She wanted to die.
He wanted to live.
•••
A hand grabbed onto my wrist, yanking me back just as the train rushed past, before I'd even had time to comprehend whether or not I'd carry out the action. I stumbled back into the person's chest, my hear...
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There are many times in my life where I've thought about pain: how it's unavoidable for everyone on earth, and yet no one has found a cure for the most ubiquitous thing in life.
Right now, at this exact second that we were chosen to live in, thousands of people were enduring mental pain, fighting invisible battles and wishing they could die just to escape the mess in their minds. There are people like Cassie who are so immersed in their pain they can't see a way out, people who have become so numb to the pain that it no longer burns.
But on the other hand, at this exact second, thousands of people were enduring physical pain, a million different scalds and sensations searing through their body. There are people like me who feel like they'd been ran over by a car, as though each breath they took was a wildfire in their lungs and thick black smoke was clogging up their insides, choking them from within.
Imagine how many billions of people weren't okay: physically, mentally, or even both. Imagine how many souls were hurting, how many problems people were facing, and how much pain there was currently in the world.
Yet no one had found a universal remedy to eradicate all types of pain.
No one had found a cure for the most detrimental thing to all of humanity, instead focusing on less important things that didn't kill people at the same rate that pain does. I didn't mean medicines, or antidepressants, or drugs and alcohol and other temporary solutions that people used: I meant a cure, specifically for pain, no matter what kind or how severe it was.
Because after hearing Cassie say she didn't know who she was anymore, I wished I could have given her a cure for her pain.
I couldn't even begin to fathom how it would feel to lose one of the only things that was specific to you; the thing that made you who you were. I had to learn through my own struggles that my pain didn't define me, but Cassie was so wrapped up in her trauma that she couldn't see the light shining within her. She couldn't see that she already had all the pieces of who she was in her hands, and that her pain was hindering her from piecing them back together.
And I wished I could do it for her. I wished I could take the pieces out of her hands and stick them back together, or give her selective amnesia to forget all the bad in her life, or give her a miracle-working cure so that she would never have to feel pain for the rest of her life.
I wished I could make her whole again.
The sound of Cassie's heavy sigh cut through my thoughts, reminding me of our current location as we strolled aimlessly down the city streets, the ruminating girl beside me with a head full of pensive thoughts. Aside from our footsteps, the only noise was of the odd car passing by since the pavements were empty of any other pedestrians and any shops we passed by were closed, with only the streetlights and the starry night sky providing us with some light. The clouds had cleared completely within the space of our time together, now empty and glistening as the stars glowed down upon us.
