Androphobia

xxii. rosy appearances

I Wish You Roses - Kali Uchis

THEA'S POV:

Exam week announced its arrival with a grand wave of its hand and the rustling of yellow and pink test papers. The walls were emblazoned with a variety of clocks, desks pinned with identification cards, and examiners who paraded down the aisles with amiable smiles and watchful eyes. Students filled the sports hall with faces full of dread and hands threading through their hair in hopes of recalling the facts they'd crammed only ten minutes before.

I sat at the edge of the hall, exam paper in front of me.

And just as quickly they had come, the tests were over. As soon as the final bell rang, anxious babbling filled the corridors and answers were thrown over each other's heads. Tears spilled from girls' faces and nonchalant laughter slipped from people's mouths in hopes of dressing the situation in pretty colours. I made my way through the crowded halls and out of the main doors. I waited for the same rush of anxiety and relief after any exam as I made my way down the steps but nothing came except for the cool fronds of air on my face.

All other emotions had fluttered out my head, having been frightened by the dark creature paying residence in the quarters of my mind.

In a matter of weeks, my brain had closed in on itself - drawn up its shutters, bolted the doors, and thrown away every key it could think of. I'd tried my best to act normal in front of people like Ember and the new girl, Danny, but it felt futile. Guilt was an emotion that only worsened with time, and fear was one I was all too familiar with. Sometimes I would wake with a start in the middle of the night, grasping my neck, beads of sweat rolling down my chest, only to find someone staring at me in the dark.

That dead, lonely man.

My breath would hitch. My eyes would pool. He neither moved nor batted an eyelid. All that shifted was the laceration in his neck which gurgled blood like a newborn, a familiar crimson dripping from skin and pattering on the floorboards.

But then, Synn.

Synn.

His hand would appear, rough fingers softly gliding over my mouth to bottle my screams. Slowly, his other hand would join and guide me into his broad, familiar chest. He'd hold me, save me. Again and again and again.

And then I'd wake to find that I had never truly woken.

I should have been over him. I hadn't known him long. We'd only met a handful of times, had a handful of conversations, looked into each other's eyes a handful of times- but now there were a handful of emotions in my heart which I couldn't seem to claw out of me. I didn't understand why, how. How could I feel this way for a man like that? For a murderer? How could I hate those hands that fingerpainted with blood and yearn for him to paint me all the same? It went against every moral my mother had sewn into my body and every kindness my father had draped upon my shoulders.

As I trod down the school steps, a familiar tightness returned to my chest and I fought the urge to clutch it. Only three weeks ago, I had sat on my bed with quivering hands and eyes full of tears, my fingers hovering over his name on my phone. He had called me dozens of times, perhaps a hundred, and it broke me to imagine how frustrated he was. It shouldn't have mattered to me how he was feeling but it did.

I still liked him, after all.

But, as a tear trickled down the bridge of my nose, it had taken everything inside me to press the button. Block number.

And that was it.

That was my declaration that I was against what he had done, even if it was for my own protection. At least, it was supposed to be. I hoped it would be enough to deter the man who'd buried himself so deeply inside me, that I conveyed my anger and resentment towards him, but I was still suffering the consequences of my actions. I missed him terribly. Exams that would have normally gnawed at me felt like a mere mosquito bite, one which I couldn't fathom to acknowledge.