"You're-" Lara sways, gripping the doorpost with knuckles so white the bones could pop out any moment. "Leaving." She says the word as if it's foreign, incomprehensible.
"Yes- No! I mean-" Flustered, I scramble for what I was trying to say. "I'm not leaving right now. That's not what I wanted to- I mean, I'm going to leave if you don't start trying to get better."
A breath. "Maybe, eventually, in the future?"
She does not meet my eyes, so I take her hands instead. "Lara, honey, look at me."
Facing those twin storms makes me weak in the knees, so I squeeze her fingers, feeling the rough skin, tracing the horrible memories carved into her skin. "I need to know that you want to get better. I'm not asking for a miracle, I'm not setting a time limit. All I'm asking of you is to talk to me, let me in."
I'd perfected my puppy-dog pout years ago, and I can see her mental walls crumbling. "And maybe, eventually, you can let others in. But for now, I'm fine with just me, alright?"
Her eyes flick between mine, her hands limp.
Hours seem to pass. I'm afraid she'll disappear if I blink. I'm afraid of her hands growing cold and her face twisting into something cracked and painted and ancient. I'm afraid that I'm in one of my nightmares again, forced to face memories that I wish I could forget.
I almost smell the cold, salty wind, ice cutting into every patch of exposed skin as my breath is slowly stolen from my lungs. But suddenly I feel my mind pull back, and I'm safe, warm, dry.
"Promise me something." She says. The sound is grounding. The softness of it calming. The emotion in it worrying and almost unfamiliar.
The gaze trapping me is so intense the word 'no' completely eludes me.
"When I show you what I am. Don't leave me."
The words are so broken, a shattered reflection of the hunched woman before me, that I realize I could never leave Lara, even if it slowly killed me inside.
My arms wrap around her stiff form, and I don't know which one of us needs to hold on more.