Growing Up and Other Tall Tales

Chapter 69

There is something about the way Lyra screams. It takes a life of its own; it possess a strange intelligence and manifests into a black silhouette that looms over the whole place, darkening and haunting every corner and snuffing out the feeblest stream of light. Sometimes, hours after Lyra wakes up, the screams still stay; inhabiting little crooks, leaking out of the walls and it echoes on forever in my head.

She never locks her door when she sleeps. She doesn't even close it anymore.

Still blinking the sleep out of my eyes but my brain painfully awake and alert trying to barge through the physical constraints of being jarred awake at three am, I push through her half closed door.

Lyra's eyes are shut tight, clenching skin around the edges, her brow is sweaty and furrowed digging trenches into her skull. The sheets are tangled around her waist and knotted around her arms as she struggles to break free from it. Tear streaks glisten brightly on her face like silver melting on gold.

"Lyra. Come on. Wake up." I say before yelling her name, subduing her screams to sobs

I sit on the bed and unsnarled her from the bed sheets, careful not to touch her, the last time I made skin on skin contact, she had kicked me before springing awake. Her eyes flit blearily, adjusting to the brightness from the lights I had learnt to know how to switch on in the blinding darkness.

She scrambles out of the sheets and climbs halfway into my lap, panting, and clutching me wherever she could reach. Her eyes are blown wide open now, taking up half of her face. I hold the back of her neck with one hand and the other rubbing circles at the base of her spine.

"C-can..." she swallows before peering up at me, "Nick?"

She always asks for Nick when she wakes up. There is something that clenches in me tight when she does but then whatever it is unfurls guiltily when I remember just how much he means to her and if she wants him now to feel better and not me, then so be it. I use my phone to call Nick and every night, he answers. His voice asleep and tired and I only have to say Lyra's name for it to crack open into panic and anxiety.

Today, Nick doesn't answer. And I feel like shit.

"Lyra," I say softly and she shivers before enveloping herself further into me, "He isn't answering."

She has calmed down a bit. Her sobbing had stopped. Her hands start to shake again.

"He must've forgotten to charge it. The plug near the couch has to be tightened for it to work," she murmurs absently to herself

"I'm sorry," I let her know before tightening my hold around her. She shivers again, before curling up into a ball.

Deep shuddering breaths fill the room and I know a panic attack when I hear one. I lived in a house full of kids with screaming brains. The amount of nights I've stayed awake watching monsters rip themselves out of their brains and wondering if that is what I looked like as well.

I get off the bed and slide down in front of Lyra. Her chest is heaving and she is hiccupping her breaths now, strangled rasps of my name in fear and alarm. I'm murmuring nonsense like it's okay now, it's going to be alright, it's over, you are safe now over and over like a mantra but no matter how many times you say it, you can't make it true. But Lyra happily eats it up. She has no other choice. And I do what I do best: I sell it.

"I'm here, okay? I'm not going to let anything happen," I tell her trying to tease out of her a roughish smirk and severe chastising of antiquated principals of a patronizing patriarchy, and when it fails, it aches so much

I gently lower her head in between her legs and stroke the nape of her neck until her breathing evened. I press my mouth at the base of the back of her neck, at the end of her hairline and let my forehead rest there lightly.

"It's okay, darling." I mouth into her skin. "Nothing's going to hurt you now."

What had Lyra done to any of them? Sure, she's coarse and hardened around the edges, she hurt, she suffered, and she was bitter about it but all it had done was made her human and kind, and a goddamn better person than any of us. She didn't deserve to be unhappy anymore.

She taps my shoulder and I let her up.

I kneel next to her feet and she is still at my eye level. She pushes her hair back and places her head in her hands tiredly. I am yet let go of her. I don't intend to.

"Sorry," her voice grates out blemishes of tears, "Sorry, I woke you up."

Human and kind. Better.

"Water or tea?" I ask choosing not to reply to her

She smiles weakly, looking just as injured as she did when she first woke up.

"Tea, please,"

I help her to her feet. It's like she still bears the pain of her injuries, the way she carefully maneuvers her body to fit next to mine. My hand on her back and another holding her arm, we walk slowly outside of her room and into the living room. I draw back the curtains so she can see the view. She turns to it desperately. It always calms her down.

I forget about Loki who wakes up when the curtains are drawn. His watchful eyes drinking in the situation and immediately deciding that the situation would better if he is in it. I sigh and give into his pawing, opening the slide so he can scramble inside. Loki makes camp at Lyra's feet and she smiles, leaning down and ruffling fur behind his ears. The dog has made himself out to be some kind of paternal protector and Ace used to suggest that it is Mother in the form of a domestic animal and if so, I'm not about to cross him.

My eyes don't allow themselves to leave her and I almost burn myself. I make two mugs, one for her and the other for me to fiddle with uncertainly. Her eyes bore the depths of water reflecting the city on a stormy day, but her mind was miles away; away from tea, away from city lights, away from me.

"Where did you go?" I ask sitting next to her, careful not to block her view, but close enough to break into her thoughts

I place my mug on the table and held out the handle of the second one to Lyra. Her fingers fumble and the tea sloshes around inside and I cup her hands holding the mug, keeping it steady. We share the warmth.

"Bring me back, okay?" she says after a while, "When I go, bring me back."

I tug on her hands holding the mug so she leans forward, I place a kiss on her brow. I will. No matter where you go.

She finishes her tea. Careful, small sips. It shatters something inside me, watching Lyra be so acutely aware of her being, of her being small and careful. She isn't afraid, she is bold and strong, and so, so vast.

"Hey, come back. Stay with me," I tell her when I see her eyes gloss over again and she blinks rapidly before looking up at me and smiling. She leans in closer so she can place her head on my chest. I don't even notice my tea left unattended and cold. I press my chin on top of her head and feel her trying to match my breathing every time she feels herself slip away. And every time, I hold her tighter and closer.

She cries, when she feels safe enough to. I do what I can, which is nothing and it kills to only be able to stroke her back and whisper into her hair things that she feels to not be true.

It isn't a monster I can fight or shoot. Someone or something I can kill.

I wonder how long it will take her to stop crying. It feels like never.

Never comes at around five o'clock, when she falls into a troubled sleep on my chest and I feel my own eyes slide shut, comfortable by the familiar weight on me and the familiar breathing. I'm too tired to tell hers from mine. I don't even know if they are two separate things until I decide that lack of sleep makes me romantic.