Borrowed Time

Chapter 146

Gnawing feelings of inadequacy always seemed to pick the worst possible times to haunt Juliette - they always picked times that would make her exhausted in the morning, or times that would make that she couldn't speak in a crowded room - they never had the decency to come around when she was alone, when she wouldn't be fucked up for something the next day. They seemed to know exactly how to destroy her for longer than just the moment... God, her brain really was her worst fucking enemy, wasn't it?

Honestly, she would've yearned for a time when that didn't happen, but she genuinely couldn't remember the last time that there wasn't at least an underlying feeling of inadequacy in each and every one of her thoughts - maybe when her mom was alive she'd been kinder to herself because her mother was around to tell her to be, but her father had never bothered to check if she loved herself, and over time she'd gotten so good at hiding it that most everyone she knew ignored it... Maybe that was a mercy to her. Or to them... She honestly wasn't quite sure which it was.

All she knew right now was that laying in bed beside Esme, hearing their steady breathing, feeling their arm around her waist and their leg over hers... It was too sweet for her own good, she wasn't sure if her critical heart could handle the kindness and sweetness and protection that Esme offered her without even meaning to, even when they were unconscious. So she carefully, very carefully, slipped out from under their soft and protective grasp, watching the way that they seemed to squirm, to rouse the second that she was gone. Juliette grimaced and carefully grabbed the pillow that she'd been resting her head on and tucked it between Esme's arms, watching the way that they grasped onto it...

She knew it was a temporary fix, but it would make it so that she could walk away and do something that might clear her head enough to sleep, and that was her goal. She crept into the living room, sighing as she glanced around... She could dust, she could clean the counters... Wash down the table... Anything to get her mind off of things, right? She was willing to try anything. She pulled the cleaning supplies out from under the sink, spraying down every surface she could before she pulled the laundry that was sitting in the dryer out... Mostly towels, might as well fold it, right? Wipe the counters first.

Once the counters were wiped down, so carefully that she was pretty sure that there wasn't even a half an inch that was left unscrubbed, she sat down and started carefully folding the towels, letting her brain phase out into the thoughts that were plaguing her.

You're a fucking disgrace, there's no one in this entire world that is less worthy of the quiet, safe life that you have now... You don't deserve the gentle love that you've been given, you deserve to feel scared, to want to tear your skin off. You deserve to work yourself to the bone and beyond just for the chance of being looked at like you're something. Who the fuck told you that you deserve to feel this happy?

They're just going to leave you, you know... They're going to see that you're nothing but a plain, disappointing freak with nothing to offer the world and they'll leave. Everyone is gonna leave and then what? You're gonna take something and drift off into nothingness - and there's no heaven waiting for you on the other side. You haven't earned it. You're either going to burn forever or you're going to be stuck in eternal darkness, and that is still too good for you.

She grimaced, shaking her head... Sometimes she forgot just how deeply the things that Samantha used to say to her were really engrained in her mind... It'd fucked her up a lot more than she was able to admit... It made her want to pick apart her own body, both physically and mentally, until it became something that was acceptable to the world around her. She wanted to tear off her own loose skin, she wanted to remove the softness from her thighs and arms - she wanted to go back to practically fading away already - sure, her hair had been falling out, she'd been throwing up and dizzy... But at least people looked at her like she was someone.