in her life, and her own decisions could be the very reason that she would never have Bo in her life again. Lauren's thoughts shifted so rapidly that her ability to reason was less than perfect. She jumped from one memory to the next, wondering how she ever first stepped foot on this path and wondering how to ever take another first step in the direction of the one she truly wanted to be with.
Years ago, her depression had become so tormented that Lauren sought physical experiences to mute her emotional pain; something that grew exponentially over the years. It was a lifelong quest that riddled her past with a mix of memories, most now intentionally forgotten. Despite moments when her best efforts to conquer those needs failed, for quite some time Lauren sought an alternative antidote to the poison she craved. Years of unending answers provided Lauren little hope, and nothing had ever catapulted Lauren to a road more traveled until several months ago, when Bo offered her another path: an unexpected and unfamiliar path they would simply journey together.
Unfortunately, Lauren's first relapse occurred a mere two weeks after her fated epiphany, when Bo appeared like a prophet before her and offered a proclamation of salvation for the rest of Lauren's days. Not two weeks following that night did Lauren beg Bo for one last session to satiate her uncontrollable need. Bo's one and only response was no. In fact, Bo's adamant refusal sent Lauren running to the first half baked imposter in search of anything that would fulfill her desires; anything to silence her demons.
It was on that search that Lauren first discovered this space and the unconventional, severe practices housed within. Her visit was not planned nor thought out in detail. Instead, her initial introduction to this controlling sadist was spontaneous, brief, and concise. Lauren paid dearly for that abbreviated session. She found that money really could buy anything, even her own darkest requests spewed amidst tears in a moment of desperation.
That session, several months ago now, began far quicker than she could even comprehend to request it to end. The relief was nothing like Bo had given her. The typical, gentle caring delivery was replaced with nothing but brutal disconnection. It was far beyond what Lauren had craved, but it was an option without delay.
Lauren had willingly accepted it with disgust.
And all those months ago, hours passed after that first relapse before Lauren had barely found the strength to leave that dark, dirty space. Upon Lauren's return home with a confession of her actions, the emotions and words Bo expressed caused Lauren a type of pain she never wished to feel again. It was a type of pain that not even the most physical agony could make her forget. Emotionally, apologetic behaviors sprung forth as Lauren witnessed the impact her relapse had on Bo. Physical healing would be a lengthy process but paled in comparison to the devastation rattled inside her chest as she stared upon Bo's hidden tears. Ever since, Lauren had made a conscious effort to avoid this space forever.
But just as the first relapse had occurred, there was now a second.
That fear of losing Bo for good pulled forth a self-loathing storm to the forefront. Lauren grappled with her physical pain to find her footing and force herself to a standing position. Every muscle burning in her body, further propelled the rising disgust within. Her hands grabbed her shirt hem and yanked the wet cloth over her head. With anger, she threw it aside as she glared upon the marks of her sins. Through countless tears and cries, Lauren screamed. She paced the small room, taking a torn discarded rope from the floor into her hands and throwing it against the wall. With her foot, she shoved the sole chair with the wobbly leg, sending it crashing to the floor. She slid her bare hands over bloody open wounds, swallowing each ridge of raised skin as a symbol of her failure.
Not a few minutes into her private tirade and Lauren's body weakened. Physically she had absorbed a great deal of pain, and despite it occurring at her own request, her body could only withstand so much. Her left leg weakened and she lost her balance, bouncing into the wall before sliding to the floor. Curled into a ball, Lauren simply rolled to her side and lay like a child. She felt nothing but worthless, so beneath value that she didn't even care to move from this spot. She fathomed she could die in that space and perhaps it would just make everyone's lives better. The anguish only grew, forcing her already fragile state beyond anything her body could handle. Not more than a minute more and the grief had overcome her as Lauren returned to an unconscious state.
xxxxxx
A groggy mind carried power to mutate reality. It was this thought that confused Lauren as she felt a gentle touch across her cheek. She listened to the sound of her own struggled breathing. Only a handful of seconds passed before her mind forced memories to return; memories that turned her stomach into a knot while simultaneously pushing her heart rate higher. Her delirium pushed several thoughts through her mind: that whatever, or whomever, touched her cheek was an angel, or a devil, guiding her to an eternal damnation; that her heart beat ticked closer to an explosion in her chest, like a time bomb filled the void within and just a matter of time would end it; that the muffled voices surrounding her sounded like a choir sending her off.
Lauren could have lived in that delirium for an unending amount of time, but that bubble was shattered when her now conscious mind recognized one voice out of them all.
"I gotcha hon. I gotcha."
Sobs burst forth. Lauren's emotions ran full steam toward a vertical cliff. There were no brakes to stop the tears or the vocalized cries accompanying her awareness of Bo's voice. Lauren's heart strained inside her chest, torn between understanding the love she felt for Bo and the sadness she felt for a lifetime. The dichotomy was cruel and torturous. How could Lauren ever move beyond the repetition of this situation? The only answer lie in those softly spoken words delivered from Bo's lips to Lauren's ears, or perhaps, lie in the opposite.
Weary and sore, Lauren barely used her strength to stand as Bo shouldered most of her weight. Her weak arms dangled to her sides as Bo all but bear hugged her as she literally picked Lauren off the floor. The grip mixed the pain of searing wounds with the comfort of being in Bo's arms again. Tormented and at a loss for words, Lauren simply cried. She rested her forehead on Bo's shoulder as streams of tears saturated Bo's shirt.
There was a lull in Bo's whispered words to calm her. The quiet, soothing sounds slowed as Lauren's cries did. Countless, agonizing minutes of heart break were tempered by the warm, loving arms of the only woman who possessed the power to mend those breaks. But the doubt of Bo's willingness to endure this horrendous treatment frightened Lauren. After all, why would Bo ever stay with her after this? Why would Lauren ever deserve someone like Bo?
The fear of loss elevated Lauren's adrenaline again, enough that the blonde used all her strength to wrap her arms around Bo. The searing pain of seeping wounds across her upper back pulled tight as she squeezed Bo. Lauren held her firmly, knowing that any release of her grip could be the last.
"I have a clean shirt for you in my bag, Lauren. Let's get that on you and let's go home."
Bo's tone remained steady and even. Her words were whispered and polite, further inciting Lauren's fear that Bo had not fully realized the depth of Lauren's missteps that night. Lauren did not reply or release her hold. She clung to Bo because her life depended on it. Her wounds ached to maddening levels but Lauren kept her grasp as tight as her muscles allowed. She would shed her skin completely if it meant keeping Bo in her arms.
It took some convincing and patience, but Bo aided Lauren with dressing in a clean shirt and getting her up the stairs. No further words were spoken vocally, but the glares Bo directed to the woman dressed in red leather spoke volumes of promises. There was not a soul upon this earth that could not hear Bo's unspoken threats, and everyone knew that stranger would never allow Lauren to enter this tomb every again.
One step outside the heavy external door and the cool night air burned through Lauren's shirt and seared into her wounds. She gritted her teeth from the pain as her eyes watered without fail. Torn between offering a lifetime of apologies and a lifetime of thanks, Lauren remained silent. Nothing she could say would elevate her poor judgment to acceptable. Nothing she could do would take away her betrayal and failure. Words would do nothing to correct her unforgivable actions. And so without saying anything, Lauren slid into the passenger seat of the car. The fresh wounds had already begun to mark the clean shirt she now wore, and the fresh wounds she inflicted into Bo's heart were beginning to make their presence known at an equally as fast pace.
Bo stood outside the car, leaning on the open doorframe while staring at Lauren inside the car. The blonde recognized the fear in Bo's eyes; strangely it overshadowed the hurt and anger. Lauren swallowed hard as she kept eye contact with Bo, watching the brunette's attempted shield of emotions fail. Bo leaned across Lauren and safely buckled her in. She carefully held the belt at bay to avoid any additional discomfort as it slid across Lauren's chest. Only gently did she then lower it against Lauren's already marked shirt.
Lauren's hand grabbed Bo's as she still gripped the seat belt. The intensity of Lauren's grip matched the intensity of her gaze. This was more than a moment of Bo rescuing Lauren from another regression. This was heavier than an apology Lauren felt compelled to issue. And this was certainly more than the silence drowning them both.
Connectivity between Lauren and Bo started in that moment with a touch: the desperate hold of hands as if it were the only remaining decision between choosing life and eternal damnation. Lauren wished Bo could step into her soul and see the depth of her apology, but nothing she could say would ever fully express Lauren's realization that her relapse was the biggest mistake of her life.
xxxxxx
The impact of agony burned at the surface. Bo's resolve collapsed with her own tears and sobs, as white knuckles gripped the steering wheel while she navigated the vehicle up the driveway. The entire night of strength and anger folded as she was reduced to the sum of her emotions. Frazzled, crushed, and without direction, Bo threw the car into park and closed her eyes. A quick flick of her wrist shut down the humming engine, allowing her cries to echo inside the parked car now hidden within the garage. She leaned forward until her forehead touched the leather covered wheel, shaking her head this way and that as her mind came up with zero answers to the hundreds of questions flooding her mind.
She knew it would be hard. The path she had chosen was riddled with struggle, but this sadness overwhelmed her far beyond expectation. Her love for Lauren had grown from protective in nature to an eternal desire. Yet the very heart housed inside her chest now bled her pain with every beat, pushing her devastation further and further throughout her entire being.
Her hands wrapped around the steering wheel with a tighter grip as her sobs grew into wails of sadness. Bo heard Lauren's cries meld with her own but ignored them; her feelings of loss and betrayal conflicted with her wants and desires to fix the problem plaguing the moment. The strain inside her chest rivaled the tightest restraints she had ever applied, and the fragile state in which her heart now stood held very little chance to break free of the pain flooding her from the inside.
Without knowing details, Bo understood the depth of what had transpired to Lauren that night. The marks her lover shamefully wore exposed more acknowledgment of her relapse than Bo cared to realize, but the fact remained that Bo lived the opposite side of that realm for many years. Bo knew far too much about that world to pretend her thoughts were wrong, and she knew Lauren far too well to pretend it was a choice.
It wasn't a choice. Contrary to what many believe or what many would think, Lauren's actions that night were done out of desperation and despair. It was a need she felt compelled to fulfill and going without would cause more agony than the torture of knowing the pain she caused upon Bo. Strangely, that thought gave Bo a temporary reprieve from her sobs, allowing her to catch her breath as Lauren sat frozen in place by her side.
Neither Bo nor Lauren had physically moved since arriving home, and despite the literal temperature building within the car as they sat there in the dark garage, both women remained fixed in place as their minds and hearts began to look upon this detour in an already painful journey.
Bo's emotions flew from one corner of the spectrum to the next. The silence was welcome but the unknown made her yearn for answers. The sadness mixed with anger; tears mixed with vile words threatening to spill across her lips. Her heartache was beyond crushing and that triggered her emotions to swing violently between sadness and madness.
Fearful of her own potential, Bo shoved open the car door and exited the vehicle. She slammed it shut with a vengeance, absorbing the loud echo of the metal banging into metal as she maneuvered around the car and inside their home. Never once did Bo turn back until she reached the doorway, and only then did she give pause and a broken glance in Lauren's direction. Bo didn't have to wait long, and Lauren moved quickly from inside the car to inside their home, passing by Bo with her head lulled forward and her shaking hands draped wearily at her sides.
Bo closed the door and followed Lauren. Through the kitchen and across the living room they walked, until Lauren ascended the stairs while holding the railing with the little strength she had left. Bile rose up in Bo's throat as she stared upon Lauren's back and the faded pink and red marks now sprawled across the shirt she had only donned since thirty minutes prior. The representation of those wicked wounds snapped Bo's emotions at multiple levels. She felt weak in a sense that Lauren found strength to seek out her needs elsewhere. She felt betrayed in that those marks were freshly imprinted by another, and she felt ashamed that something originally responsible for bringing them together now pushed dangerously close toward separating them for good.
Bo took each step up the stairs slowly, digesting thoughts and emotions far to slow for the amount backed up in her heart. It was never supposed to be this way. Bo left the profession she had lived in so that she could walk a path with Lauren standing proudly at her side. She didn't change so that Lauren would not; she changed so that Lauren could change too. But perhaps that rationale was flawed, for here Bo stood: giving up everything she had built so that Lauren could simply take from another who offered what Bo offered no more.
The balance swayed in favor of madness, so much that Bo's jaw tightened and her grip on the railing nearly pulled the wooden bannister from the very wall of which it was anchored. Her anger soared. She took the remaining steps two at a time, walking quickly down the hall and returning to Lauren's presence inside their bedroom.
Unexpectedly, Bo slammed the door. It surprised Lauren enough to make her jump and turn to face Bo, her eyes carrying the fear of uncertainty mixed within the otherwise puffy and bloodshot hues. Bo reacted quickly as her steps guided her to Lauren. She grabbed Lauren's wrist and squeezed, tight enough that Lauren had no strength to fight her and simply buckled at Bo's feet.
Collapsing to her knees, Lauren gripped the edge of the bed for support while Bo tightened her hold on the blonde's wrist and tugged her back to upright. Through a minor stumble Lauren regained her footing, and only then did Bo's shift her grip from Lauren's wrist in favor of her shoulder. In fact, both hands gripped Lauren's shoulders with control teetering on the edge of violence. Bo felt her angry urges emanating from her entire being. Lauren closed her eyes, a signal she was willingly ready to accept any penance delivered by Bo's hand. It crushed Bo further, and Bo couldn't deny she felt a great need to release her own hurt somewhere; anywhere. It would be easy to leverage her rage in this moment, forcing Lauren to feel the same pain Bo felt killing her from within.
But she never let the potential of a harsh hand fall. It had never fallen before, and Bo refused to allow the wicked twists of hell to force her hand now. The pain inside Bo's chest stood far beyond any pain she could have delivered in that moment. While the destructive nature of Lauren's behavior could break the strongest individual and force them to lose their control, Bo's anger dangling on the precipice of violent behavior retracted, sending the brunette into her own emotional collapse.
The brunette sobbed as her grip lessened, pinching just the edges of fabric and lifting the shirt gently over Lauren's head. Her cries were enough to make her cough repeatedly; the sounds of agony echoing off their bedroom walls as Bo's tears fell and her cries deepened. These weren't just physical cries but sadness exploding from her chest as her heart broke open and drained of hope and faith. She tossed the shirt on the floor, not caring if it stained the carpet as this moment had already stained what she deemed a potential failed attempt at love.
Bo had tried. She had tried to love Lauren and bring her back to this world from the pained one she sought hidden in dark, private rooms. She had tried to offer guidance, protection and comfort at Lauren's side. She had even tried to cope and find forgiveness when Lauren relapsed once before. But her very soul felt like it had melted away at the hand of an evil fire, burning and scorching her own hope until she hardly recognized anything but the despair shrouding her in the form of endless tears.
Bo looked over Lauren's wounds carefully, knowing exactly which ones would need attention and which ones would fade sooner than all the rest. She had come to know this side of an ugly world well: not just from Lauren's past but from her own when she delivered those very marks upon countless others. Further fueling her cries was the realization that Lauren may never change, and if that were in fact the case, how would Bo ever function from the loss of what she deemed possible? That the lives of Bo and Lauren would somehow find a way out of the darkness, together on the same path, and find a sliver of light that guided them for the rest of their days? How would Bo ever want to continue forward, let alone actually do it, without Lauren at her side?
The fragile state of both women brought their progress to a resounding halt. Broken hearts and bodies conflicted the ideal nature of love so much that neither tried to make sense of it further. Afraid that any decision would propel them deeper into disarray, neither of them issued any statements nor made any sudden movements. They literally stood there, singing a devastating silent tune of sadness, for a lengthy moment of time without a clue how to move on.
Gone was Bo's strength, as was Lauren's. The world could have ended right then and there, and both would have breathed a little easier. But life was never easy; it was riddled with countless hardships and challenges. The end of the world would have simply given them a trap door escape, and the reality of what they shared would have simply been negated. There was only so much one soul could bear before it was thoroughly destroyed and unable to continue its eternal journey.
Bo was one step from the edge of that directional shift. But a microscopic urge somewhere deep in Bo's soul held her in place and instead of moving away from the blonde, Bo wrapped her arms around Lauren's battered body and held her: held her with a territorial protectiveness coupled with a comforting embrace that lacked anger or rage or devastation. It was her last hope: her last attempt to show Lauren that the greater good lived in her desire for their mutual happiness and despite the agony coursing through her entire being, Bo held her love for Lauren above it all.
If she were to die of heartbreak in this last attempt, then so be it. Nothing in this world drove Bo toward attempted progress like having Lauren in her life. Lauren was so void of energy that she stood there, motionless and expressionless for quite some time and Bo simply held her. She absorbed the bloody wounds of Lauren's body and the weight of her despair. She focused on the feel of Lauren's cheek pressed against her own; the scent of a damp basement lingering in Lauren's hair. Bo felt the ridges of raised skin under her palms where the gashes lie hidden under her embrace. She counted the rise and fall of Lauren's chest as she breathed, and in the tiniest shroud of hope Bo had left, she honed in on those breaths, for each and every one meant that Lauren was alive and standing in her arms. It meant that Bo was alive and had Lauren with her.
None of this was ideal, but it was what Bo deemed a starting point. A rock bottom, last ditch attempt. At this point, it wasn't about saving Lauren. It was about saving herself. It was about showing Lauren her worth was far beyond what she had always thought it to be. Bo could do nothing but offer her compassion, kindness and love.
And as Bo stood there, cradling Lauren in her arms with nothing but determined and desperate hope, Lauren found the strength to lift her own arms and drape them around Bo's lower back. The simple act forced Bo's eyes closed as she reveled in the depths of this painful moment. Heart broken, scared, and barely hanging on to hope, Bo took Lauren's simple movement as an answer to her unspoken statement. Nothing in their lives was ever easy, and this moment was no different. But without a doubt, they would move on, together, or they would try until their dying days.
xxxxx