Evergreen Everleigh - The Wattys 2020

Chapter Thirty-Seven - Trapeze Act

(Header Photo: Juniper Berries, always good for healing)

** Trigger Warning: Please note that this chapter mentions suicide, as we deal with the aftermath of Aloe's attempt and Everleigh dreams of her own attempt that she believes has scarred her siblings. Please take care when reading, or skip altogether **

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Trapeze Act

The world is slipping and sliding. My eyes are like swings at a playground, creaking in the wind. I don't know where to look. It doesn't matter where really. Everything I see is the same, a repeated unavoidable reality.

I see myself falling. It's not slow-motion like I once thought it would feel, but full of jagged movements. The slap of my skull against the corner of my scales is sharp enough to slice. My bedroom ensuite always seemed so small to me, but now, looking down, I see my limbs flail, filling the space. And I am so small. I am a child of crevasses that hold onto shadows with both hands.

There is blood, red and flowing steady as a stream. I am still awake to see it, eyes flashing quick and slow at the same time. 

But there is worse to come. I know this, I think I might even remember it. 

There are the screams at the door. So much blood has flowed that there is little to be done, but the littlest people are trying to save me all the same. One, a boy with soft curls is kneeling in the blood, the other, a girl with tears is fumbling and speaking of getting help.

I am mumbling, on the floor. Even then, I think that I am telling them that it is no use anyway. None at all. I don't want to live.

Just like the very best kinds of people, these two small beings do not listen. There is always something to be done. Even for me. 

*

The rest of that night feels stale as we all tried to sleep. It turns out that none of us are very good at pretending, despite being a room full of secret hoarders. Around halfway through the night, I get up and sit at the side of my bed. I look at my hands, still seeing the blood there, feeling it. 

I know I am in shock. Clinically, I know. Still, the horror hits in waves and I wish I had several more sets of arms, just to wrap around myself and hold my body in place.

I squeeze my eyes shut tightly and rub my temples. In one of the hospitals I stayed in a nurse named Marie used to rub lavender oil on my temples whenever I couldn't sleep. I wish that Lady Lavender was here tonight for me to ask her if she had any. But she had gone to the hospital with Aloe. 

Wister was likely in the kitchen. His face earlier, his expression a mixture of shock and shame had rocked something deep inside of all of us. Our anchor had begun to shake.

Peering down at Juniper's bed, I see that she is awake with Mr. Flurry curled up against her. Her little hand strokes his head with easy brushes. The cat nuzzles her cheek in what I think or imagine to be comfort.

I pander down the bedroom floor and crouch by her bed. Juniper gives me a sad little smile and I offer her both hands, standing up. She is in my arms in seconds and Mr. Flurry is curling himself around my legs. I brush my face into Juniper's hair that smells just like apples and take in the heat of her cheek, a little damp from tears. Her red ribbon is tied around her wrist and tickles the back of my neck as she holds me tightly. 

Sometimes, it feels as though I can feel the weight of everyone and everything that has ever suffered or is suffering. It aches and rips at me with claws that never cease, leaving me bloody and wounded. Now, clutching Juniper is one of those times.