The Art Of Love / l.h ✔️

35

~Fae's POV~

Luke and I decided to just spend the next day in bed together, since I was too sore to do anything. He'd been being so incredibly sweet, doing anything and everything I asked. If I hadn't met him, I probably would've doubted that someone so utterly perfect existed.

As he cuddled me in my bed, the TV playing on my screen, he suddenly looked down at me and spoke. "You ever gonna tell me about what happened here?" He murmured, softly stroking a hand over my left thigh, right where I had that scar that he had asked me about only one other time. I paused, placing my hand over his and carefully slipping my hand into his. "Are you really that curious about it?" I asked, a little smile forming on my lips as I peered up at him. He gave me a sheepish smile and nodded his head. "I want to know everything about you, Fae. Every part of you." He whispered, kissing my lips softly.

I thought about it for a second and then lightly nodded my head, sighing. "When I was fifteen, I used to self-harm a lot." I said quietly, feeling ashamed and embarrassed about having to admit that. It wasn't something I was proud of, something that I liked to think about.

He stared down at me in surprise, his grip on my hand loosening as he furrowed his brows. "What?" He asked, sounding shocked. As if he couldn't believe it. It wasn't like I could blame him, though. I mean, he probably thought I was going to tell him some stupid childhood story about how I fell from a tree or something, but that wasn't the case. He'd asked how I got it, and I was telling him the truth, even if it wasn't exactly a truth I liked.

I sighed quietly and nodded my head, looking down at his chest just so I wouldn't have to look him in the eyes. "It was a time where I was really struggling with myself. I was really sad all the time and I hated myself and I hurt for no reason. And I knew that, realistically, nothing was wrong with my life. I have a good life, and I knew that, but I couldn't help feeling the way that I did. Knowing that I had a good life and yet feeling so...hopeless all the time, it just made it even worse. I felt like I had to have a reason for being sad and I didn't have one, so it just made me even more sad. It made me hate myself more." I rambled on, nervously biting my cheek as I recalled those times. Now, it felt like so long ago, but it wasn't. It was only three years ago. It's crazy to think about how quickly things can change in such a short span of time.

"Anyways," I sighed, figuring I should get on with what I was trying to tell him. Nobody knew this, not Josh or Tracy or Maria. Nobody knew, so it made it nerve wracking for me to tell him this. "I started using self-harm as a way to distract myself. At the time, physical pain seemed more comfortable to me than the mental and emotional pain that I was going through. It was something I shouldn't have done, though. I mean, the way I see myself now is nothing like how I saw myself then. I didn't care about the fact that I was hurting myself. I thought I deserved it. I started to get addicted to that pain, just for the sake of having a pain that was something other than internal. It was...pretty messed up, to say the least." I said softly, hearing the silence from him as I finished. "But that scar was just...from one of the cuts that was really deep. The others just kind of...faded away." I muttered, frowning to myself.

Luke stayed quiet a bit and, for a little while, I got scared that maybe he wouldn't say anything. I got scared that maybe he thought less of me now that he knew that story, that he knew about what I'd done to myself. Self harming wasn't something a lot of people understood, the type of emotional and mental pain you have to be in to want to hurt yourself to feel a pain different from the one you're so used to. It's frowned upon, as it should be, but that didn't matter to me then.

I didn't see the big deal because I didn't care about myself at the time. I didn't love myself in the slightest bit. It took me a while after I finally got out of that place to realize that I'd made a mistake doing that. I didn't realize until after it was over that doing something like that doesn't actually help. It doesn't cure the pain, it just momentarily gets it off your mind. I didn't realize that there were other things I could've been focusing on to distract myself that didn't cause me harm. After all of that, I started putting myself into my art more. My art became my safe haven for all things, a place to pile my burdens and my happiness. Putting myself into it like that was really cathartic. It's good to have something like that. Something you can turn to and pour yourself into when you need it.

"I'm sorry you went through that." Luke said suddenly, his voice sounding different. It was as if he was lost in thought. I lifted my head to look at him and my brown eyes met his blue ones. "Me too." I whispered. He eyed me closely for a moment. "Do you still feel like that?" He asked, curiosity in his eyes. I smiled and shook my head, holding his hand tightly. "No." I said honestly. He hummed, his brows furrowing together in thought. "How? What got you out of there?" He wondered, but I didn't have an answer for that one. That was still something I was unsure of myself, honestly.

"I don't know." I said. "It's funny, you know. When you feel a type of pain like that, you always think that you're going to immediately notice when it's gone, but it wasn't like that. It's a slow process. Slowly, little bits of the pain fade away, so slow that you don't even really notice it's happening. And then when it's finally all gone, you don't even notice. But when you notice that you can breathe right again, it's weird because you don't remember when that pain stopped. Just that it did." I explained. That was something I still found interesting, found funny. That was what it had been like for me.

Luke peered down at me, softly brushing a strand of my black hair behind my ear. Love shone deep in his eyes, his body practically exuding it. "You're so amazing. So beautiful and strong and just...incredible." He smiled, causing me to blush. I'd never been complimented to that degree, but I trusted Luke to be the one to compliment me like that. It was very...Luke.

When he cuddled his face into my neck, a smile rose on my lips as I kissed his shoulder softly. "Thank you for telling me." He whispered into my skin, placing a kiss on my neck. I giggled and stroked a hand down the side of his face when he pulled away from my neck, his blue eyes meeting my brown pair. "Thank you for listening." I said back, watching as a smile grew on his lips and he shook his head. He gave me a kiss that I felt his emotion behind, his hand on the back of my neck. I wanted to crawl onto him, but I was too sore, so I just stayed laid down beside him. If this was what I could get, I'd take it with absolutely zero complaints. At least he was here with me.

"I'll always listen." He smiled.