Lavender | Wakatoshi Ushijima

46 | Silent Sun

I don't think I've ever met a person with so many heartaches before.

She's shattered. Name it whatever you want. Crushed, shredded, torn, exhausted. Hana is a frail body in a disheartening blue gown with shaking hands that ball my sweater in fists. Ones that could burst through the white walls. Fists of contempt, fists of white knuckles. Her cries come out in angry bursts as she inhales and proceeds to do it all over again. Ripping through the silence with raw whimpers and screams.

With every cry, I feel something inside my heart rip apart. I think it's my guilt, ripping me apart. How could I have been so blind?

She's laying between my arms, balling as loud as her heaving chest lets her, ear against my racing heart. I wonder if she hears it. Lifeless and fragile, yet she carries so much anger and spiking emotions. Shrieking with a cracking voice like prey being chased. Her sobs echo against my chest, and the strength of them will haunt me forever. She cries stronger with every tear I wipe, every strand of hair I move out of her face, every stroke of my fingers along her skin. Maybe it's the gentleness, maybe she's not used to crying in someone's arms. That makes two of us.

I can physically feel her shattering into pieces, coming closer with every shake. At one point, she buries her face into my sweater and continues to cry out. Weaker cries that have clearly been stuck inside her chest for a while. This is her escape, I realize. My stomach contracts, seeing her this destroyed does something to me.

My sweater is wet with tears and a sweat of guilt. I lay my cheek atop her head for a bit, the crown of her head is cold. She moves down to the floor, evidently exhausted from all she's has endured.

If I put it simply, I feel abominable. I could throw myself out the window if it weren't for the simple fact that she needs a shoulder to cry on. I don't know when I'll learn to accept my mistakes, especially this one. I can't do it. I can't sit here and listen to her bawl her heart out. I could've done more. There was always more to do. So much to have been said. Things I can never say, but are lingering in my mind. I'm shorthanded as always. Late as always. Oblivious. Lousy. Slow. And in the end, all I can hear are her screams, cracking the windows.

Watching her crack knowing this is my last straw. If I could be a different person, a different face, I would. I'd do anything to be someone else. To rip myself to shreds and smile with a mouth that isn't mine. I'd do anything to dissociate with this body and start fresh.

I don't think I'll ever forget that look on her face. Not her face of tears, or her sunken face of weariness. I heard a scream coming from the inside, right after Keiko went to grab something for her. I ran inside without a second thought, convinced she's collapsed again. Her silhouette is imprinted in my mind, before the mirror. Her hair hides her face from me but her reflection is one I'll never get out of my mind.

Sure, she was tired. Her face had sunken and had gotten sucked of its color, a symbol of torture. Her cheekbones and features were too sharp, like a porcupine with an empty torso. Every sign of emptiness was carved into her.

It was the hatred that stuck with me. Those tears that shone like molten mercury, brimming her eyes. The hatred that was balled up in her irises, ready to destroy the mirror. The hatred as she stared at her scar and her body. The hatred as she stared back at her face hopelessly. It was a poisonous kind of glimmer, one that tugged at her face to tighten in distilled disgust. One that I know too well.

She looked at herself like there was a stranger in the mirror who was annoyingly begging her for help. A version of herself that begs her to see how much of herself she's lost. Irritation. I know that look, I know that feeling. I swear, I know.

I'll do anything to watch that glimmer disappear. I'll put it out myself. I'll do whatever it takes to help her, I'll do it. Anything. We can do it. We're a team, we can be. I won't let her do this alone. I won't give myself the satisfaction of watching her heal every night and rob her of the feeling that she has someone to rely on. Tonight is the first step, I promise you.