Sandpaper

one

On the day of her fifth week of group therapy she showed up fifteen minutes late, not because she got caught in traffic, but because she had sat in her car all swallowed screams and scraped knuckles willing his name out of her head.

He was creamy skin contrasting dark thoughts, blonde hair stuck out in every direction, and an arm thrown over her shoulder. And his voice felt like sandpaper but he smelled safe and she fucking needed him. He was dazzling smiles, flushed cheeks, and cigarettes caught between cherry lips. But above all he was her brother, not by blood, but by the skin they shared as armor to fight off the loneliness.

He understood her in a way she couldn't comprehend, but she hadn't minded because he smelled safe and his voice felt like sandpaper working to smooth out her rough edges. He was her crutch and she needed him, but he wasn't there anymore, didn't come home at two a.m. with lipstick stained collars, didn't call her to come get him when he was drunk out of his mind. There was no one left to lead home, only a voice that felt like sandpaper ringing in her ears and his sweatshirt that smelled faintly of cologne and safety.

He was pale eyes staring through her and she tasted the salt invading her tongue. He was pain too faint to hear until it was too late and she blamed herself for it. He was a sinking ship but she had only seen his yellow name, and now everything was red. She was the only one who could've seen the falter in his smile, the tiredness in his eyes, the forced breaths, but she had failed. Failed him. Failed herself—just failed. And the guilt was eating her from the inside out.

It took her seven minutes to catch her breath again and four to spark the inferno within, two to build her walls back up and one to make them crumble down as she stumbled through the doors all tired eyes and swollen knuckles. She was a supernova blinding everyone who dared to look at her, and she shuffled in with a voice that felt like sandpaper fading in her ears, replaced by the sound of comfort.

On his first day of mandatory group therapy he arrived ten minutes early. He stood leaned against the wall cracked hands tapping at his side all harsh angles and dull colors. He didn't try to introduce himself to anyone else, didn't try to smile, didn't want to be there at all really—but who would? It's all nonsense feelings and bullshit smiles anyways. So he just sat in the corner (because apparently it wasn't an option to hide in the bathroom the entire time) all restless hands and tired eyes fighting to keep away the memories, but they insisted on seeping through the cracks of his hard exterior.

It didn't matter that the therapist was talking in an obscenely loud voice, tone scolding like a father reprimanding his children. He couldn't focus. Couldn't even enjoy the irony that his Doctor's last name was Payne, couldn't waste the goddamn smile on something so simple.

She sat there drowning out all the blabbering idiots who decided to participate in the bullshit activities. There was the old man whose wife had croaked from some rare disease she didn't know how to pronounce (but really it was her time to go anyway she was pushing eighty after all), the seven year whose dad had some sort of heart attack (boy did she feel bad for that kid since heart disease is hereditary and all that shit), the boy her age with the bleached blonde hair who was afraid of his own shadow (she didn't know why since she never bothered paying attention), the Christian missionary sitting on her left whose husband had decided to run for the hills once he realized that he didn't want to be hitched to the Virgin Mary for the rest of of his life (she didn't really blame him for that), and the overly energetic therapist on her right who she was going to murder one of these days (except he was actually really pretty so maybe she would have to fuck him first).

All those people she knew and hated. They were the regulars, the pathetic losers who insisted on showing up every week to sit around in this rotting building wallowing in a cesspool of crocodile tears and self-pity. But the dark, brooding boy in the corner, he was different. She could tell that he didn't buy into the crap they were trying to spoon feed him. He, she decided, was here against his will just as she was— a prisoner of those around her who cared too damn much for their own good.