Broken Bodies, Severed Feelings (Erwin x OC)

|65| Risk to Lose It All

She had to tell him. She had to tell him she didn't love him. She had to lie to him, and she had to make it believable. She had to stop this marriage before it'd even happen. She had to give him back that ring that was now stained in her blood. Nathalie let the cold water run on an open wound that she had carved on her forearm. Pain kept the voice down. Pain wasn't even painful to her anymore. It was merely numbing. It was like a drug.

She couldn't live like this.

Nathalie looked at the bloody scissors that she had used to make those self-inflicted wounds on her hands. They lied discarded on the side with blood-stained blades. Her legs almost gave up on her, but Nathalie threw her hands on her sink, pressing her weight there and rearranging her wobbly legs.

She hadn't turned off the water quite yet. It was cold and soothing on that deep, long cut that she had made on her forearm. She had landed quite close to the main veins and arteries, but she didn't know what was keeping her back.

Actually, she had so many things keeping her back, but she was so tired. She looked so pale in front of the mirror. But she wasn't staring at the mirror to see how she looked, she was staring to see whether it would talk. Whether it would make an appearance and answer her questions instead of torturing her.

But maybe, she didn't need it to give her answers that she already knew.

Nathalie tied a large white bandage around her arm with shaky movements. How could she even walk out of her quarters pretending this hadn't happened? Pretending she was self-harming, or going insane, or about to lose it all? About to face Erwin and tell him she didn't want to marry him. How was she going to say no to that one thing that she had been chasing after her entire life?

How could she deny the man she loved?

Maybe she wasn't going to do it. She was too much of a coward, always had been.

A knock came on her door, and her eyes widened.

"Nathalie?"

That was Erwin's voice. No! She couldn't let him in! She couldn't let him in, he couldn't see this! She looked down at her blood that lingered everywhere. On her white sink. On the blades of her scissors. On the bloody bandage that she was still tying around her arm. Everywhere. Just everywhere. And then it was her floor. Her floor, that was carved all over with just this one word. Help. Help. Help. Help. She couldn't let him in. She couldn't let him find out. She would lose him. She would...

She had already lost him.

"I- I'm coming!" She called out and she messily tied the bandage around her arm, and she cleaned the blood as fast as she could. She threw that matt on the floor to cover the carvings, but they were too many and she needed a larger carpet, but it had to do for now. She wasn't going to let him in. No, no, no, no, no... she had already lost him, but not yet. Not yet.

Please, not yet.

She wasn't ready. She wasn't ready to tell him she didn't love him. She wasn't ready to lie to him. She wasn't ready to lose everything.

She let the sleeve all the way down to her wrist and she buttoned it tightly, to make it hard for someone to lift up and find the bandage beneath. Even though, the texture of the bandage could still be distinguished beneath the fabric of her shirt.

But Nathalie couldn't prolong this anymore. She wiped the remaining sticky tears from her eyes, and she put her glasses back on and she prayed he wouldn't find out. He mustn't find out. He mustn't.

She looked at her hands that were both shaking, and she fisted her fingers trying to stop the movement in vain.

Nathalie rushed to the door, and she opened it to reveal Erwin standing outside. He was wearing his green Survey Corps coat on top of a wrinkly white shirt and his emerald bolo tie around his neck. He must have just returned. His golden hair was messy from riding back to Trost and from the sound on her windowsills, she could tell it was windy outside.