Maybe I'm Crazy
It's morning by the time I look out a window again, the horizon a pale blue as the sun begins to peak over the trees. The room is still quite and depending on the artificial light for color. I don't remember falling asleep, but I must have, because now I'm in the bathtub, staring at a premature dawn and a destroyed restroom. The products from the counter are poking at my ass, the mirror is shattered, and there is what looks like red ink all over the place. Smeared on the floor, the counter, the mirror, not to mention I can feel it's coldness seeping through my shirt. Then I feel the pain all over me, and it's not just joints from sleeping in a tub. That isn't red inch.
I wrack my brain for what happens, hours could have been spent in that bathroom but I didn't care. I wanted to remember what I was feeling and doing at all times.
Slowly, it comes back. The rage, the fear, and most of all, the sadness taking over my body. The way my heart raced and my eyes widened as the shard of reflective glass sliced through my skin like butter. It hurt, but oh how exhilarating it was to feel something real, to know I'm still alive. The blood. I had never seen the blood I bled before. It was beautiful in a way. The nice, dark shade of a deep and passionate color. Just for fun I had wiped some on the floor for contrast. Skip ahead, and I'm smearing it on the mirror for god knows what reason screaming bloody murder for it to stop. For all of this to stop. I'm tired. I'm tired of it all, and even though I'm tired I still have to clean this shit up.
"Oh my god". Fucking hell. She's here, I'm done. "Natalie, oh my god, oh my god." Demi drops her bag and runs over to me, lifting me by the armpits and putting me down on the toilet seat lid. Her skin is soft and warm, like the sun that came out after a storm just to go down for night fall. It's warmer than usual actually. She just worked out. "What have you done?"
She starts to frantically grab rags from under the sink and tosses them on the counter, followed by hydrogen peroxide. I recognize it by the fugly brown bottle with the white top. "Go", I grumble, "I can't do anything right but I can pick up after my wrongs".
Demi stares at me blankly for the first time. I never knew someone else's empty looks could drain another. I know this is fake, she's sweating and her eyes are wild, her mouth is dry but dripping in disappointment. It still hurts that she felt she had to put on this act. "I'm not leaving you here alone. Not anymore".
"I told you to go, so go. I can take care of myself".
I receive a humorless chuckle from Demi. "Take care of yourself, yeah right ok, Natalie." She sits on her heels in the tub, taking my arm and placing it over the drain plug. "Hold still, this is going to hurt".
I struggle under her grasp. "I told you, stay still damn it I'm trying to help".
"I never asked for any now go!" I yell, jerking my arm away.
"Stop it Natalie for Christ sake", she growled back, grabbing my arm with an iron grip. I immediately cry out in pain, the fresh wounds reopened, are now bleeding again.
I have lost the dignity and maturity I fought so hard to maintain. Squeezing my eyes shut briefly and clenching my fist to muster the courage, I look her I te eyes. Tears blur my vision when I look at her long face. She's crying too, not for her but for me. Not loudly, but softly, like a blistering cold wind raging through your hair to remind you how you couldn't find refuge in time. Now you're left in the empty, dead, dark woods, alone with the howling wolves on the side of a mountain.
I'm weak, so weak that I have to yell at her to feel some sort of control. I gain the courage to look at the arm Demi is holding in her bloody hand. It's smeared with the red, metallic liquid, Demi's blurred fingerprints within the lines. They are the lines. Demi silently turns on the faucet and puts my arm under to wash off the blood, but the water is so cold. It seeps through my skin and bones, going into my bloodstream and freezing me right then and there. I need to stop it. I pull my arm out of the stream and Demi huffs. "Please, please stop fighting", she pleads.
"I thought the blood and cuts all over me made it obvious I did."
"That's a different war you're fighting, but with this battle you're facing right now, do not retreat. Stay strong, my love".
I had to resist the feeling sitting in my throat as I put my arm under the critical faucet and watched the red fade away, off my arm and down the drain. Demi's hand then gripped the faucet and she took my hand by her fingertips like she was playing with fire. She dabbed my wounds with a soft white cloth, little bits of a vibrant red stayed on it, sinking into the fabric. I couldn't help but think how hard those dots are going to be to get out in the wash. When she's done drying my arms, she grabs bandage from outside the tub and freezes. My arm in one hand, the white fabric for my self-destruction in the other, she look at my arm again and the arm with cloth falls, dropping it in front of her as she bends over to me. Her thumb traces the cuts slowly, gently feeling the torn skin. Then, looking me in the eyes again, she holds her wrists side by side, where ink in fancy penmanship is written on both. "Do you know what this says?"
I shake my head. "It says 'stay strong'. I was where you were once. It lead to years of suffering. So when I got better, I got what all my fans were telling me to do tattooed where I could always see it. That way whenever I got that feeling to do something, I would see it and remind myself. If not for me, for them, if not for them then for you."
I nod, and she wraps my wounds slowly and in silence. When she's done I walk out of the bathroom and swallow the lump in my throat. Demi mentions the messy restroom, but I just mumble 'later' over my shoulder.
"Natalie", she says from behind me. I turn on my heels with my eyebrows raised expectantly. "This has to stop, what you're doing. You're destroying yourself, your friends, me. I know you're hurting with all that's been going on lately. You aren't alone. Trust me, we're all feeling our loses. But this is different. You're mourning to the point that it's dangerous. It's ok to feel, it's ok to hurt, but not feel to the point you hurt yourself to know you aren't stuck on one feeling and emotion. Do you think that's what he would have wanted? You collapsing in on yourself because he's gone? I can feel the hope he'll magically appear too, but don't wait for him. Don't wait for Nathan, he's not coming back".
"You don't know what he would have wanted", I growled,"you wouldn't know a damn thing. You don't know what he would feel, or what I am feeling. I know he's not coming back, I won't deny when someone I love says their final goodbye." I storm over to Demi, standing over her like the Boogy Man. "So don't you tell me what I feel or what I think because I and I alone know that. You think all I've done since has been for self pity? Self pity that I feel alone? No, so don't go spitting your enlightening ideas around like you know best."
"Natalie stop yelling", Demi demands, her voice rising as well.
"Why? I'm just expressing how I feel, Demi, don't you want that? Don't you want me to cry and shout a little to get over him? Am I too much for you? Was I too much for him too? Maybe we should go ask him!"
"Stop it!" Demi yells pressing her hand on my chest.
"Oh wait we can't, he's dead!", and with that I made a huge mistake. I swiped one hand under hers, knocking her defense down and force my other hand against her chest. She falls backward against the wall , holding herself I a crouch, upheld by the plaster behind her. "Nathan is dead".
That is the one time I said it where I wasn't telling anyone but myself, I wasn't saying any of that to anyone, really. "He's dead", I tell myself again, and with that I shattered into pieces, squatting on the ground in weakness for heaving howls. Tears fall like waterfalls down my cheeks and I feel it. All I had been trying to gain but lost in the middle of nothing. I stood looking at Demi as best I could just in time for her to come to me and hold me tighter than she ever had.
"It's ok", she sobbed, breathing deeply," let it out".
So I did, and that's the last I recall. Just standing in the middle of my room in Demi's embrace with blood in the bathroom and blue in the bedroom, crying with my girlfriend like a good friend had died, because one had. I kept apologizing between rounds of heart wrenching cries. To Demi, to Nathan, and to myself. For every horrible thing I had ever done, little to small. I needed Nate more than ever but he wasn't here. Demi was though, and there is no way in hell I losing someone so precious.
---------------------------------------Whaaaaat? i just got nominated for best gxg fanfiction for the lovatic fanfict awards 2016 so go check that out and follow the directions to vote if you agree. Go to @lovaticfanficawards to do all that. It's in a book.
that wthat was long. Ok so I got a plan set for this story and all in general. Here it is
1. Finish this series (this is the final book)
2. Major revisions to the Two Eyes Down Novels
3. Same to other story
4. New book that I don't have an idea for yet (I might go to my second, non Demi account. Not sure yet)
Sound good? If not let me know.
There have been two people this week that have binge read Two Eyes Down, so thanks for that. Also, this series has been gaining a little bit of popularity which is awesome considering the writer can't be consistently fantabulous. The first book has over 17000 reads!! Keep it up guys, vote, comment, and tell all your buddies about the book if you like it. Even if you aren't buddies, still tell them and make a new one! Yay friendship.
Last thing: a friend of mine got nominated for lovaticfanficawards (i didnt know that was an awards thing but ok, its now annual so check out there page) in the best writer category. She did not win but her story 'captive' did get an honorable mention. Hooray for FireStarterXx!
I don't usually write this much in the authors note but fuck it I had a lot to say.