Chim - Don't Help Me

Chapter 13

Her lips...

My new favourite thing. So soft and delicate, so hard to resist. She wraps her arm around my neck and pulls me closer, moaning into my mouth. I know we have been in this position for minutes now, but I can't seem to find the strength to pull away, and a big part of me doesn't want to pull away. I know that it's wrong, she is only doing it to comfort herself, she doesn't really want to be here with me, but it feels so good that for a while I lose control, I lose every rational thought in my mind and relax. I let her lose her hands in my hair, as I slowly massage her tongue with my own. And it feels soooo good. Which it shouldn't do. It shouldn't feel this incredible.

Right now, I want nothing more than to stay like this forever, but I can't, she doesn't want it, and I, I don't really want it either. I convince myself that it is just the alcohol and break the kiss.

She pulls up and stares into my eyes, seemingly not at all embarrassed at our previous closeness.

"What is it babe?"

"Cheryl, you're drunk."

She looks intently at me for a few moments, her face a picture of confusion, to the point where I begin to feel somewhat exposed, then she rolls off of me and mumbles.

"Maybe you are right."

I don't know what she means by this, so I turn her over and stroke the hair out of her face.

"No Chez, I AM right. You don't want this..."

I must have said the wrong thing, because suddenly she sits bolt upright and hits my hand out of the way, crossing her arms across her chest and bunching her fists, an immediate, and confusing, change in demeanor.

"No Kimberley! You don't know what I want. Only I know what I want, and only you know what you want. Is that so hard to understand? You can guess, Kimba, but you will NEVER know what I am thinking, you really don't want to get into me brain."

All of her muscles contract and she lets out a frustrated sigh. I give her a second to calm down, then she tenses one last time and hunches over, relaxing her muscles, and I take this as my queue.

"You're right, I don't know. But what you don't know is that I DO want to get inside your brain Cheryl. I really want to know what is troubling you."

I reach out and touch her back lightly, and she flinches, pushing my hand away.

"Maybe that's just it. Nobody should ever let someone else see what is going on in their brain, what they are feeling, no-one reserves that right."

She looks over at me, as I'm still lying down on the bed with one arm outstretched.

"Especially not somebody who hasn't even known you long enough to take a simple sign, the most obvious sign a person can give. I just threw meself at ya Kimba, and you pushed us away..."

"Cheryl, I just, I, I didn't know how you -"

"How I felt right then Kimba? Is that what you didn't know? I felt like I needed someone, I felt like I needed you to comfort me, and I know that you needed someone too, and you pushed us away. You pushed us away because that's what I needed, I needed to feel that pain again. I don't feel alive without hurt anymore, it doesn't feel like, life, without me being in pain."

I lay in a stunned silence, and she just stares. She doesn't move at all, she is rooted in her place, transfixed by her thoughts, and immersed in her feeling of pain, the feeling that I brought back to life.

"Cheryl. How can you think that way?"

She glances at her bruises on her wrists one last time, now fully sober and all senses heightened.

"It doesn't matter how I feel that way, it doesn't even matter why, I just matters that I do feel that way, and that will never change. The way you look upon yourself is the way you feel."

She pauses for a moment and laughs quietly to herself.

"It don't matter who you are, it is so simple, a feeling, but it's everything... I never really appreciated that til' now."

She lets out a long breath of air, her inner rage bubbling, causing the temperature in the room to rise.

"But hey, if you've cried a thousand times that means you were somebody..."

"Music means everything to you doesn't it Cheryl?"

"What do you mean?"

For the first time in a few minutes she looks straight at me, or straight through me rather.

"I mean -"

"Oh you mean the lyrics? Sometimes I don't even realise that I'm doin' that. It helps you know? It fills a part of you. I'm tryna beat this emptiness, but I'm running out of time..."

I decide to avert the subject away from her inner thoughts, leaving her alone with them for a while.

"What would you have done? Without music I mean?"

She lays back down on the bed next to me, linking our arms.

"Well I wouldn't be here today, that's for sure, in more ways than one. I'm not sure whether that is a good or bad thing..."

She places her finger over my lips, hushing me, not wanting me to reply.

"Thank you Kimba, I, ah, I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For letting you cry..."

I pull her into me, letting her know that it is ok, all will be ok. She smiles one last time, and not another word is spoken as we both drift off to sleep, tangled in each others arms.

Cause I'm lost, in this dream, I need her to hold me. I'm scared of lonely.