Artgirl

15// heal

artgirl 15: heal

In this chapter, there will be many references to depression symptoms/thoughts. if that will trigger any kind of sadness, don't read it please my loves. My goal isn't to torture my characters. It's to tell their stories in the most authentic way that I can. And yes, people can fall into depression after situations like this. Depression can happen in a moment or over years.

ANY comments criticizing Zoey's demeanor over the next chapters will be deleted. Zoey's my baby. Treat her well. I can't stress enough how annoyed I get when some of you call Zoey "annoying" or "stupid" for let's say not wanting to forgive Nico completely or "stubborn". She's human, just like you. This story isn't ONLY about love, it's about Zoey and Nico's paths. No one is cheery 99% of the time; no one is loveable 100% of the time. 

ANYWAY, proceed. 

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"I felt her absence. It was like waking up one day with no teeth in your mouth. You wouldn't need to run to the mirror to know they were gone." James Dashner, The ScorchTrials

Zoey Willow Hunter

      MY HAND HURT.

Every pulse of pain sent by the frantic rescue team my body was became a warrior I was too tired to fight. Al I could see were images of me telling Jessie what had happened. I'd have to close the store. She'd have to look for another job. I'd move back home. Maybe go back to university, study into teaching. What would I teach? Art was out of the question. Math did nothing but confuse me. Maybe I could teach kids how to deal with the mess that your heart makes when it breaks, how to clean it up. I'd tell them to thank God if they get their hearts broken by someone else, because then—they could lean onto themselves to see the world through a clear view, not the foggy one that love brings. I'd tell them to pray every night, beg to never get their hearts broken because of themselves. When that does happen, the view is shattered. Everything they'd know would crash onto the ground as quickly as their heart, in a split second.

I wouldn't make a good teacher.

Neither would the doctor who took care of my hand. He was stoic; acting as if I was nothing but a dollar sign the government gave him. He very calmly explained—while fucking stabbing more alcohol onto the wound for no logical reason, since the nurse had already done the exact same thing and he had already done enough tests—that some of the motor nerves in my right hand had gotten damaged. I'd need physical therapy and meds to bring my hand to the state it was before. For now, it would take time for my hand to heal. It would still twitch after healing from the trauma, and be weak.

I wanted to go home and sleep, but my mom was married. She was already worried enough about me, I didn't want to make her run out of her own celebrations to take care of me.

I was fine, anyway. Truly, at least that was what I'd repeated to Nico and Diana every time they asked. By the tenth time one of them had questioned my health, I'd pretended to be dozing off. I didn't need to tell them what hurt me; the best thing to do was to suffer through it by myself. They didn't have to carry my burden with me. All I had to do was survive the next days.

It's okay. I'm going to be fine, I'd been saying that over and over in hopes of actually believing it. But my throat was tight and every time the sentences appeared, I heard my soul get lost a little more. I believed it less and less. I couldn't fake having a good hand until I made it. I couldn't fake being able to paint. I couldn't fake being happy as much as I'd like to, because life was a race and I couldn't pretend to be able to run with a broken leg.

I didn't even remember the waiter's face. The one who pushed the tray from the other side of the door. It took too much energy to think. I did know one thing. My heart was damaged more than my hand was. How many hours of physical therapy, of meds will it need to heal?