Healing and Breaking (final part)

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Her eyes opened, fluttering as if she had emerged from sleep. But she hadn't. She was in her personal bathroom, watching the blood pour down her arm. She had been so deep in her memories that she didn't even remember cutting. The bloodied razor blade rested stained on the counter. She lifted it. 2

"Chris?" he called into the house as she winced softly, her eyes tearing as the blade tore into her soft flesh yet again. 3

"Chris - are you there?" he called again. 4

She could hear him moving around in her room. Tears ran cold down her cheeks as her heart wanted so dearly to open the door and run into his protecting grasp. However, there were reasons she had cut herself. Her mother's death had torn a large hole into her heart, an injury that she had felt that she must suffer through alone. She wanted so bad to feel him holding her against the pain, but she knew that he couldn't; for, at the end of everyday, he must go home while she remained holed up in her suffocating room. 5

She had packed two days ago: she had decided to live with her sister in Florida. Lorrie had offered her a place in her mother's home the day that she had called to tell Lorrie that her mother had died. Lorrie would be hurt that she was doing this. Yet, what Lorrie didn't know was that when she had packed, she had packed in accordance to the will she had made in the week after her mother's death. Her adopted father's attorney had helped her with it, probably thinking that she had just felt that she could just go at anytime. She wasn't stupid enough to tell him her ultimate plans. She had written a nine-page letter to Lorrie explaining to her what was happening inside of her head. 6

She had made double sure that no one had believed her death was their fault. She knew that Richard knew how she felt. He'd wanted so bad to stay with her the past few nights, but her dad had all but pushed him out the door each night. 7

The past few nights had changed me indefinitely. My mother's funeral had been beautiful, no matter what occasion we had gathered there for. I had just sat there, staring into nothingness, my hand being held firmly by his. I had been the first to leave. Terribly upset, I had left the rest of the family before they had reached me. Sitting in the passenger side seat, Richard had refused to let me drive, he touched my chin softly, gently: a brief request for me to look up into his eyes. My eyes met his and I knew that he had felt my every emotion emanating from me. Though my eyes were dry and I had tried so hard to keep calm, he had felt it. "I want her back," I whispered passionately, looking away from the tender look he had been giving me. 8

            "I know, love. I know," he whispered, his hand caressing my cheek, his hand soaking up the only tear that I had let go that day. I turned back into him and slipped into his arms. I felt him tighten his grip on me. "I love you," he whispered, his voice a deep, pleasant rumble in his chest. I nodded my agreement as I felt his hand run through the mass of tangles that was my hair; I had just run a brush through it to look somewhat presentable. 9

            I tore away from his comforting embrace at the sound of people getting into their cars. "Chris?" he asked me then. I brought my unfocused gaze back to his loving face. "Are you okay?" he had asked softly, carefully watching my gaze go from moments of clarity to eons of despair. 10

            "I'm fine, Richard. I'll be okay," I replied. I had thought I'd be fine. Then, I hadn't felt that gigantic hole that had been ripped into my heart. Finally, he leaned over and kissed me gently, his lips warm on my clammy ones. 11

            "I don't want to lose you, love. I still need you here, okay?" I had heard the frantic, pleading note in his normally strong and even voice, and had acknowledged the information, but registered it irrelevant for the time being. He kissed me again, his lips lingering on mine for a moment. After he broke away, he whispered softly into my ear, "I'm always going to be here for you, my love. I love you dearly." 12

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            Her thoughts, returning to the present and his inevitable future, more tears ran down her cheek, her eyes clearly unfocused from the tears that had ravaged her beautiful skin. She had remembered the night after the funeral. She had tried to behave in a happy manner; answering the door with a half-smile, she had accepted the food, condolences and deepest sympathies. All the while, her heart and head screamed against this sudden forced perkiness, demanding her to act somewhat natural. 14

That night, Richard had come over to make sure I was okay. "I'm fine," I remembered saying, wondering why I had insisted on telling everybody that, while my heart screamed against the sudden emptiness. My father hadn't even acknowledged me once and had left from the funeral to go straight to work. I had failed to understand what I had done wrong. Not understanding, I had resigned to ignorance and had rearranged the house, scrubbing it from floor to ceiling. Finished, I finally collapsed from the exertion and exhaustion I hadn't even felt while cleaning. 15

            "You're doing abnormally well," he whispered, taking in the clean surroundings, and pulling me (emotions and all) into his arms. I had cried hard while I remained in his arms, but my mask came on and I wiped away the tears as soon as I had to answer the door again. Finally, I locked the door to friends and family and had led Richard past my father's locked door and into my bedroom. 16

            The moment I closed the door, I turned to watch him. For my entertainment, he did a back flip onto my four-poster bed. As he glanced up to watch me, I smiled, feeling my blue eyes light up briefly. "Come here," he whispered, patting the empty space on the bed beside him. 17

            He held my gaze as I sat gracefully beside him. He smiled tenderly as my hair fell from the knot at the base of my neck. Chuckling, his had pushed the hair out of my tear-streaked face. He smiled as I leaned over to kiss him. Just as we began to dive into our deeper emotions, he broke away from me. "You're hurting, love. I don't want this to be something that you regret." 18

            I kissed him again, softly, gently, easing back into his arms, my eyes fluttering closed. I let all the emotions - the pain of my mother's death and the joy, love and excitement of the touch of his lips - wash over me, tears of happiness rolling down my cheeks. 19

            He chuckled softly, brushing away the tears. I looked up into his soft grey gaze and smiled the first of a few real smiles that I'd given anybody since the day my mom had passed away. "Babe," I whispered, my eyes alight with the tenderness that I had always felt for him. "This... this would never be something I would regret. I love you, Richard. I would do almost anything for you. I just need for you to love me back," I said this, holding his gaze with my own. 20

            "Oh, baby, if you only knew how much I do love you. Con todomi corazón," he whispered this into my ear, a twinkle in his grey eyes. 21

            I kissed him softly, almost reverently. However, I sighed with exasperation as he pulled away, his serious grey gaze catching my own cerulean one. 22

            "You promise you're sure?" he inquired, obviously skeptical. 23

            I smiled, a playful smile that lit up my blue eyes. "I promise," I whispered, my hand moving to grip his hands, which were trembling with kempt emotions. 24

            Her mind snapped horribly back into the present. Without the dulling pleasure of the memories that she had been living, the openings that she had torn into her own flesh pulsed painfully. Her racing thoughts didn't help anything; she couldn't begin to focus on why she was here because already, blood loss had begun to make her dizzy and weak. 25

As she concentrated her unfocused gaze back towards the blade, she began to remember life after her mother's death. 26

I remembered yesterday. Richard had come over to make sure that I would make it to school okay. Unable to shake him off, I had spent the day with him. We watched Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Special Edition. Or he watched it, more correctly while I stared blankly at the screen. My favorite line, when Aragorn and Gimli rush to save the fort, Gimli says, "Toss me.... But don't tell the Elf," didn't even have any kind of effect on me. I had watched my eyes change as I went through this, when I could actually look at myself in the mirror. My eyes, my favorite thing about myself changed dramatically. Before her death, they had constantly been a brilliant sapphire color that had changed to a clear cerulean from the emotions after her passing, were now just a simple dull, pale blue. Slate, probably, in color. 27

            I vaguely remembered an argument between Richard and me and then there had been nothing. I had woken up later on at night to find Richard gone and my father beating on the strangely closed door to check on me. 28

            My father left me this morning with his express orders for me to go to school. Somehow, I remembered that argument quite vividly. Maybe it was because of the things that I had screamed back at him. 29

            "You know what?" I had asked him. "Just because you're a robot and can't feel a thing doesn't mean that I'm not feeling pain. Maybe it was because you didn't give a damn about what happened to her. But you know what? Screw you, I'll go to school if and when I want and I'll stay home whenever the hell I want to!" I had run back into my room and slammed the door, turning up the stereo, locking out his angry explosions. 30

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            So here she was, emotions, pain and all. The jagged opening in her arm was throbbing horribly. She placed her good arm on the counter top, trying to pull herself up. Finally she collapsed, weakened from the amount of blood she had lost already. 32

She had felt the heaviness in her palm, so she inched her head up to look to see what was lying there. The razor blade still lay firmly in her open palm. 33

"Christina!" She could hear the fear in his frantic voice. 34

Her eyes fluttering closed, she had murmured, "I love you," as she passed out cold. Had she stayed awake just a few moments longer, she would have been able to see the one she had loved the most. Had that morning's events been different, there was the possibility that she wouldn't have torn the 6-inch gashes into her arm, cutting and slicing not only the flesh, but the delicate tendons that had given mobility to her hand. 35

Maybe, if her father hadn't pushed Richard out the door last night, there was the possibility that she wouldn't have fallen so far into the despair that had taken her life. 36

Either way, the last feeling that she had felt before escaping her mortal shell for eternity, was the colossal degree of love she had felt for him and the fear that he wouldn't understand. The last thing she wanted was for him to feel the same ripping despair she had felt just moments before. He would probably never know, but she wanted him to live on through his life because if anything, she would always love him, throughout eternity.37