Stagnant

Ambivalent

I walk with jelly legs after being helped down from the plane, my arms immediately winding around Jackson to find some stability, his chest rumbling at my actions but responded nevertheless.

"That was insane." I mumble, squeezing my eyes shut while my heart pounded like an alarm on my ears.

"Was it good good good good good?" He teased, tightening his hold on me when he realised how much I was shaking.

"Yes." I whisper, grasping his top between my fingers. "You owe me dinner though. That was so scary. Can you check if there's a brown mark on my leggings?"

His chest rumbled again with his boisterous laugh. "I'll buy you dinner and then we'll watch the rugby. Well I'll watch the rugby and you'll read. What you reading today?"

"Sense and sensibility." I mumble, releasing my hold on him at the same time he did me. He clasped our hands together as we walked to the car. I dismissed the warmth that travelled spread through my body at the feeling of his hand in mine.

"Have you read it before?" He asks, opening the passenger door for me before rounding the car and settling in the drivers seat.

I nod. "A couple years ago."

"Is there a book you haven't read?" He grinned teasingly.

"I haven't read the dictionary... or the bible."

He snorts, glancing at me quickly. "Was that a joke? Does Elizabeth joke now?"

Shrugging, I turned to the window, watching the world pass us by. The view down here isn't as alluring as the view from above but nothing will make me forget that experience. I stored it in my brain, remembering every colour change, remembering how the wind felt as it whipped me and remembering the sounds that were coming out of my mouth. "Maybe I do."

Now the grass was dark green, morning dew present from the rain last night and early this morning. The air was crisp and biting yet calming, allowing the fresh air to inflate my lungs. The wind wasn't freezing nor annoying, it sung to its own tune, the birds weren't a nuisance with their chirping, they were singing and humming.

Joking, laughing, smiling, feeling warmth... they were all things I hadn't done or felt in a year, all things that had no place in my life before Jackson came along and blackmailed me in to not commuting suicide just yet.

With Jackson it was slowly becoming easier to smile and laugh. I had moments, mostly at night, where the demons came back stronger than ever, pushing me back in to the abyss of depression and darkness. They ran wild in my mind, thoughts swirling at a hundred miles per hour, the same numbness taking over. I spent hours staring up at the ceiling, the demonic thoughts in my head snatching me away from sleeps grasp, torturing me. 

My depression wasn't gone, far from it, but I wasn't so convinced anymore that life was a waste. There was so much more than my forsaken town where depression and darkness ruled over my life like a constant cloud. However now that I had left, now that the distance had increased between me and that town where everything went wrong in my life, the cloud was starting to thin, tiny rays of sun were breaking through.

I didn't understand it at all. I had wanted to die, that much was clear. I had planned it all, the time, the day, the weather, the location. It was done and I was so sure in the decision that I didn't want to be alive anymore. Yet here I was, questioning my want to die. Jackson was showing me that there was much more to life, he was bringing out sides of me I didn't even know I possessed anymore.

Laughing and smiling were actions I didn't even know my body could do anymore and yet here I was, joking, trying to hide my smiles, chuckling to myself.