To Keep You

Chapter Fifteen: Fading-

      I watched the day pass me by through the different shades of the sky as it started off with the sun breaking at 5 am, growing bright towards midday and then slowly sinking away again into the haze of grey that engulfed my room at 4 pm. And I lay there wide awake through it all.

      I hadn't really been thinking. I'd just been laying there. Occasionally I felt a tear sneak its way down the side of my face but I wasn't sure if I was really sad about anything at all. Maybe my body was crying for me, because it was stuck with a mind so completely destroyed and damaged, that it was forced to simply lay around all day, getting lighter and heavier all at the same time.

      There was an ache across my forehead that begged me to close my eyes, but I couldn't. I just couldn't. The dreams that would be waiting for me weren't all that inviting. I didn't want to sleep, not just yet. I wanted to stay awake longer. Forever, even. Sleep wasn't comforting. I didn't welcome it like I used to. It was the dreams. It was the dreams that made me feel this way.

      I could almost laugh at how pathetic I sounded. Scared of my own mind. I did this to myself. I brought on the nightmares and the dark thoughts. I turned myself into this person. Yet still––even being able to tell myself that––Parker still came to mind.

      Because he was where it all stemmed from.

      And I didn't so much blame him, as I blamed myself for not grabbing him. Not reaching for his legs. Not pulling him back over the railing before the inevitable happened. He was ripped away from my grip that wasn't really even a grip at all. My fingers were so loose around his soul. I should have held on tighter.

      When darkness fell over my room and Arthur finally returned home from work, he startled me with the creak of my door opening and the sudden, overwhelming artificial lighting as he flicked my main light on. He looked worn out. Had I done this to him?

      Rubbing at his eyes and trying to make himself look brighter, more cheery, he dragged the swivel chair over to the side of my bed and sat himself down, letting his forearms rest on his thighs as he leaned forward. The look that fell over his expression as he stared right at me, said it all.

      "You've been in bed all day again, Rob."

      "I know." I whispered, tears welling in my eyes and I begged them not to fall but they didn't listen. They never listened. "I can't get myself up." I said. "I keep trying but I can't."

      "It's okay." He sighed, in a strangely loving way. He appeared on the edge of tears himself. Why did he put up with me? "Are you going to come downstairs and have something to eat? I brought you home some soup in case you wanted something light."

      "You can just send me back, you know." I said, ignoring his request flat-out. The thought of food made me feel nauseous and my heart thrummed in my chest at the idea of eating. "You can just send me back to the orphanage, it's okay." And in my mind, I added as a note to myself: It would be easier to waste away there.

      "What are you talking about? We don't want to send you back, what's brought this on?"

      "Da-" I stopped myself. What was I saying? Dad. He wasn't my dad. Arthur's eyes lit up with something I couldn't understand. I licked my lips, wet with salty tears. "I'm not worth it." I settled on saying. My eyes dropped from Arthur's.

      "You're absolutely worth it," he shot back in a soft, steady voice. "I don't want you thinking like this. Thinking that we don't want you, because we do. You're not going back to that orphanage, Rob. You're staying right here, and you're going to be okay."