Her Last Wish

Chapter 23

Tyson POV

I smile down at Tiana as she sleeps, her brown hair fanning out against the pillow. The smile wasn't happy, more like a knife than a thing of comfort. But watching someone you care for break, it was never supposed to bring comfort, was it?

But you can't really blame her for it. She was forced into the darkness. She had to watch as the darkness melted into her, seeping into her until it was all she was. Until she couldn't help but join it. Even now, she seemed to wear the darkness as a second skin, coating her in what she wishes would leave.

But, somehow, it's oddly beautiful in a way I never thought to see. Isn't blood beautiful without the pain that follows it? Isn't fire beautiful without the burns it brings us? Isn't she beautiful without the hurt that swallows her?

Isn't everything we deem "weird" just something we can't understand and, therefore, shun away?

It's poetry. We all are. With our own stories and our own dreams and ours own views, we are all living poetry, words spilling out of us through our actions, radiating out of us and effecting the words around us, merging to form poetry so profoundly original, it warms our hearts. Sharing little bits of who we are while our hearts sing the songs that our actions write. We were all always beautiful, in our own ways. We are all singers and writers in everything we do. Original in our own beauty.

I wish I wasn't ever so consumed by everything that I forgot the beauty of it.

God, I'm so pretentious.

My mind runs back to the memories I never wanted. My mom. Those words. The atmosphere. The anger. The betrayal. The fear. The longing.

My biological parents.

There's anger in those three words, anger I didn't know I had until I shouted at them, called them out on all the shit they've forced me to go through. I wasn't ready to meet them. They were at fault for all the doubts I've had on my family. All the doubts I've had on my friends. All the doubts I never thought would leave.

All the love I've been given that I've doubted.

Because who can love me? Who can love me if even my parents don't? Who would want to?

Over the years, it has become easier to accept love. Never easy, but easier. It was, and still is, harder to give love. Why should I, when I probably won't receive it? Would they even want it in the first place? Would they care?

I've learnt, in all the months I've been forced to be someone else, that those who seem like they care the least, are the ones that care the most. How could I not learn it, when it was my own story?

There's a story to every defence a person builds. A story to every gesture of nonchalance a person shows. A story to every suppressed grin on a person scared to love.

Why have we thought ourselves to be afraid of love? Or, better yet, why has the world thought us that?

I thread my hands through Tiana's hair as she begins to move slightly, murmuring illegibly. I sigh imperceptibly at her actions. It seems this night won't be one where she sleeps soundly.

I won't blame her after the day she's had.

I guess my own anger wouldn't help, in that matter.

I'll admit, guiltily, that I've considered leaving her. I was so scared that I wouldn't be able to help. Was so scared to care for her. Was so scared she'd leave me. Was so scared that I wouldn't be enough. I still am.

And then there's the darker part of me, the one that wonders if it'll be worth it. If she'll be worth it. If she's worth the effort I've put.

This part is one that I'm scared of. Because I know, for ever-loving fuck, oh how well I know, that it is worth it. That she's worth it.