featherlight ✅

internal battle

"Be my friend, hold me
Wrap me up, unfold me
I am small, I'm needy
Warm me up and breathe me"

My daily run is interrupted by the ringing of my phone: a-ha cheerfully singing Take on Me. I'm reminded for the umpteenth time that Polly dared me once at a sleepover to make it my ringtone and I've just never bothered to change it since. Sighing, I take my earphones out and look at the screen. It's Ashton. I cautiously pick the call up.

"Hi." Even as it leaves my mouth it sounds more like a question.

"Hi, Kat." I can almost see him frown. "You sound out of breath."

"Yeah, I was running."

"Oh." A pause follows, then, "Are you sure you're meant to be doing that?"

"I'm not sure about anything, Ashton. If I'm being honest."

"Do you have any plans on Saturdays, by any chance?"

My eyebrows rise. "What?"

"I've found a support group that I thought might help you. Don't hang up on me, KitKat. Hear me out." The words come out in a rush.

I lean against a nearby lamppost, a sudden wave of intense light-headedness washing over my body. I close my eyes and try not to black out like I keep doing recently. "Okay," I manage. "I'm listening."

"Okay." The relief is evident in his voice. "It's free. You get to talk to people. I think that might help, right? There's someone who will listen to you and help you get better. I want to help you, Kat, but there's a limit to what I can do, and I don't think I can do much about this."

I stay silent.

"Katherine," he says pleadingly into the phone. His words make me wince, and I fight the urge to cover my ears against them. "Say something. Are you free on Saturdays?"

"Yes." The second after I say it, I find myself wishing that I'd lied. Why is it that the one day both my parents are out is the day Ashton wants me to go to a support group? My mom helps out at the local preschool, and my dad usually has a meet-up with his colleagues, so- "Actually, no I'm not. I can't leave Ava alone at home."

"I could look after her."

I bite my lip. "And you wouldn't tell my parents?"

"Maybe." When I don't reply, he continues, "Maybe maybe maybe."

I swallow against the ball in my throat. "Why are you doing this for me, Ashton? I'm not your responsibility."

"I'm not gonna stand there and watch you fade away. And you can't ask me to."

I open my eyes and look at the screen, as though I can see him on the other side of it. I wish I could put my hand through and press my fingertips to his and look into his face to convince myself that he really does want to help me. That he means what he says. "I never asked, but how exactly did you figure it out?" I say at last.

"I looked it up. Sat down in front of my laptop and typed everything that I'd noticed into Google. And it all led to one thing, every single time. Every single website and every single search that I made. And I wanted it to be wrong. I didn't want it to be true; I prayed that it wouldn't be what I thought it was-" He breaks off and sighs. "What the internet told me it was. But it was true."

"Yeah." You don't know how much I wish it wasn't true, too. "Didn't know you were such a sleuth."

"Kat, I wish could help." His voice catches in the middle of the sentence and I ball my hands into fists, willing myself not to start crying. What is wrong with me?

"You are helping."

"Kat, please go to the support group. I'll pick you up. I'll drive you back. Anything. But you can't keep going on like this. I know I was mad at you when I said it before, but I still believe that now. You need someone to help you. You've been carrying this alone for too long and you need someone to help take the weight off your shoulders."

"If I was stronger I wouldn't need help," I reply, unable to keep the sharp bitterness from sliding into my words.

"No. This has nothing to do with your strength. Nothing. Don't you dare think that. A problem shared is a problem halved, right?"

"No it's not," I reply. "A problem shared is a problem doubled. Didn't you know that?"

I make a circle with my thumb and pinkie around my wrist, the small surge of success resurfacing as I see that there is more space below my fingers than there was before. My leggings are looser around my thighs. I can't stop, I think to myself, because if I did, I would have to lose all of this. Everything I've managed to build up and accomplish over the past months. I will have to let go of the only thing that makes me feel good about myself. The only thing I have control over.

But-

"What time is it?" I hear the question fall through my lips even before I register the fact that I've said it.

"Eleven AM."

"Don't pick me up, Ashton. I want to do this myself."

"But you'll do it?"

I take a deep breath and swallow hard. Yes. No. I don't know. Maybe. Help. Fuck, fuck. Help. 

"Yes. I will."

I glance down at the address on my phone, a small part of me hoping that I've copied it down wrong and that I therefore don't need to go to this support group. I told Ava that I was going to hang out with Gabe today, but I'll need a better excuse if I'm going to come here every week.

Who says you're going to do this, Katherine Greene? You can just quit. You don't need to go.

But I picture Ashton's look of disappointment if I walked away now and push myself to keep going. I know that I've fallen deep and if I don't scramble out soon I'll be stuck forever. So I keep going, pulling my cardigan closer around my body, trying to remember what it was like to not be cold.

The building itself looks harmless enough: just your regular shopping mall. The first floor has a large empty room that is used as the venue, and I find it without much trouble. Even as my hand closes around the door handle, I go through all the pros and cons in my mind again. I mull over how easy it would be to just leave and how hard it would be to walk inside. I think about the chunks of hair lying in my bin right now from when I tried to make a braid this morning, and how I'm always tired, like there are weights attached to me, dragging me down. But more than all of that, I think about Ashton McCoy, and how hard he's trying to help me.

So I open the door.