With every lie that fell from Oleander’s red stained lips she grew to hate herself even more. Sometimes when Oleander was alone she sat in silent contemplation, thinking about how much she hated herself lately and why. Everyone around her was hurting and she blamed herself for that, Trent had seemed sadder since they hooked up. She was hurting Ian with her distance. Rebecca was going crazy and murdered her stepmother, she blamed Rebecca’s insanity on the Ouija board night even though she could not entirely make sense of how it was to blame. Trina was devastated at the loss of her mother and that was Rebecca’s fault. Valerie also said that Oleander was being distant, Oleander shook her head and sighed.
“What’s wrong?” Trent asked her. She flinched at the sound of his deep and concerned voice. She had forgotten that she was alone, it was still difficult for her to comprehend that she was never by herself.
“Everything.” She answered with another heavy sigh. She was not sure that she wanted to talk about all that was troubling her. She grew up not discussing her problems with her parents and that made it hard for her to discuss them now, even though she knew that Trent was really only there to help her. She swung her legs off of the side of her bed, she grasped her sheets tightly. She planted her bare feet onto the cold floor, “I need a cigarette.” She mumbled to him lightly.
She grabbed her pack of cigarettes and her matches, she slowly approached the window and opened it. She took her favored spot to sit while she smoked and she lit the match, she held it against the tip and she sucked hard, craving a nicotine fix. She quickly moved to match toward her naked upper thigh with the intent of burning herself, but surprisingly swift Trent was there blowing out the flame. She could feel his breath against her flesh, his mouth was almost pressed against her. She felt tempted to hold her breath because the moment felt too intense for the conversion of oxygen into carbon dioxide, but instead she took another puff of her cigarette. They held eye contact for what felt like far too long.
“Don’t” was all Trent said. Oleander blushed because she was caught but she did not duck her head nor break the eye contact.
“Why not?” She asked in defiance but she just sounded broken.
“You don’t deserve it and it won’t get you anywhere you want to be. First it’s a little burn here and there and then it escalades. Next your stealing straight razors and cutting places that aren’t your palm. It won’t fucking fix anything.” Trent spoke the words with such a passion that Oleander was taken slightly aback. She shifted her gaze from his dark inky orbs that shone, looking more black than brown to his wrists. She truly observed the angry red raised scars that decorated them for the first time. She remembered once, when she was a child asking Trent where they had come from, he told her he would tell her when she was older and kissed her forehead before tucking her into bed.
“Is it weird?” She asked him suddenly changing the subject.
“No. Maybe. I don’t know, I don’t think it’s weird to want to hurt yourself sometimes. I think that everybody has that urge sometimes, it doesn’t really matter if it’s normal or not. What matters is that you never give in to that desire.” He answered not realizing that she was talking about something else.
“No, that’s not what I was asking about. Is it weird that you fingered someone you knew as a child?” She asked him.
Trent looked down and his face contorted into an expression of shame. He then smirks in a way that is not totally sincere, his eyes don’t light up with humor but he still tries for a joking, “I didn’t know you when I was a child.”
“You know what I meant. Do you feel like you raised me?” She responded.
The smirk falls and he shakes his head no, “I didn’t. Do you feel like I raised you?” He asked sounding horrified.
“No.” She replied honestly but she sounded distant. “I don’t know who raised me, my parents I suppose. Or maybe fictional characters from books and television.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t get a Ms. Honey.” Trent told her.
A huge and beautifully happy smile broke onto Oleander’s face. “Matilda was my favorite when I was a child!” She exclaimed.
“I remember.” Trent said with a smile.
Oleander finished her cigarette and extinguished the butt on the window sill. “Do you ever think about killing yourself?” She whispered to him while thoughtfully glancing out of her window. Trent chuckled darkly and she corrected herself, “Oh. Fuck. Trent, I’m sorry. I forgot.”
“Don’t apologize. I killed myself, I’m well aware of my choices. I used to think about it a lot before I did it.” He told her.
“I think about it a lot but I can never make sense of it.” She confessed.
He furrowed his brow and asked, “What do you mean?”
“I mean I’ll sit there in class or at Rebecca’s house and I’ll see how everything has turned to shit lately and I’ll think to myself, ‘everything would be so much better if I were dead.’ But they wouldn’t be better. Well I mean, maybe for me it would be better because I’d be dead and I wouldn’t have to fucking deal with all of this, but everything would just be worse for everyone else and I can’t think of a way for me to not be here that makes it better for everyone. Being dead won’t fix Rebecca, it won’t bring back Izzy. It’d make Ian feel worse. I just can’t justify killing myself right now.” She told him trying to voice all of her racing thoughts.
“I hope you never can justify it. I don’t. I don’t know what I would do if you killed yourself Oleander.” He told her, his heart breaking for her.
“Because that would mean you wouldn’t be allowed in to Heaven either right?” Oleander whispered.
“No,” He told her sincerely, “because I am in love with you.”
YOU ARE READING
The Patron Saint of Monsters
Teen FictionA girl falls in love with the monster under her bed.
