Splintered [Complete | GB+SB]

Twelve: Time Out

For @iamsmiley09, because of her concern over Kota, and because I promised her I'd post today and when I didn't, she tracked me down and demanded satisfaction. A harsh taskmistress, that one. 

-----

This time, as I came to an awareness of myself and my surroundings, it was not to Owen's steady recitation of James Joyce. This time, it was first the smell of vanilla sugar, and the ocean, and a light musk. It was citrus and ginger, and a warm body against my back, and my hand held, and someone brushing the hair back from my face gently. And it was Sean's voice asking me to come back, telling me that whatever it was that sent me away, whatever thing my stepmom planted in my head that made me separate from myself, it wasn't true. None of it was true.

"...not a single goddamn thing that woman said. Not a single thing you've done is bad or wrong. You're a wonderful person, you're smart and so funny, and brave, and strong, and you happen to be beautiful too. And you shine like the damn sun in our lives and we can't go back to livin' in the dark, Sang, so you've gotta come back. What you're feelin'... you're allowed to be happy, Sang. You're allowed to feel good. You can be touched, and held, and kissed, and cuddled — you deserve to have all the love and affection you want."

"You say that," I rasped, squeezing the hand holding mine, "but you have no idea how needy I am. I could exhaust you all in a matter of days with all my demands for kissing and coddling... weeks with my need for constant reassurance. I'm like a hungry baby that way. You'll see." The body behind me pressed harder against me, the arm at my waist squeezing me. The hand holding mine clamped down, and the hand brushing back my hair was now pressing down too. "You guys, you're crushing all my parts," I whined, and everything was suddenly relaxed again and I took a deep breath.

"Where'd you go, cupcake?" Luke breathed out behind me, his voice tense.

"Away? I don't know how to explain it," I said, feeling sad and broken and such a burden right then. "It just happens sometimes, but usually because of my stepmom, when I'm being disciplined. But I could still smell you all so I knew I was safe and it wasn't so hard to come back. I don't think I was gone very long?"

"What happened?" Sean asked, and I opened my eyes. He was sitting on the bed with me, and it was his hand brushing back my hair. North held my hand, Luke was lying with me. Silas... he was there, but slightly apart, and looking at me so warily.

"Wasn't you, Silas," I whispered at him, seeing his jaw tense and a scowl forming. "It. Wasn't. You." I said again, louder and more forcefully, and he relaxed slightly. "Help me sit up," I asked Sean, feeling so exhausted and weak, and between him and Luke I got upright and sitting with my legs dangling off the side of the bed, Sean next to me with his arm around my waist, and Luke behind me, propped up on the now raised mattress, with his knees folded up and providing me a bit of support at my back. His hand was lying on the bed next to my hip, and I could feel the occasional brush of his fingertips along my pajama-clad thigh. North and Silas both were still half-kneeling, half-crouching on the floor in front of me, but they ignored my suggestions of finding seats so I just said what I needed to.

"You didn't say or do anything wrong. I'm messed up in the head about some things, things that I know logically aren't true but it's all been programmed so thoroughly that I can't stop the bad thoughts sometimes. You know what I mean?" North nodded. North. Silas looked at his friend sadly. He may not know it for himself, but he's seen it. "Yeah. If it helps any, it could be worse. If my stepmom wasn't so crazy, if she hadn't punished me for things like trying to seduce the UPS guy when I was ten, I might have believed more of it for longer because it made me think that if she could be so wrong about that, then maybe those other things weren't really true either. Anyway, that's what I figured out before I was completely mind-fucked, and I've read books about it, and like I said, I know logically that it isn't necessarily true, but sometimes it sneaks up on me. And all the stuff today...it's been a lot. But it wasn't you. It was that little voice in my head that sounds like her that tries to make everything ugly and sick, and I think rather than believe it when it starts spinning out of control, my brain just... detaches from my body for a while."