Augustine's Sanity

c h a p t e r. 1

"There was no part of him that was not broken, that had not healed wrong, and there was no part of him that was not stronger for having been broken."
― Leigh Bardugo

chapter 1

Augustine D'Silvetta decided something, a simple fact in his mind: that everyone lives through life like a dandelion.

Some find beauty within themselves even when everyone calls them a weed, even when people smash down their petals, and even when people rip them from the ground— they still find some soil to get settled down and comfortable in.

Others believe they are weeds. These are the people who cry at 4 AM for no reason other than the sadness inside of them that doesn't know how to sleep.

These are the people who look one insult from blowing away in the wind.

And others get uprooted and tossed around and shoved and called a stupid little weed by anyone in arms reach.

Augustine knew he was one of those, an uprooted weed pretending to be a flower.

Pretending he belonged somewhere even when he did not.

Pretended that yeah, even if those other flowers didn't act like him, didn't look like him, didn't care about him, that he could be one of them.

But he wasn't.

And he would never be.

Augustine was staring at himself through a mirror in the bathroom at his school, trying to shake off a panic attack before lunch so his best friends wouldn't worry.

Law and Bar had known him for years, they were best friends, brothers even, but Augustine still felt like a burden to them.

They were so... put-together in comparison. So "I have myself figured out, I know who I am" and he just— just wasn't.

Augustine didn't know how to tell them how his mind constantly was a jumble of chaos tearing at the seams even after the middle got all shredded.

About how he no longer feels like a human but was now a hell instead.

About how suicide and him would get along just fine.

About how crazy and annoying and unworthy all his emotions constantly prove him to be.

Augustine's chest rose and fell and he reminded himself to breathe in and out, in and out— he knew he should probably use his inhaler.

Being someone whose lungs gave out on him, he knew how important breathing was.

Asthma and panic attacks didn't mix well.

Asthma and panic attacks are going to kill him one day.

He knew he should just reach over to his backpack.

He knew he should take out his inhaler.

He knew that.

Augustine didn't move a muscle.

He felt completely ridiculous, being all panicky and uncompliant to his own needs in a school's bathroom of all places.

He felt even worse knowing why he was all panicky.

That morning his mother had woken up late and just as he was heading out the door she asked him, "Can you cook me breakfast?"

He didn't have time for that. He needed to get to school, he had to take a test in his psychology class.