10 Feet Down (Original Version)

Chapter 19

After my revelations to Tre, I feel even more comfortable revealing things to him. He listens and lets me say everything first before adding in his own input and opinions. I feel like I can tell him anything and he'll listen and even if he won't always understand what I'm feeling or thinking, he'll still say the right things to make me feel better. Tre always knows what to say.

I can't really say the same for him though. While I know things about Tre that he doesn't reveal to many people, I haven't fully been able to figure him out yet. While I have let him in and let him know my deeper scars, he hasn't opened himself yet for me. When I tell him that he can talk to me about deeper things, he shrugs it off and changes the subject. He always tells me he doesn't want to talk about it yet. He uses the word "yet," so I think that's a sign that eventually it will happen. I don't want to push or pressure him into revealing something that he doesn't want to, so I accept his answer and leave it be.

I want to know more about him, but I know it's not that easy to lay yourself out for another person to pick you apart and know what you look like on the inside. Taking off each layer of yourself, skin by skin, muscles and blood cells until you're left as a skeleton, bare bones that you can't hide behind anymore. Laid out for them to see through every single crack you have and every void that is unfulfilled.

We're both still skeletons trapped behind layers we put ourselves in to protect us from pain.

Tre's ripped some of my layers off. Little by little, he started ripping after we were first together on the roof of the library. I am now the hypodermis, the last layer supporting my body until he ventures deeper inside me and takes out my muscles and goes straight to my bones, seeing me torn open from the inside out. Seeing all of me where there's nothing left to hide. It's scary.

I feel like I'm trying to pick away at him, but he's tough and not letting me get very far. A chainsaw couldn't even get through to him. He's like a steel door that'll only open with a key that he keeps hidden, locked away somewhere where no one can ever find it. I'm going to keep trying and keep slowly picking away at him. This can't just be a one-sided thing. Eventually, I hope he will give me the key to the lock that he has on his heart.

"Can true happiness be obtained?" Professor Garret questions as he walks away from the chalkboard after writing down one word. Happiness.

The class is silent. Some people nod their heads and some shake their heads, but nobody answers.

I write the lone word down in the my notebook. Amongst my other notes that cover the first half of the page, it sticks out like a sore thumb. Happiness. I write some questions down below the word. Can happiness last? What makes someone happy? I draw a star next to the important questions.