The Sound of Glass Hearts {Kellin Quinn} (Watty Awards 2013)

8 - Bulletproof Love

    Following that last performance, Kellin had decided not to tour for a while until I had recovered.  He was attentive, loving, trying everything that he could to nurse me back to health but I had become despondent.  When he would kiss me, I didn’t kiss back.  When he touched me, I sat still and didn’t respond.  When he spoke to me, sometimes I answered and other times I just stared at him as though I didn’t know what he was talking about.  I was surprised that I hadn’t been placed in a mental institution yet, but Kellin refused to give up on me. 

    Even the guys had stopped showing up after a month of my despondence but he refused to give up.  He told me every moment that he loved me, that he was there for me, that he wasn’t going anywhere and that I needed to come back.  He apologized profusely, kissed my face, my cheeks, my fingers…I could barely speak at the end of a month and cried often.  Time seemed to move so quickly.

    When finally I was taken to the doctor, they diagnosed me with severe post partum depression.  I thought that diagnostic was only for new moms…and I wasn’t a new mom.

    Kellin had made me take my medication and I had gotten a little better.  I responded to him, but at the same time I could only feel worthless and as though I didn’t deserve him.  There was that caring sense of the man I loved that I knew I did not have the gumption to be.  He was too good for me.  There was no way in hell that I was good enough because how could I pay him back for what he had done for me?  How could I love him enough to show him how much he meant to me?

    He deserved someone so much better.

    At the moment he was out and I was feeling a lot better today.  I don’t know why but he had asked if I wanted to see a movie and I had said sure.  He went out to buy the tickets to go to the theater but I was laying here with my feet in the air and my head on the ground.  I was letting the blood rush to my skull.  I liked the feeling, the emptiness that it brought along.  I wasn’t sure where I had been all this time, but I knew I remembered everything that had happened.  I was here but I wasn’t here…and going to a movie with Kellin seemed like another band-aid on a broken me.

    Where was my mind? 

    There was only one thought running through it at the moment and it was a dark sensation.  I wasn’t sure if I could do it…if I could tell him what I was thinking.  Could he bear knowing that I believed he deserved better than me?

    I had been contemplating it for a few weeks after watching him baby me, take care of me…hell feed me and I just stood by as he did.  Was I as sweet as him?  If this was him in my place and mine in his, could I have done what he was doing?  I felt like every move he made was pushing me closer to the brink of insanity.  I didn’t deserve him and I only felt like when he tried so hard, I was shooting him senselessly.  We were perfect together…but I was not to his caliber.

    I stared at my fingers, wondering if I was going to go through with it today and chewing on my lip.  What would he say?  What could he say? 

    I sighed just as the door opened and he came striding through. 

    There was something different about the atmosphere as he walked in and I instantly knew he wasn’t happy.  It was odd that I felt a cold pit of fear slither down into my abdomen as his piercing blue eyes met mine and he shook his head, throwing the car keys at the wall.  I flinched, trying to remain stoic.  Was he angry with me? 

    In a moment of stupidity I had thought of letting him go…could I do it?

    “I can’t fucking do this anymore Hannah,” he whispered, his voice cracking with thick amounts of emotion.  My heart sank to a bitter place as I fought within my own heart.