White Lines

Shattered Glass

Leah stood in front of the mirror in one of the spare bedrooms. A few minutes later she heard Noctis yelling at someone-obviously through the first phone. A few choice words above all of the rest of them.

Useless. Fat. Ugly. I will never be as pretty as her, so why should she be jealous of Noctis? She has her dream boyfriend. The words repeated themselves over and over in her mind.

Without thinking, she raised her fist to the glass, shattering the mirror and skewing her image. The shards cut into her skin and blood dripped from her knuckles to the floor, but she didn't feel any pain. All she felt was the anger and numbness burrowing it's way into her chest again as tears streaked down her cheeks. Save me. She thought. Get me out of this hell.

A moment later she heard Noctis running up the stairs, taking them two and three at a time-despite the boot he was forced to wear-and the door handle moved uselessly; it was locked.

"Leah?" he said through the door.

"W-What?" she stammered through the tears.

"Are you alright?" his voice shook slightly.

"I'm fine. I swear."

"Open the door." He said softly.

"No." She winced as she moved her hand.

"Please..."

"No..."

"Leah, please, it was my fault." He said.

"No matter what you said to begin with, it is her fault. I wasn't mad about you fighting, I was mad because she had the audacity to say that I didn't love you."

He was silent for a moment. And it pierced her chest sharper than glass could, "If it means anything," he said softly, "I think you are way more pretty than she is, and I always have."

"No, I'm not."

"Please open the door, Leah. This is terrifying."

"Why?"

"Because I locked a door once like this, and almost never came out..."

She had forgotten about that, the times he had wanted to end it all. Three times. Two different countries.

Leah had asked him before, 'So, how did you become so numb?' and his answer had been blunt and terrifyingly sad. That had been almost a year ago. A year that seemed so much longer than reality. In a few days he stole her heart, in a month she fell in love, and in a year needed him more than she ever felt possible.

She opened the door without thinking and clung to him tightly. He grabbed her hand tenderly and kissed the bleeding spots on her knuckles.

"Je' taime." He whispered, "I love you."

"I'm sorry...I know that you were probably happier when you didn't have to deal with this shit." She said into his shirt.

"To tell you the truth, I have never been this happy before. No matter what, just being near you makes me unbelievably happy."

She was quiet for a moment before she looked up at him, "Can I ask you something about...you know...what happened between you and Gabriel?"

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, you never seemed to want to talk about it, but I think I have the right to know about it if it's not, like, emotionally scarring or something like that."

"No, but I didn't like to talk about it with Gabriel around he's...how do I put this...Self conscious...i guess you could say. Whenever I first met you we were still together in a sense. Right before I left for Germany, we had gotten into a huge fight and he had left to go live with, "my parents". But after a few days of living here I ended up leaving him for you and kind of made him mad at me for a week or two until he met Savanna. Then he forgot about me. The end." He said.

"So, I basically stole you from him without realising it. You could have told me you had a boyfriend I wouldn't have minded." Leah said making Noctis flush redder than he already was.

"No! I'm not that gay! I'm only like 35% gay!"

"How are you 35% gay? how does that work?"

"Well most of the time I'm just like, 'Oh wow, my girlfriend is really hot." But then other times I look at a guy like damn that guy is hot."

Leah laughed so hard the she doubled over, grasping her stomach. Noctis just stood covering his face with his hands. She stood up straight after a moment and wiped her eyes, "Well, started from the closet, now we're queer."

He turned away from her and shook his head, "It isn't funny!"

"Aw, baby..." she said pitifully, "I'm just messing with you."

At least she's forgotten about it for a moment. Noctis thought.

He hugged her tightly and kissed her shoulder. She buried her face in his neck and sighed, holding onto him tighter and shutting her eyes tightly.

"I love you, too."she whispered.