We’re sitting on the floor in Cris’ room, our backs resting on the edge of her bed, she’s holding the piece of paper in both hands and she observes the lines that make up the drawing.
“Cris, what are you thinking?”
Cris observes the paper a few more seconds and then looks up, she looks into my eyes for a few moments and I can see the conflict within them, I feel that she’s looking something in my eyes that could help her figure out that conflict. After around one minute she smiles at me and hands me the drawing.
“What are you thinking? You asked me to talk about this, but you haven’t told me what you want to know.”
I look down at the paper for a brief moment.
“This drawing… it was given to you by that person you told me about, right?”
“Yes.”
Cris’ eyes fill up with tears and I stretch out my hand to grab hers.
“She was very special to you, wasn’t she?”
She tries to speak but there’s no voice coming out, so she just nods.
“I see.”
We stay in silence for a few minutes, Cris trying to control her feelings and I’m trying to decide what to ask her next. There are so many questions about so many different things that I want to ask, there’s so many of them that they all just come together in my head, the words merge and I cant tell them apart. Fuck. I should’ve written them down. I look at Cris and I notice that she’s focused on something in my wrist, she turns my hand gently towards her and I realize I’m still wearing the hospital bracelet, Cris doesn’t seem to mind though, actually, she runs her thumb over the plastic and leans her head lightly to her left to watch it in a different angle.
“Uhm, Cris?”
Carefully, I remove my hand from hers and I see her closing hers tightly.
“When you were at the hospital… because you went, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Did my parents tell about… I mean, did they ever mention the…”
I don’t know why I’m struggling so much to say it, its just three letters. I guess I feel that by saying them out loud, I’m accepting a part of me that I don’t fully understand yet and that I don’t know if it’ll make me a better person or if… if it’ll drive Cris away.
I inhale and then exhale feeling the weight of the word falling on my shoulders, I rub the back of my neck because of the residual pain I have and I exhale through my mouth once more.
“Did my parents tell you why I was admitted?”
I look at Cris and she’s looking back at me with an expression I haven’t seen before, her eyes move quickly as if shifting from one of mine to the other, she gently bites her lower lip and blinks a couple of times.
“What do you mean? I mean, I was there when… well, when we called the ambulance and- actually, I had to do it myself and, well, I rode in it with you to the hospital, and then your parents arrived…”
She stops to try and hold back her tears.
“You were admitted to the hospital because you fainted outside Christian’s house.”
She finishes the sentence and then looks away, and so do I. I feel a little embarrassed again, I didn’t mean to put her through that and I cant imagine what she must’ve felt, only imagining if it had been the other way and I was the one that had to take Cris to the hospital in that state, it makes my stomach hurt.
“Yeah, shit… I didn’t… I hadn’t thought about that. that you had to-”
I look at her again and I see a few tears falling down from her eyes, I wish I could hug her and tell her that we can drop the subject but… but I need to know. I need to push on.
“I guess I didn’t ask the question as I should’ve. What I meant to say was if they told you about the- Well, my therapist told them that… uhm… Shit, I don’t’ know why-”
My heart starts racing and put the drawing down on the bed, my hands are sweating and I don’t want to ruin it for her, I start feeling a cold sweat on my forehead and my breathing quickens and becomes unstable.
“Fuck.”
Cris holds my hand and intertwines our fingers, giving me a little extra strength.
“That… If they told you about the BPD?”
I fell her grip on my hand tighten before answering me.
“Yes, they did.”
“Right… Well, I imagine you might be freaking about with that and more so with what happened at the party I cant imagine what my parents might have told you so you’d stay away from me or maybe they banned you from seeing me I don’t really know because Amira just said that it had been a mutual agreement and I imagine that that was between my parents and you and I can only think that it was because they blamed you about stuff and well you said it yourself when you came to see me but its not your fault Cris I swear it isn’t if anything you are the only thing that makes sense right now and it wasn’t your fault I just lost control and I didn’t know why and even thought they’ve named it I still don’t understand and I just don’t want to lose you.”
I finish talking and I need to take in a deep breath because I ran out of air when I said all of this, I didn’t even pause at all, maybe I even said it too fast, I was just trying to keep up with my thoughts and I hope Cris was able to actually understand what I said. When I breathe in I realize that I am crying and that she is too, she’s still holding my left hand but with both of hers, and I take my free hand to my chest and press hardly.
After one or two minutes, I feel Cris moving and I turn around to see her and, as tragic as it may seem, my breath is taken away by the intense glow her eyes have when she cries, the way the blue color changes. But, there’s also something else, there’s something other than sadness there.
She wipes the tears with the back of her right hand and then uses it to lift up m chin and turn my face around so that I am seeing her again, she’s making sure I’m looking at her and I’m not sure what to think or what to expect. A part of me wants to believe that Cris will stay no matter what, or well that she’ll ask me to stay, that she’ll say that it doesn’t matter, that we’ll find the way, that she doesn’t give a shit about what my parents said, that she doesn’t give a shit about anyone else and that she just wants to be with me; but another part is fixating on the fact that Amira mentioned that it was a mutual agreement and I cant help but to think that Cris will say that its too much and she’ll walk away… but I don’t know if I’m just being pessimistic or if it’s the BPD.
“Joana…”
Cris sighs and lays her back against her bed again, I follow after her and let go of her hand, I’m getting ready for what’s to come, for the rejection, for having to go back home.
“I’m sorry, I don’t… I didn’t mean for any of this to happen, all I’ve ever wanted is for you to always be okay, for you to be safe aga- I don’t want you to get hurt by anything, specially by me. That night at the hospital, I… your parents mentioned that it was the second time something like that happened and I had no idea. I didn’t know that the two times that happened was because of me, and then…”
She looks at me for a second before continuing.
“Then they told me about the BPD and that that had to be your priority and that you needed things to be calm to be able to get better. So we agreed that I would leave, then Amira offered to stay. I didn’t know she’d tell you though, she was just supposed to stay there so there would be someone there when you woke up since I…”
Cris shakes her head and throws it back with her eyes closed.
“So… it is true then.”
“What?”
“That you think that its best not to see each other. That all this is too much, right? That this is where any and all resemblance I had with whoever gave you that drawing ends and you’d just rather quit right now.”
While I would love to say that all of this is coming from the BPD, I am not entirely certain. Part of me actually feels all of this because, in some level, I have always had the fear that I won’t live up to Cris’ memories and that the day would come where we could no longer pretend she has feelings for me because of who I am. And saving all of that makes my chest heart and my head ache, but I cant hold it in an longer, it just bursts out and before I know it its already echoing through out the room.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Cris is looking back at me and I recognize the anger in her expression, and it I’m glad because at least we have that in common right now.
“Exactly what I said, Cris, that you know you’ve only wanted this to able to keep someone’s distant memory alive and now you cant pretend anymore.”
“You’re such an asshole, for real. You have no fucking clue of what you’re saying.”
“I don’t?”
“No!”
She stands up, looks at me, opens her mouth as if she was going to say something and then exhales through her nose before turning around to face her window. I nod while still sitting in my place and get up slowly.
“Alright.”
I walk to the door and hear Cris calling out my name, then I turn around and see her looking at me, her lower lip is trembling and tears are flooding her eyes as she tries her best to not let them fall down.
“You know what, Cris? I never thought you’d be a coward.”
Cris moves her body backwards without actually stepping back, as if I had just punched her in the stomach, she blinks a few times making the tears finally fall down and I instantly regret saying all of that but before I can apologize, she has already taken four big steps and is now standing in front of me.
“You don’t have any rights to call me coward. You have no fucking idea of how shitty I’ve been feeling, what I’ve gone through all this time, what I felt when I saw you and… and you weren’t you and having to do anything I could to stay away without being actually able to not think about you or how you were doing every day, all the fucking time.
You are calling me a coward? Please! It’s not me standing at the door about to leave because things got a little complicated, am I? So what the hell if you have an illness? We all have something, dammit, I am an idiot who does shit without thinking it through and always messes every thing up.
What’s the big deal, Joana? When you want to be with someone you just are. And I am right here.”
“Yeah you are, but only because I’m like this, because I lost control again and you had no other option but to be there, but you were ready to leave me.”
Cris shakes her head and I an see she’s frustrated with me, but I don’t understand why.
“I have never been ready to leave you, cant you see that?”
I cross my arms in front of my chest and lift my chin.
“Who do you think asked your therapist to see you before you left the hospital, even if it was a secret? I haven’t stopped thinking about you, not for one second, Joana. And then you show up and tell me all this crap.”
Cris bites her lip and stomps her foot on the floor.
“I just don’t care that you have that illness, or any for that matter, you’re still you and I love you like that. And I will never, ever, run away. Not now that I finally got you ba-”
Cris stops and looks me in the eyes, she looks at me urgently and desperately, she looks at me and her eyes shift rapidly as if she was looking from one of my eyes to the other. She keeps searching for something in me that I don’t know if she will ever find. She stares at me one more time before nodding and walking back to bed and sitting down.
I see her exhale and take the drawing again, then, she smiles sadly.
“Its weird, you know, how someone can be so similar to another person and to be so different at the same time.”
Her voice sounds different, distant, as if she was talking more to herself rather than to me.
“I guess, in a way, you’re right. At first, I did look at you and hoped to see someone else, I hoped to hear them speak when you talked, and I hope to see someone else when I looked at you. There’s no point in denying that. It wasn’t easy for me, or for anyone really, but it was always different for me.
I… When it all happened and I lost…”
Cris wipes her eyes again and I sit down next to her.
“I’m sorry. I honestly hadn’t been able to stop crying for months, I was such a fucking mess, Amira was about to, I don’t know, kick my ass probably. Damn, you should’ve seen her that first day you came back to school, I think I had managed to go a whole week without crying and then, bam, there you are walking the hallways.”
She laughs softly as she remembers and she sighs.
“You two were together, weren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
Her voice is soft and low, barely coming out as she exhales.
“And, what was what hap-?”
She shakes her head and looks at me, and her expression breaks my heart.
“Joana, please. I don’t… I… No, I… I can’t talk about that, not right now.”
I know I shouldn’t push, I know Cris is asking me to drop it, but there are so many questions, so many things that don’t fit and she’s the only one who can put them together, so I press on.
“I think talking about it could help a little, you know? Saying things out loud helps a lot of the time and it makes you feel better.”
It’s a terrible line, I know it, but it could work.
“Do you feel better? Are you calmer? After talking about your diagnosis, do you now understand everything and you don’t feel shitty anymore?”
My head is telling me to say yes, to lie to her, to just say whatever to get her to tell me the story. But I can’t. Seeing like this, so vulnerable and sad… as much as I want to know, I decide that I will just trust that she will tell me in due time.
“Okay, alright. You’ll tell me when you’re ready.”
I try to grab her hand but she pulls it away.
“Why do you want to know now? Why right now?”
“I just want to understand. Understand why everyone kept looking at me the way they did, why would you cry when you saw me, why Amira wouldn’t talk to me at first, why Nora barely does it. I want to understand why do I feel that you keep looking for an answer when you look at me and I can never give it to you.
I want to understand why are you so convinced that its all your fault, because to me it isn’t and I wish you could stop blaming yourself for everything.”
It was all going better until that moment, that sentence. The second I mention something about guilt I see Cris closing down again and, as soon as I finish speaking, Cris is already standing up and walking to the other side of the room.
“Well, you don’t really know anything about that either so, no. You just need to stop talking about it, honestly Joana, just leave it alone.”
“There’s no need for you to be like this, Cris. I just want to understand. Obviously, I don’t know what happened but I honestly don’t think it was your-”
“But you don’t know, Joana, and you can’t know. There’s no way you could, you simply don’t rem-”
She stops and turns around, she turns her whole body around so she’s facing me and looking me directly into my eyes, and I can feel her gaze, and her pain, and her frustration, I can feel it all with a depth I cant comprehend.
“You just didn’t live it, you don’t… you weren’t there, you don’t know.”
I approach her carefully and I grab both of her hands.
“Okay, you’re right. I shouldn’t have pushed you.”
She’s looking at me and, even though she’s still somewhat angry, she doesn’t resist when I guide us back to the bed, but once we’re there she lets go of my hands and rests her head on her palms, hiding away, but I can still see the movements her shoulders make and I know she’s crying, and I beat myself up for pushing her so hard.
“Uh, Cris? Do you want me to… leave?”
She looks at me so quickly I fear she might be a little lightheaded.
“What? No!”
She hugs me by the neck and pulls me to her, and we both lay down on her bed looking up to the ceiling, Cris takes the drawing and lifts it so we can both see it.
“It doesn’t matter who drew this, all that matters is that you are here now, with me, and I’m never going to run away.”
She turns around and we’re face to face, looking at each other, she touches my face and I lean in so our foreheads touch.
“I love you, sapito.”
I feel her laughing against my lips and my heart speeds up.
“And I love you.”
And we kiss, and its white and blue. A kiss that quiets my mind and lets me enjoy the moment I’m living.
“Joana, I know we still have things to talk about, that you have questions, that the BPD will make you do things that you will regret, that my temperament isn’t always the best. But, as long as we live in the moment, day by day, instant by instant-”
“Minute by minute?”
She stares at me and smiles widely, then she runs her hand between my hair gently.
“Yeah, just like that. Minute by minute. As long as we take it minute by minute everything will be alright."
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AN: I'll try to update more often. Please dont forget to comment 🤗
