Ladybug [h.s.]

13

Delilah

~~~~~~~~

White-knuckling the wheel, I drove home from Harry's house, not bothering to so much as turn up the radio, eyes glued to the passing trees lining my trail. The emotions slingshotting through my body were just too...much. Heavy, and vibrant, and confusing. A disastrous combination of chaos and innate need. I didn't want to think about any of it; I still don't want to think about any of it.

Kissing Harry, Stan grabbing me, Harry knocking Stan around, Stan knocking Harry around. None of it made sense, really. An avalanche following the first dusting sprinkle of snowflakes. I was just so mad, so mad at him. He makes my heart feel stallion; racehorse. Like my body is sent through the washer - spin cycle of frustrated confusion. Foggy, grey clouds. Looming recognition, like my mind is turned into childish, innocent, cat chasing mouse. The naive heart-pounding games; two steps too many toward the street. I was so riled up that all I could do was kiss him; all I could think to do was to grab him and shut him up.

What I didn't expect was Stan.

It wasn't the first time he'd ever been pushy. Too handsy, or too demanding. But that didn't change the way I'd felt in the moment. Ice sculpture. Every last ounce of my blood rolling into frozen red streams. The feeling of his lips against my skin like prickly spines of cactus. I was grateful that I'd turned my head before he occupied the space Harry's lips had been. As if he'd tarnish the sacredness; the sanctity. Graffiti colored over pristine, worshiped, sleek pink marble.

I left my body in the moments that followed; traipsed naively through the clouds as the two guys wailed on one another. Tethered permanently to the earth at the same time as I drifted as far away from the park as I could. I didn't know I was crying until suddenly Jack's gentle, calloused thumbs were wiping across my cheeks. I didn't know I was shaking until his grip around my back was the only thing holding me upright. I burrowed into his chest for safety, begging the blood pounding in my ears to drown out the violent sound of bone and broken skin.

I had a nightmare that night. A horrored reality turned realistic. Where Stanley appeared outside my window and fought to get inside. I cried, and screamed, and begged, for someone to help. For Harry to help. I woke up at the same moment the glass shattered down on my body, shaking, and with damp cheeks. I fished out my old childhood teddy bear from underneath my bed and clung to it until I was able to sleep again. Fitful, useless sleep. Sleep that begged to be shared with someone else. I'd wished, in the moment of panic when I woke up, that I would roll over and feel his sturdy, warm chest. That I would inhale aftershave and old leather and curl up underneath his arm. Safe. Protected.

Instead, I woke up the next morning, still holding tight to the teddy bear and got ready for work. Trudging through patients running on next to no sleep. Pretending I didn't hear the other nurses rambling on and on about some hotshot who'd gotten the daylights knocked out of him. They said he had a broken nose; that his jaw was popped out of the socket. The sounds infiltrated every last corner of my mind. I was grateful I never stepped foot in his room.

I fought against the nightmare for days. Reoccurring record scratch. The moment when the jukebox gets stuck changing out vinyls. I was paralyzed in it. Reliving a made-up reality that my mind never became accustomed to. Repeated trauma resurfaced nightly, tucked back below the current while I devoted my energy to my patients during the day. Closing my eyes to be sucked into terrifying black holes at the end of the night, anyway. Spiral drain. Razor blades.

Until last night. The nightmare transformed back to dream as the sun rose up and over the horizon this morning. A rare weekday off of work. As if my mind was calling fanfare to the day. New morning. Sunshine, and clouds, and cool breeze. No longer about Stanley and survival, but about bedsheet seas and crooked smirks. Potent, illuminous green eyes and endless, lapping waves of pink.