Satisfaction

Brown eyes

When I woke up, I was alone. I had been tucked in under Ms Venable's duvet but there was no Ms Venable anywhere. I got pissed and then I heard that familiar tapping sound from outside the door.

"Oh, you're awake," she smiled upon seeing me.

"You said you would hold me," I whispered, tears pricking my eyes.

"I was only gone for thirty minutes,"

"That's not the point!"

"Are you crying?" She whispered, sitting next to me.

"No," but then the tears fell, "maybe,"

"Why are you crying?"

"Because when I woke up, you were gone and I just sort of realised that even if you're nice to me down here, I'm still alone," I sobbed. She pulled back her duvet and slipped in next to me. Her head rested on my chest and her arm draped around my waist.

Although I couldn't see her face, I  knew she was crying. I started to pull pins out of her hair and ran my fingers through the red strands.

"Are you crying?" I whispered, playing with her hair.

She just shook her head.

"Look at me,"

She just shook her head.

"You see, our problem, is that we are both unbelievably stubborn. My favourite game to play before the apocalypse was 'refuse to answer any questions the therapist asks you'," (that's true btw, it's hella fun)

"You had therapy?"

"Oh yeah, I'm hella fucked up. I had it for my EH and like more than six years of trauma,"

"EH?"

"Emotional hypersensitivity. Basically, I feel emotions 1000x stronger than most people. So happy things make me really happy but sad things become really traumatic really fast," I explained. Not many people knew about my EH because I found it difficult to explain.

"Oh,"

We stayed silent for a little while. I kept running my fingers through her hair and she stopped crying which was a bonus.

"I like the wall behind your bed," she whispered.

"What?" Oh shit!

"You really did like Lady Gaga," she giggled.

"How did you?"

"Well I wanted went to get you some pyjamas so you could say the night, and you hadn't pushed your bed back fully. They're not very heavy so I pulled it away from the wall and sat there for thirty minutes reading the names of the songs and then the lyrics,"

"That's why you left?"

"Yeah. The worst part is, I didn't actually bring you and pyjamas," she laughed.

"Oh. Do you want me to stay?" I whispered softly.

"Yes,".

Then I was out of the room and in my own pulling on my purple pyjama short shorts and an oversized purple T-shirt.

When I got back into Ms Venable's room, she was running a brush through her hair and already in her short nightgown, that looked great on her but would look even better on the floor.

"OK, stay where you are," she said, turning to face me.

"Why?"

And then she stared to cry. I walked towards her but she gave me a death look.

"Why do you care about me y/n?"

"Didn't we have this conversation earlier today?"

I got a little closer. She sat on the floor and started crying harder.

"I'm a monster," she whispered, "I'm so ugly y/n, please don't come any closer," her brown eyes met mine and there was nothing but pain, fear and rejection in them.

"You're not a monster and you're definitely not ugly," I whispered softly, sitting in front of her and wiping her hot, sticky tears.

"I... I have scoliosis," she sobbed, looking away from me.

"I don't care. I don't care what you think makes you ugly, your imperfections don't define you," I got up and walked behind her.

I saw her tense, as I pushed her hair out of the way and examined her spine. I ran my fingers over the worst part and planted little kisses in the ridges. It looked painful and that hurt me a little. I suddenly understood Ms Venable. She was such a bitch because it was her coping mechanism because of this.

"Does it hurt," I whispered against her skin.

She just shook her head. I wrapped my arms around her from behind and held her for a while, before picking her up gently and putting her down on the bed. I wiped her tears and smiled at her.

"You're still awesome," I said, squeezing her hand.

She laughed a little.

"And still the most gorgeous person I have ever seen," I added, walking around the foot of the bed to get in.

Ms Venable wrapped her arms around me and I did the same to her, tracing her spine gently.