Dreamers (Lesbian Short Stories)

Broken

I'd never imagined it was possible to feel this scared. This helpless. I wasn't the one who's body was betraying her, whose muscles were seizing up, convulsing on the floor.

I wasn't the one who was suffering. I was the one watching one of the most beautiful, smart, and wonderful people I knew suffer. Watching as she shook and writhed on the floor, face pale, eyes just a little scared; but mostly showing frustration.

It made me feel sick to my stomach. There had to be something I could do. Anything, please, I prayed to whatever higher power there might be that her pain would stop. That I could stop her pain.

We always wish that, don't we? That we could protect the ones we love from any ill. Save them, make them see their worth, create a world where they'll be happy forever.

But none of that's real, is it? None of that is love. Love is wiping away their tears, screaming and fighting, barely holding on, barely making it through to tomorrow sometimes but being so grateful you did.

Love is also realizing just how unfair it all is.

Because it is unfair. Not right. Unjust. Completely unfair that this girl, this woman, this person who to me is more important than anyone else in the world—unfair that she must suffer when she is good and there is evil out there that does not suffer at all.

Or maybe that's not love either. Maybe I know nothing of love after all, and I don't deserve to be standing here, with a feeling like my heart might break, doing nothing at all to help.

I'm. Just. Doing. Nothing.

This snaps me out of my reverie of self-pity, but I'm still clueless as to what to do. How to help. I get down on my knees, or maybe I fall there, but either way I find myself now kneeling beside her, here in her little bedroom that smells like her embrace. We are alone. She seems so often alone.

Her blue hair, (the latest in her trend of different hair colors) is messy, her cheeks damp with sweat, her green eyes unfocused. Yet even like this, she is grace and beauty, a brilliant tempest that draws me in.

Her convulsions seem to be slowing, her shaking lessening. I cross my fingers that it will soon be over.

Ever since I met her I've felt this pull. And I've been reluctantly chasing it ever since. I lied when I said I'd never been this scared before. Just being with her scares me. I know that the moment I allow myself to give in to the pull I'll be completely at her mercy. She'll have the power to break my heart, to destroy me.

She's breaking my heart right now.

"You should—you can go," she tells me. Her voice is a little shaky, and her hands are still shaking too. I grab a hold of one in mine by pure instinct, being careful not to hold on too tight, but to instead give her some comfort in the touch.

"But it's almost over, isn't it?" I ask, my voice sounding younger, higher, afraid.

"I don't think so," she says, as if she is to blame for the affliction. "I'm sorry I've ruined our plans. You don't have to stay." Her eyes refuse to meet mine.

I'm breaking her heart right now.

"I want to," I blurt out. She meets my eyes now, confusion and hope written across her face.

"I'm here because I want to be with you. To spend time with you. I don't care if you're convulsing on the floor or dancing the tango, there's no where else I'd rather be." I admit. This time my voice sounds strong, and the honesty seems to pull a weight off of my shoulders.

"Okay. Then...please stay," she says, and we smile at each other for a moment.

"Come here," I say, and fold her shaking body into my arms. I hold her there for what seems like both minutes and hours simultaneously. The convulsions grow worse again, just as she said, and I hold on to her through them, being careful not to let her injure herself or me.

And you know what? I feel lucky.

Maybe it's not much, I'm certainly no doctor. I can't even pronounce the rare condition she has, much less begin to understand it. But I'm pretty certain that here, today, in some small way, I have helped her.

I hold on to her, and even when the shaking stops I don't let go, and neither does she. We laugh, and we talk about everything we can think of, everything we've always been too afraid to tell anyone else before as the sun sets and her room goes dark; and still, I don't let go.

Love is having the potential to break someone's heart, but choosing to heal it, and to be healed, instead.

A/N:

I've based the symptoms of this seizure off of a friend's unusual condition. So please don't take any of this as medical advice, I'm not a doctor and most cases of epilepsy are different than this one. Hope you enjoyed, sorry for my long absence!