Paradise

XVIII

Sadness is knowing no matter how happy you make them, they will still wake with tears on their pillow.

It had been about one week since Parker had taken Paradise home.

One week since Parker had carefully removed anything and everything Paradise could hurt herself with.

He essentially baby proofed his home for a seventeen year old.

But that doesn't mean she can't still hurt herself.

How? What do you mean how? Have you been paying attention at all?

Don't you see?

Even if she never hurts herself again.

Even if she never takes a blade to her flesh again.

Even if she never refuses to eat again.

Even if she doesnt all back into old habbits, same patterns, her health will still vanish and nothing will be left.

Nothing.

Nothing but an ellaborate ruse of the painful memory of a skin and bones girl in large shirts and baggy pants and long sleeves rubbing against new cuts and playing with sickly looking greenish mashed potatoes and lying on the cold, dirty, cracked linoleum floor in a puddle of her own tears. And angry red slashes on wrists, and the sadness that was held in each of the purple bruises that littered her perfectly imperfect face and icey blue eyes that reminded a certain boy of frozen lakes and clear skies, and dark circles under those eyes that were cold, but not hateful, with words that were a symphony of melody and beautiful harmony.

Don't you understand? Scars aren't painful. Memories are.

The body isn't the only thing that can be sick.

Her sickness is part of her mind.

And unlike the body, a mind cannot heal.

Parker entered his bedroom, his eyes landing on Paradise, who is shaking in the corner. He runs to her, looking at her beautiful face.  Tears stream down that perfectly imperfect face, out of those icey blue eyes that reminded him of frozen lakes and clear skies. Tears drench thoses dark circles under those eyes that were cold, but not hateful.  She spoke,with words that were a symphony of melody and beautiful harmony.

"What?" she sniffles, wiping away the tears quickly.

"Are you okay?" he asks, knowing the answer.

"Yeah, uh huh, im fine, just swell." she tries to smile, but falters, instead looking down at her lap. Where she saw only fat, fat, fat.

"You're crying..."  he murmus, wiping away an escaped tear with the pad of his thumb.

"Happy people cry sometimes" she laughs, the smile that comes with it not reaching her eyes.

"But your not happy, are you?" He asks, his heart actively breaking in his chest.

"No..." she admits, a breath caught in her throat, her heart breaking in time with his.

And he was broken.

He was broken, because he couldn't fix her.

That's just the thing.

You can't fix people.

No matter what you to them.

No matter what you say to them.

No matter how much you love them.

You just cannot fix people.

Especially not an ellaborate ruse of the painful memory of a skin and bones girl in large shirts and baggy pants and long sleeves rubbing against new cuts and playing with sickly looking greenish mashed potatoes and lying on the cold, dirty, cracked linoleum floor in a puddle of her own tears. And angry red slashes on wrists, and the sadness that was held in each of the purple bruises that littered her perfectly imperfect face and icey blue eyes that reminded a certain boy of frozen lakes and clear skies, and dark circles under those eyes that were cold, but not hateful, with words that were a symphony of melody and beautiful harmony.