Their Paradox #Wattys2017

14. "She's not paper, she is human."

char·i·ty

noun

1. the act of giving money, food, or other kinds of help to people who are poor, sick, etcetera

"This was all just a charity case because he felt bad. She didn't need his money though, she just needed him to listen."

synonym: Aid, Relief,

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She rushed towards the bathroom, pushing past boxes or hoarded scrapbooks that never came to use. Standing in front of the mirror above the sink, another version of her stares back at her. Her reflection. Sweat drips from her forehead and it seemed hard to catch her breath. For a second she thought the second-hand inhalation of her foster mothers smoking had finally caught up to her, but she looked completely and utterly fine.

She looked the same, no chapped lips or sunken cheeks. She just looked afraid. She had just blacked out and the vague memory was starting to clear, almost as if clouds had been blocking a ray of sunlight and they were finally drifting away.

She splashed water on her face, calming herself and wiping away the hot tears from her cheeks. She rubbed her arm four times, nervous. The small effort to calm herself worked. She was able to catch her breath.

——

That night she stayed awake and stared at her dimly lit ceiling. She was afraid, but also a part of her was frustrated and angry. Angry that her own mind knew something and was keeping it from her. She couldn't understand. A part of her wished she wasn't so alone in her bed. That she was a little girl with a caring mother or father reading her a bedtime story until she fell asleep.

Her grip on the sheets tightened.

She is seventeen but she wished, so damn much, that she had someone to read her bedtime stories. Someone who was there to keep away the bad thoughts that seemed to corrupt her mind around 4 am in the morning. She wished that someone cared enough to wait by her bed and read to her about stupid made up fairy tales and princess who were saved by egotistical princes, to read to her until she fell asleep.

Someone had probably read to her when she was younger, maybe her mother or father would even sleep next to her some nights as a small child. This frustrates her more. That even if someone had cared, she hadn't remembered.

She tries to shake the thoughts out of her head, to try and build up her armored plates around the bundle of confusion in her head that seemed to both be overrun by sad and angry thoughts. Emotions that toyed with her until it drove her crazy. She hammered metal plates around herself to protect her sanity. So what's breaking the barrier?

Who triggered the emotions she desperately tried to part from?

There were only two people she could think of that might have been the cause of all this. Apparently, both happened to have blonde dusty hair.

---

"Clementine." Randy walks beside her as she tries to maneuver away from him. Avoiding him for what she feels like is for the best for both of them.

"Clementine?" he calls out for her again, to only be responded by her dwindling silence.

When she finally reaches the cafeteria, Randy silently walks beside her. She can feel him glance at her every once in a while but she's scared. Every time she wants to turn towards him and give in, she remembers last night. Slipping into a bit of a memory she had remembered as clear as the sun shone in the sky. She had been thinking about it all night. She had never really remembered a memory so much that it caused beads of sweat to drip down her face, for her to clam up and panic.