Lavender | Wakatoshi Ushijima

47 | I Know Your Heart

He slithers his fingers through mine, and it's a feeling I want to cherish.

My heart feels lighter tonight. I can finally breathe. This might be the night I start to heal, the moment I start down this path. I want you to walk it with me. I want you to stay with me. I want to stay in your awfully toasty, vanilla-scented sweater that feels like you're hugging me all over again.

I need to muster up something to say. A 'thank you,' or an 'I'm sorry for drenching your sweater.' Anything to stop swimming in those olive eyes that are so close I can feel them, anything to resist. Eyes that won't break my gaze either. Meteors blazing through the space between us.

Eyes radiating with dense tears and he whispers, "I'm sorry." A twitch in his face and a tear threatens to slip down his face. His voice is coarse and tense. He looks away, invalidating his own scars.

I blink at him. He tries to hold back. Shaking my head, my eyes tear up again on instinct. He sees my denying look. I could never be mad at him, but I know where he's coming from. Keiko told me about his severe panic attack, how he spiraled, and told her everything.

She gave me parts of what he said, it felt like there were holes. She told me she left out some details for the sake of privacy.

What matters most to me is that he's trying to be respectful, trying not to be a bother, being himself. He didn't know. I had covered up so well he couldn't tell. A part of me was gloomy he couldn't see it. But, even then, I don't know if I would've opened up to him considering the foggy distance that grew between us after the play. How cold things had grown.

"You don't need to forgive me. You don't have to say anything. I'm not thinking straight, that just slipped out. I'm sorry. I don't want to tire you, your welfare is the most important right now." He rubs his face, the red in his eyes more prominent. Speaking quickly, ashamed to bring it up.

"Keiko told me what you said," I whisper, cheek against the pillow. I know what he told her, how he couldn't breathe as he could only mutter how ashamed he was. How cruel he was to himself then, how he'll never forgive himself.

His breath hitches, alarm in his eyes as he meets my gaze again. He freezes. I squeeze his hand and urge him to breathe.

Another tear falls from my burning eye and rolls across the bridge of my nose. It hurts to see him like this.

Immediately, he wipes it away with his thumb. He stares back at me, wide-eyed with his brows drawn together. Worry. His chin settles on the sheets again.

"I don't deserve your forgiveness." His voice is raspy. I shake my head.

"I know who you are, Wakatoshi. I can see it." I say his name under my breath for the first time in a while. It tastes sweet, and I love the feeling. It lingers for a moment. I can't help but smile at the fact that I know him in such a secretive way.

His eyes soften, soften, soften, until they're practically fluid. Something in them strikes like furious lightning bolts. Determination, a spark that I see in his eyes when he plays volleyball.

"I swear to the moon you love, that I will never leave your side. I'll be here whenever you need me, whenever you want me around. Even if you don't want me there, I'll still show up for you. I'll be here when you need someone to smile at, or cry to, or sit with in silence. I promise," he whispers right back desperately. I nod repeatedly.

He knows me so well, heart and all. I'm about to melt at the touch of our hands and the purity of this instant. For the first time in a while, my heart feels full and content.

He shifts and the crown of his head faces me. I can hear him breathing in deeply as he whispers a multitude of apologies. His grip tightens on my hand. I adjust the hospital bracelet. The air is thicker. I slip my left hand out from the sheets. I stroke his velvet hair, running my hands through it while strands flop around.

He turns his face to me again, my palm now standing in solitude, like I'm giving the air a high five.

Then, he looks at me like he's drunk, like he's hypnotized by something. The brims of his eyes are dark red and the lids are drooping. His face is tired, a window to a soul so drained and full of contempt. I realize there's a tear mark on his face.

"As long as you stay. I promise," I smile reassuringly. A smile I meant. He nods and nods and nods, until the tears stop running. Until his face is mellow.

I breathe a whisper of gratitude into the air for bringing him back to me, for looping his trail and driving him to run to me one last time. For allowing me to run into his arms for the first time.

Everything seems to wash away with the tide, and it's just two naïve kids staring at each other again, making promises to a future that isn't promised. A world they haven't seen, a life they haven't lived. A journey that's uncertain, except for these hope-laced promises. Two flickering flames with intertwined fates, giving each other the gaseous strength to burn.

"You and me," I whisper. A soft smile tugs at my lips against the pillow. Fate draws us back together, one more time. It's a funny feeling.

I pull our clasped hands closer to my heart as the smell of his sweater gives me a dose of rapture.

"Always. As it's always been," he whispers delicately, resting on his cheek. His olive eyes glow. We face each other directly, so closely. His face is wispy, a reflection of the placid person I know him to be.

I wipe his impoverished skin with my thumb. The silkiest skin I've ever touched. I feel him stiffen beneath my fingers, his warm breath spiking against the sheets, only to relax again.

I drink the surreality of his face like wine. Those eyes that I've memorized. The cheeks that are a bit red. The light freckles by his temples, the wispy hair. My eyes grow heavy. It's been a rough night with an unexpected ending.

This is what peace tastes like. The peace in this hospital can't put me at ease. Right now, my worries have been put to rest, and I'm the most tranquil girl I've ever been. My feelings of contempt, especially for myself, are giving me a break. I wonder if they'll even come back. He helps me believe that I am beautiful, and that I am worthy of loving myself. This is who he helps me become, and this is who I help him become too. I see it, the pacific person he's growing into tonight.

In this very moment, as I lay in my hospital bed, possibly overdue for a dose of something, I can care less. I catch a glimpse of us, who we used to be. I realize that my will to move forward has somehow returned to me, like I can wake up tomorrow and want to heal. It returned to me in the form of a boy whose face is laying before mine. A face that motivates me.

With you, I could conquer the world.

Even though my eyes are likely swelling with the accumulating pain that has been building up in so many aspects of my life, something inside me feels airy again. Just as I used to be. My stomach is at ease, no longer a torture chamber. My body is warm on the inside and outside. My chest is rising and falling against his sweater. I feel light as a feather, delicately bundled in the sheets, in his soft palm.

I know that I need to focus on myself and my health. My eyes are too puffy to keep my consciousness afloat. The weight of this blanket is hypnotizing me to sleep, and I give in, knowing I'm safe in his presence.

My days will only get longer from here. I'm still sick, and as of now, fighting sleep to look at him for a moment longer. My eyes flutter closed intransigently. They force me to rest. I still have a scar that needs time to heal, lungs that need to rest, a stomach that needs to be filled properly, a body that needs taking care of, self-love that I need to gift myself. I have legs that need nourishment and physical therapy, a head that needs calming, and a mind to replenish. A blank page, a new chapter, a start. An endless list that has one box checked off of it, going to sleep with a full heart.

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Author: ladies, this is the bare minimum, not the standard