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      "I think I'm going to go for a walk and clear my head, okay? I'm not feeling well." I choke out, wrapping an arm around my stomach. This is the worst that the pain has ever been, but it's okay. It's something that I can live with because if a little bit of pain is all it takes to be happy, to get the body I have been working for for as long as I can remember, then who am I to complain?

      "Can I visit you later?" Harry mumbles, looking up at me hopefully. He looks so small and vulnerable, and I cannot understand it. Because sometimes he is so fierce and vicious and nothing like the boy I initially grew up with. But other times, more as of late and especially around me, he is so cautious and caring and acting as if whoever he is with is his entire world. I don't know Harry is the real one, or if maybe everyone is composed of multiple different elements. I suppose we are, because no one can be completely good or completely evil, it just doesn't work. We have to be a little of each side every so often. "It's just that, I think we should talk about what we're going to do. I want you to get better,"

      "Yeah, okay," I say, waving him off. I don't have any intention of speaking to him later, especially about which loony bin he's off to send me too next. But I hate the way he is looking at me, so I will do anything to get him to stop. And maybe, just maybe, if we do talk later, I can get him to restore my rights. It shouldn't take too much negotiation, since time and time again he has told me that he wants the best for me. Well, the best for me is to leave me alone, to let me live my life as I choose. I needed everyone to understand that already. 

      "Do you want to talk about Rider?" He calls as I stumble away from him, walking as quickly as I can despite the excruciating pain. Typically, he would come after me. Especially if he knew that I was in pain, but it's different now. Because more than once I have told him that I am done with him, and more than once I have broken that promise, but he still doesn't want to push his boundaries. He doesn't want to lose me and I find it astonishing because he shouldn't care. He shouldn't feel that way. Despite the letters and all of the evidence Harry has shown within the past few months of us working together, I still have a hard time believing that he is genuine. I think I always will.

      "Later. We'll talk later, Harry." I say tiredly, blinking to get my eyes to focus. If I could just lie down, maybe the pain will fade away, subside at the very least. But I need to clear my head and of course, I can't sleep. I haven't slept for ages. I miss it. I miss being able to be disconnected from everything for a few hours or even minutes. Sleep was a luxury I had lost. But being thin was greater than that. Being thin was greater than everything.

     About five minutes later when Harry is long gone in his car and I have been wandering around aimlessly, heading towards who knows what, I know that something is wrong. I think I know when I feel my left ear pop, like maybe there's some kind of pressure being released. Or maybe it's the fact that the pain in my abdomen hasn't stopped yet. If anything, it has only gotten worse. And it's spreading. Spreading to my arms and my legs and itching and burning on every inch of my skin. I am tired, so tired. I know that I don't have time to make it back to my flat, that's for sure. But just a little further down the street is a telephone booth, and I know that I can get there. That I have to get there. My jaw is clenching and everything around me is spinning and all I want to do is tear my arm off of my body so that it can stop hurting so much.

      What feels like hours later, I throw my body against the telephone booth and bring a shaky hand to the knob, pulling and clutching and grasping until I get a firm hold on it. A sputtering of raspy breaths escape my mouth and I grab the phone and bring my fingers to the keypad hooked onto the wall. I whimper as a fresh jab takes route into my chest and as quickly as I can, I fumble to punch the numbers into the keypad. I do not call my mother and father. I haven't spoken to them for months. They don't know where I am, nor do I know their location. Or maybe the paps and newspapers have already alerted them of my incarceration, I don't know. I don't even know where I am right now. I wasn't familiar with the cemetery where Rider's funeral took place and my wandering did nothing to help me pinpoint my location. I don't call Randy, the woman who has played such a fundamental role in all of this. No, I call him.  I dial the eleven digits and hear it ring and ring and ring until finally, he answers. Until I press the phone against my ear so harshly I think I might rip it.

     "Hello?" His husky voice mumbles, breathing heavy like he knows it's me. I hear him turn the radio down and the necklace he always wears, the paper plane, scratches against his speaker and translates along my end as well.

      "Harry," I cry, tightening my grip on the phone, fumbling to keep it steady as my palms sweat and my hair falls down around my face and I struggle for breath.

       "Skylar, Sky, what's wrong?" He says quickly, and I can hear him step on the gas, increasing his pace, on his way to search for me. Again. Like he always does. But he can't save me. He couldn't save me then and he can't save me now, no one can. It's too late. I drop down to my knees. "Where are you?"

      "Because I love you. It's what you always tell me. But I don't understand why or how you could love me when there really isn't anything left of me at all. You took it away and-and I want to know how you could possibly find it within yourself to love someone that you destroyed. Tell me. Tell me why you love me." I need to hear it, I need to hear that I am capable of being loved and accepted and treated like a person the way that I am.

      "Your mobile, they still have it at the hospital, don't they? Where are you calling me from? Sky, you know that I didn't mean to hurt you, that I was-"

      "That's not what I want to hear," I whisper, leaning against the cool glass as I take in another shaky breath.

      "Okay, okay," Harry says nervously, voice cracking. "'l'll tell you after I pick you up, okay?"

      "No," I croak, taking short breaths now because it is the only way I can get air. 

       "Please tell me where you are, Skylar,"

       "I forgive you." I say quickly, shutting my eyes.

      "You don't believe in forgiveness, only moving on. Please don't say you forgive me because if you're saying that it means-" Harry is speaking quickly, like he won't be able to say everything he needs to say in time. We both know he won't. His voice is breaking and I can hear his haggard breathing on the other end. He is crying, and so am I. The tears are salty and fat and dropping down onto my lip, one by one until there is no order, only chaos as on the floor of the telephone booth, I come apart. Gasping for air and sniffling and wiping at the bottom of my nose as tears pour and pour and pour.

       "I'm sorry," I laugh bitterly, shaking my head.

      "Skylar, no, please don't say that. You don't have anything to be sorry for. I'm coming back, I'm going to the cemetery and I'll drive around from there. Just wait for me. There aren't that many telephone booths around there-"

      "I don't want to wait anymore, Harry."

      "But you have to," He pleads, voice hoarse.

      "No, no I don't. This, this starving myself, it was the polite way of killing myself. I'm not happy. I wasn't happy then, and I'm not happy now and it's time to let go. It's time to let me go."

       "I can't-I can't let you go. I don't want to." He hiccups, and I can hear his engine on the other end, he's going faster. Any faster and his car will surely break down. It doesn't matter if he suddenly sprouts wings and flies to me, he won't make it back in time. We both know that he won't, but he doesn't want to accept it.

       "You're forgiven. There's nothing to feel guilty about anymore."

       "I'm killing you!" He screams manically, choking back on the tears falling too quickly for him to control. "This is my fault. You're dying, you're alone and you're dying because of me, Sky." Harry cries as my breath shallows. I lick my lips, grip on the phone faltering slightly. "It's all my fault, it's all my fault, it's all my fault," He says again and again, on a loop like a broken record.

       "It's okay," I wheeze, lip trembeling. "It's okay."

      "Keep talking to me, Sky. Keep talking." Harry's voice is stern and he is getting louder and louder, but no matter how loudly he speaks, he won't reach me. "Skylar!

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wow okay one more chapter left and then a note type thing

please vote and comment and stuff and tell me what you think :)

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