She Breathes the Stars

Chapter Twelve

The scar on my hand tingles sometimes.

Whenever I feel happy, or even the slightest bit joyful, the white strip of skin on my palm will burn as if to remind me that I'm not worthy enough to feel those pleasant emotions. The pain will go straight up my arm and into my heart, dulling out the feelings and replacing them with ones of regret and anxiety.

I've always imagined that it was her way of telling me that she still hates me; that even though she may be rotting in hell it doesn't mean she will stop tormenting me. I smiled at her grave at her own funeral, and that's a memory that still haunts me today...

I went to visit a councilor once. He was a kind old man with wispy white hair and an office that smelled of winter green mints. The chair he had me sit down in was hard as a rock, but his smile was soft enough. I thought I would like him, but then he opened his mouth.

"Most children aren't effected this much." I remember him saying, eyeing the way my baggy clothes no longer fit me and the yellowish circles under my eyes. "I mean, of course they're sad for a good while but...Tawny; you're starving yourself."

At the time I felt like he was telling me that I was overreacting about my parent's deaths, but that wasn't it at all. He felt that there was something else bothering me along with it, and he was absolutely right. I just couldn't tell him. She could've been listening.

So I never went to anybody else for help, not even after she died. I kept imagining her wrinkly skin and beady eyes, glaring up at me from hell and patiently waiting for the day when I would fall down with her. I never went to anybody else. Not until now.

Now, there's a shivering boy wrapping me up in his arms with eyes as vibrant as the galaxy. Even though he's cold, I feel so warm. Even though it's dark, I feel so light. Even though I can feel her eyes on me from down under, I feel for the first time ever that I'm too freaking worn out and exhausted to worry about anything anymore. The paper stars have sent me someone to talk to, and I'm no longer afraid to take that chance. 

"Tawny," Nite says again, filling my silence. "Please tell me about Ms. Flora."

It's hard to speak when he's so close. It's difficult to think when his hands are trailing up and down my back, leaving behind patterns of goosebumps as his fingers brush my skin. It's tough to rationalize when I can feel his sequined breath on my cheeks and his cold nose on my neck. It's just hard to breathe.

This is so much more different than from when we were back in the igloo. Out there, we had an excuse to hold each other. But in here, everything feels so raw. Exposed and exhilarating. Unprotected ad completely electric. Everything is out in the open, and I feel like I won't be able to hold anything back.

"Will you still care for me," I find myself whispering, "once you know what I've done?"

Nite's fingers stop moving for a mere millisecond before continuing their journey along my shoulder blades and down my spine. My own fingers grasp at his worn out t-shirt to give myself some anchor to the real world.

In the dead of the night, with the moon shining through the window and giving the room a hazy glow, the whole situation feels like a dream. I'm delirious with sleep, but despite anything and everything, I hope the boy caught in my grasp isn't just a figment of my sleepy imagination.

Nite chuckles; the rumbling in his chest shaking my hands slightly.

"I don't know much about this world, Tawny." He murmurs against my hair, nuzzling my ear with his nose. "But if I do know one thing, it's that I probably shouldn't be a part of it. I've known that I'm some kind of freak for a while, so nothing that you could possibly say will make me judge you. If anything, it will most likely make me care for you more."