Misfits (#2)

40.*

"Violet," He runs an aggravated hand through his hair and I'm glad. I need him to scream. I need him to let it out instead of letting it consume him. It's darkening him for every second that he lets it plague his insides.

He mutters quietly, "Stop."

I yell, "Tell me-"

"I can't!" He yells back and I take his arm, turn him around to me. I'm about to yell back, to get him to explode but his hand's shaking and his face has fallen as the words slip past his lips, "I'm scared."

I freeze, staring up at him.

"I'm scared that I'm fucking nothing. That I- I don't know how to be more so I never will be. And then I'm scared that I'll never be able to escape this thing that's clawing at me from the inside out, every day-" He breathes heavily, "Every day since I can fucking remember. How am I supposed to look at myself in the mirror and believe that to be strong? How do you look at that and think it's strong? Don't you get it?"

"Ev-"

"It's built into me. Weakness. I can't face anything so I cower and I drink. I'd let it- fuck, I'm scared because I'd let it kill me, Violet! If it meant everything was just quiet." He's shaking and I rush to him, pulling his hands down from his hair. He drops his forehead to mine and mutters quietly, "That's weak. I don't want it to kill me. I'm scared. I don't know how to get it all to stop."

I shake my head against him, "You can't hide all of this, Everest. That's how it'll kill you."

"I don't know anything but- but going quietly." He takes my hands like he needs them to support himself. I cup his cheeks and his hands curl around my wrists, "It's all I've known."

A butterfly. He's like a butterfly that wraps himself into a cocoon of his own hurt, up-keeping smiles so nobody suspects a thing. In the background, he's been fading away since he was a kid. But nobody truly notices because he quiets his pain and allows alcohol to silently steal him away.

Everest Jones is an expert at putting on a show. Everest Jones has been losing himself for so long that letting himself go, is the most familiar thing to him. It's easy to turn back to what you know. It's addicting.

"You mistake the result of your pain, for your nature." I whisper. I pull him closer, "There is nothing innately wrong with you, Everest. You've had to live a life alone and it's hard. So you respond to the pain. Like one fights, or one takes pills, you hide. It will never make you any less."

"I want to be able to hurt, without letting it consume me." He whispers, so anguished, "I can't- I can't keep going if every slip up, every time a person leaves, it kills me."

My hand reaches his heart, "Would you prefer to be heartless? And cold?"

He nods against me.

"It would just make you more alone." I whisper, "I adore you as you are because the heart that hurts so much, loves just as much. You're beautiful."

He kisses me, small brief kisses between his tears.

And then his hands cup my cheeks and he kisses me with his all, pouring every ounce of emotion possible into the way his lips move with mine. I stumble back but he catches me and I rise on my tippy toes, to take all of his pain.

"You have to stay." He kisses between his words, "Stay with me. Keep me safe because it quiets with you."

I gasp when he hikes me up and my legs wrap around him. I cup his jaw, taking his lips, "I'm not leaving."