Accolade

chapitre vingt-et-un

trigger warning; sensitive content 

Long after it was dark, I stayed awake. 

Something in my head wouldn't stop replaying what I had seen at Broadway. Every time I blinked or closed my eyes for too long, I saw Eliana's greedy smile. I saw Lucy leaving on brighter horizons. I saw everything that I had strived for since I had first danced...gone. 

The day I fell, I couldn't stop remembering it. 

After several hours of tossing and turning and fighting back tears, I abandoned my bed. I walked barefoot into the hall and down to the kitchen. I filled a glass with cool water and then I dumped it back out without drinking any of it. I stared at the refrigerator, there was a picture of Lucy and I beneath a magnet.

She had taken it on her polaroid and given it to me last year for my birthday. I was supposed to get it framed but I never did. We were both sitting on the floor in the studio, breaking our new shoes for dancing. I was grinning and she was laughing at me. Sunlight filtered in behind us. The polished floor sparkled. Past me looked so happy and she had no idea what I was dealing with now. What had awaited her in the future. 

I suppose that was the thing... you never knew. 

"Aida?" 

I didn't jump. Normally, I would have. My eyes simply slid from the photo to the hallway. Auden stood there. He had on a pair of cotton sweatpants and a t-shirt. It was the most normal I had seen him dress. He rubbed his left eye and stepped closer, blinking to get a closer look at me. 

"What are you doing awake?" He asked when I gave no response. 

I shrugged. My feet had a mind of their own and walked around him. I headed back down the hallway to my room. 

"Aida? What's going on? Answer me."

I didn't have an answer because I didn't know. Some part of me hoped he would go away and let me be. Another part of me was begging him not to leave. I felt something wrong in my heart, knew it wasn't right, but I stayed quiet on the outside. A violent storm raged beneath my skin. 

Back in my room, I didn't go back to bed. I went to my bathroom. 

I came to a standstill in front of the mirror. I had flicked the lights so I could stare at the stranger that stood there. She wasn't me. Her eyes were too sad. Her skin was too pale. Her heart was cracking with every beat. 

My eyes began to see through the mirror and I knew what laid behind it. I kept my razors back there, right next to my toothpaste and toothbrush. 

"...talk to me." 

Auden hadn't left. He stood behind me. Those three words were the only thing I understood. Whatever else he had said fell upon deaf ears. I was stuck in this stupor and it wouldn't let me go. Distant pain resonated through my legs, they wouldn't support my weight for much longer, and that alone made my heart hurt more.

"Aida, please."

I blinked and then my lips parted. Perhaps if I told him, then he would understand. 

"I can't do this anymore," I didn't break eye contact with my reflection, my voice ghostly. I kept staring into her empty soul as she finally admitted that the fight to one day return to normal was over. Normal didn't exist. She admitted that she was losing her energy with every breath and the battle ahead was too much. She wouldn't win that fight, it would win her.