102

pages

TW//suicide and self harm mentioned.

the next few days are awful. we make awkward eye contact but he has hate in his eyes while i have hurt and he knows it. he can see the red around my eyes from the long nights of sleep deprivation and floods of tears that grace my face in the darkness. i hope he thinks that i cry for him, he said i don't know him but he knows nothing about me and nothing about you "the girl you write about". he looked at the pages that has you written all over them, he knows how I feel, he knows about you.
day four after the fight and my door opens at midday. "um hey". it's elijah his hand half cover by his long blue sweater sleeve is in the air, like always his left hand is by his side clutching onto paper and various pencils. he hands me bunch of papers and leaves once again saying he's sorry as he leaves. i throw the pages to the ground and return to staring at the empty ceiling, isolating myself from the small already isolated world within the actual world. my mind is burning and eyes look the ground. the drawings on the pages that are now scattered across my dark carpeted floor are almost staring at me, but the way you admire someone pretty from across the bar with no intention of getting their name. i pick up the closest page to my bed. a portrait. boxed jaw, glasses, pretty eyes and flowing hair, I'm almost certain it's you. he remembers the way i described you in the poems i never let you read. he had numbered this page 1.1 so i now search for page 1.2. i find it hidden beneath pages i don't look at. page 1.2 depicts pain or hurt the focus of the collage of deep images is a noose that resembles the one he used on that dreaded afternoon. i quickly find page 1.3. another portrait. this time of me. i look for page 1.4 to no success. "you hurt me". i guess that's true but you'd say i hurt you. you'd also say i was the best thing to happen to you and I'd say the same. you hurt me but you loved me and by hurting me you hurt yourself. and then you hurt yourself and i took the blame. i look over the rest of the pages in order which just explain that he is hurting and he wants out. i make my way to room 102 on the other side of the build and enter his room. sat on his bed he just looks at me. "um hey" i say attempting to mimic his accent. this pretty lips that always stayed straight, for once, curled up into a slight smile. i grab him by the wrist and pull him up the flight of stairs to the top floor. we walk towards the fire exit and i scope the vicinity to check for nurses, none. i open the fire escape and we walk out onto the roof. "look" i interlock my fingers with his "look at the fucking world. it's a mess, people die everyday only to make room for one more mouth to feed, another liability that requires the state to find its existence and for what? the possibility that it will make any significant on the world is very limited yet the money the country doesn't have is so easily expended to a breathing shit machine in the hope that it will become something great. if it, my some miracle, does become great it will share its greatness with very few and if it isn't great it will work at a dumb store with a brand across its chest or it will end up in a place like here. but you see, greatness isn't measured by the amount of fame or power one has or if you get your name in magazine, text book or newspaper. the girl i write about was never in the public eye but she was great. you are locked up here, but you are great. greatness is measured in the way you make people feel." i look over from the overlooking view of the city to see elijah's eyes on mine. he leans his face in towards mine and i close my eyes. "i could jump" he whispers.
"you could but you won't" i reply.
"how can you be so sure?"
in response i pull out the creased piece of paper from my jacket pocket and hand it to him. page 4.0. the word 'loose' scrawled onto the page. "you never wanted to die, or you thought you did but changed your mind, that's why you won't jump"