Paradise

XVII

Sadness is consuming.

Paradise awoke, her eyes focusing on those brown eyes. Those very same eyes that remind her of hot chocolate and warm mahogany fires.

"Good morning Arrie." Parker whispers, his eyes locking with hers, her skin prickles with a sence of unfamiliarity.

"Where-where...?" she trails off, a scratchy sound coming out of her dry throat.

"You're at the hospital darling. You tried to kill yourself" he whispers, tears spilling over his brunette lashes.

"It didn't work?" she asked, still not completely sure whether this was heaven or not.

You see, she is simply an ellaborate ruse of large shirts and baggy pants and long sleeves rubbing against new cuts and playing with sickly looking greenish mashed potatoes and lying on the cold, dirty, cracked linoleum floor in a puddle of her own tears. And angry red slashes on wrists, and the sadness that was held in each of the purple bruises that littered her perfectly imperfect face and icey blue eyes that reminded a certain boy of frozen lakes and clear skies, and dark circles under those eyes that were cold, but not hateful, with words that were a symphony of melody and beautiful harmony. She was pain and loneliness and cold.

But right now, she felt warm.

She felt comfort.

She felt pleasure, laying there.

Staring up into those heavenly sinful eyes, she felt nothing but love and care.

Two things she had never felt before.

Parker's eyes surveyed the array of. healed injuries carefully, and he began to grow comcerned. All of the injuries were days, weeks, even months old. And quite a bit of the cuts on her wrists, thighs, and stomach seemed self inflicted.

He rakes his eyes that remind her of hot chocolate and warm mahogany fires over her body.

Over the months, a regular tube-fed, high calorie diet has thickened her up considerably.

His Paradise was no longer an ellaborate ruse of large shirts and baggy pants and long sleeves rubbing against new cuts and playing with sickly looking greenish mashed potatoes and lying on the cold, dirty, cracked linoleum floor in a puddle of her own tears. And angry red slashes on wrists, and the sadness that was held in each of the purple bruises that littered her perfectly imperfect face and icey blue eyes that reminded a certain boy of frozen lakes and clear skies, and dark circles under those eyes that were cold, but not hateful, with words that were a symphony of melody and beautiful harmony.

He no longer bought into her ellaborate lie. He recognised her for what she was now. A scared, anorexic, abused, depressed young woman who had known nothing but malice her entire life.

He had healed her physically, there was no doubt about that.

She had gained fourty pounds, her wounds have all healed...

Well... Most of them anyway.

He knew, as long as he was around, no.one would DARE cross her. NO ONE would even ATTEMPT to harm her.

No one...

No one but herself.

What if she hurts herself again?

What if she takes a blade to her flesh again?

What if she refuses to eat again?

Falling back into old habbits, same patterns, her health will vanish and nothing will be left.

Nothing.

Nothing but an ellaborate ruse of large shirts and baggy pants and long sleeves rubbing against new cuts and playing with sickly looking greenish mashed potatoes and lying on the cold, dirty, cracked linoleum floor in a puddle of her own tears. And angry red slashes on wrists, and the sadness that was held in each of the purple bruises that littered her perfectly imperfect face and icey blue eyes that reminded a certain boy of frozen lakes and clear skies, and dark circles under those eyes that were cold, but not hateful, with words that were a symphony of melody and beautiful harmony.