A/N: This is a two part addition to 'The Dutch Boy' and 'Battle Scars', and should be read only after completing both of these books. Part one is told from Theo's POV, and part two from Luca's. This follow up takes place roughly a year after the epilogue (which you can read in 'Battle Scars').
There will be brief mentions of depression, anxiety, and self-harm, but in the context of healing — this is a happy one shot, I promise!
Enjoy!
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PART ONE: THEO
Healing was a complex thing, as I slowly came to learn over time, because the truth was, there was no final destination. Healing was a constant, ongoing, everlasting journey. Sometimes, old wounds opened up again, and you would have to patch them up with gentle hands, and tear-filled eyes. But sometimes, if you were lucky, old wounds remained closed, sealed, left to fade into scars.
I was torn apart with anxiety during my teenage years. Sometimes, it was all consuming. Most of the time, it was suffocating. I thought that everybody hated me. I thought that the only way I could make it up to all the people I had burdened was to just stop existing altogether. To stop breathing.
That anxiety didn't just disappear with age. It faded, and it weakened, and it stuck to the dusty corners of my mind. But it was still there. It still lingered.
I had a self-harm relapse a year ago. It felt like everything was crumbling into dust around me, because until that moment, I really thought that I was better. I was happy, and healthy, and growing into the person I never thought I would get the chance to be. And then I made a mistake, and suddenly, I was seventeen again, bleeding all over my bedroom floor, and waiting for the paramedics to save me.
It happened when Luca was at work. I woke up, and I just knew that I was going to have a bad day. It didn't matter how brightly the sun was shining, or how sweet the note Luca had left me on the kitchen counter was. All that mattered was that I felt like I had rolled out of bed with parts of myself missing, leaving gaping holes in my chest, like gunshot wounds.
And, so, I hurt myself, for the first time in a very long time. Afterwards, I curled up on the floor, and cried until I couldn't breathe. The world just stopped.
When Luca found me, I swore, his world stopped, too.
I was okay, in the end. I didn't need stitches, and I didn't need all the sympathy that was given to me.
In the week that followed, Luca didn't take his eyes off of me. His gaze was solid, and unmoving, and filled with a sort of fear that I had never seen there before. He was careful with how he touched me, and gentle with how he spoke to me. It drove me to the brink of insanity, and eventually, I snapped at him. He stopped treating me like something fragile after that.
Over time, the cloud of guilt that surrounded my relapse thinned. I learnt to treat myself with kindness, to stop beating myself up over a stupid mistake.
I had learnt a lot over the years. People are sad, and they eventually learn to be happy, and they grow up, and sometimes, the sadness comes back. But the happiness comes back, too. And they keep learning, and they keep growing.
I was lucky enough to grow up with Luca.
He liked touching my hair, and kissing me on the forehead, and buttoning (and later unbuttoning) my shirts for me. He bought me clothes he thought I would look good in, and plants he thought I would find pretty. He called me beautiful countless times a day, and never failed to remind me how much he loved me.
