River
The day after Nix confronted me I broke, ever so slightly more than before. Pushing me further toward when I'll break completely. I break and let go of that last secret, something that I'm sure made him reconsider the meaning behind my tattoo. The NEDA one I said was for my sister, and it was. In part. But it was also in part for me. Is in part for me.
It makes me feel ashamed. Ashamed that I couldn't be strong and keep that secret to myself. The one I knew would hurt since I've seen the pattern too many times to count. That one secret always comes out and causes the person that isn't to blame to blame themselves. For not seeing. Not noticing. Not figuring it out sooner before it's too late. For not doing more to help with an issue that isn't theirs to fix, but because they care.......because they think like that.
I know he blames himself. I could see it in his eyes. When I'd said it I could see how Nix was blaming himself for not seeing it sooner. For not figuring it out, even when it was only because I wrongly hid it so well. A part of the legacy of abuse my mother left me when she broke me inside but tried to rebuild it. She may have had her issues and still does, but I'm the finished product. The masterpiece she created by trying to fix all the wrongs in a way that meant I was without a lot of things in life. Things that I never had. That meant I lost so much so young, even if some of it later came back, just a little different because I was.
I was damaged. Am damaged. Broken. Warped and ruined in a way that goes deeper than the scars I can hide under clothing. They're the easy ones to hide. The mental, emotional and psychological ones are harder. The ones linked to habits I can't break. Mindsets I can't shake. Fears I can't lose. Like the one that she'll come back and take him from me. Or that the man I've been running from will find those few left who are dearer to me than even my friends. The few he can hurt me with. Libby, El. Nix.
Looking over I see he's fallen asleep the same as I have, his face looking more peaceful than I've seen in a while since I let loose the past. Open up and let him choose, even if now I'm worried it hasn't been the safest option. I knew I wouldn't change it. All because I refuse to turn into the person who ruined me. Even if he didn't see it, she did. She ruined me. For good.
"Hey, don't look at me like that," Nix opens his eyes and frowns when he notices me studying him the way I'd been doing by accident. I sigh and slump down again where I'd sat up when I'd woken up. My head rests back on his chest so his heartbeat sounds in my ear, Reassuring me that he's here. He's alive. "Hey, are you ok?" Now he sounds concerned and I know he's remembering what I said last night.
"I'm sorry about what I said. I shouldn't have. I know how it made you feel." He looks as though he wants to deny it but I shake my head with a sad smile. "I can still read your expressions and I saw yesterday's. Don't pretend and make me feel worse about it than I already do."
"Worse?" He sounds confused. "What do you mean R?" He sits up a little then and I sigh, doing the same. "What do you feel worse about?"
"I saw how you looked at me, Nix. You blame yourself for not figuring it out. For not helping me. I saw it. Don't deny it, it doesn't make it any better." I swallow down the tears then, knowing that whatever I had been about to say would only have made shit worse. "I'm sorry, sorry that you think that. I....I...."
"Don't do that either," He sounds firmer then as if he's trying to control his anger. A bad habit I remember he had when we were kids thanks to a volatile temper. I think about recoiling back, my survival instincts from dealing with my mother screaming at me to just look sorry. The way I feel. He seems to catch the expression shift and takes a breath, his tone lower but not entirely free of anger. "Don't shut me out please, I was just shocked yesterday that's all. It was a lot of new information. Yeah, maybe I did since you've stayed with me on and off for how long now? Maybe I did feel a little responsible for not figuring it out but that doesn't mean what you said is true." His tone is softer when he seems to let go of the anger. The pleading is somehow harder to hear. "Please don't leave me again. I know it's a selfish ask but I need you, Riv. I can't go back to the emptiness. The hole inside. I can't survive it. Not this time. Not again."
He held me then. His arms go around me in a protective, anxious hold as if he's afraid I'll vanish. As if I'll disappear at any moment unless he refuses to let go. But no matter how many times I try to tell him that he doesn't need to be afraid he never listens. But he doesn't, he doesn't need to be afraid. No part of me wants to run, to leave. Not now. Not after everything. I'm home. I don't fight it, not anymore. Not like I did before at the start. I can't, not now or ever. So instead I surrendered to it. To let his love surround me like a stormy cloud and rain all over my walls, letting them crumble to the ground. Like when I told him about the past. About it all. I let him in and let myself be happy. Just for once.
But that doesn't mean I can't see what I said once, we are a toxic pair. Drawn to each other since we can be the remedy to each other's pain. Yet apart we're the cause. Selfishness, anger and jealousy have nothing on how hard we hold each other in comparison to the knowledge that if one of us was to let go the other would follow willingly until it was all over. Never wanting to be apart not just for the company of the other but also to avoid being alone. Of feeling trapped by a world that dictated that two, cursed, broken souls found a home together which without they'd crack, wither and die.
"I'm not leaving, no matter how many people say I should, myself included sometimes," I mumble the words into his shoulder and feel how he shakes when he hears the word 'leaving', holding me even closer until I'm not sure I can breathe. But that's ok. That's ok because it means I'm alive. I'm alive and so is he. "I can't leave mi amado. The universe took that choice out of my hands when it reminded me that if I decided for you I was turning into her." My mother. The one person who can still make me feel afraid, even after all this time.
"Please just promise me you'll never go. Not like...." He stops then, his words seeming to disappear. I sigh and close my eyes, feeling tears again, just like last night. Feel how he keeps shaking, the strongest person I've ever met. Scared at the thought that I'd leave and he'd be alone. "Everyone else is gone. Mom, Luna, Zoey. I-I can't lose you too Riv. you're all I've got." I want to correct him then, remind him of his friends, our friends. Of his dad and Libby. Of all the people who still care about him but when his eyes meet mine my argument collapses. It collapses when he fixes me with the look of someone who's lost everything. Everything but that last person that keeps them happy. Alive. "I can't go back to being empty inside, I need you. Even if it's selfish to ask."
I shake my head, leaning to kiss him once and feeling us both melt into it, holding each other as if when we let go we'll never have another chance. "It's no more selfish than the reason I dragged you back into my chaos mi amado. Just like when we were kids neither of us is blameless yet both are trapped. Unable to move on since there's nothing as good or as painful as us. It's why no matter how toxic we still fit. Still, clinging to the remains of something that I think died a little in the last five years." Why I chose to doom you to this even knowing what might come of it.
Eventually, we both just sit there. Wandering and lost. Lost in each other, in our problems. In everything that seems intent on pulling us either apart or to fate, we can't outrun. Not that I have another choice, I knew I was doomed to this years ago when I first made the mistake of running with Ivar for a year. When I became so focused on my family that I sold myself to the devil, long before my mother may or may not have had a part in it. Something that makes my heart feel heavy given what I know I need to do.
"I need to see her. To talk to her." My quiet words snap Nix out of his head when he turns to fix me with a look. "I need to speak to mine and El's mother. I know Ari said to wait and do normal but it's taking too long, even with all of us trying to do our part. Mine is talking to her. Will you come with me?" I don't want to go alone. I'd happily never see her face again but I know I need to. I need to do this for people like El, Lib. Nix. People dragged into this who I can protect by facing my demons and their creator. "Please?"
He sighs, his face blank for a second that looks so much like my mother's if she came home in a drug-induced haze that my breathing quickens and I feel the room close in around me. Ringing in my ears and the feeling of my heartbeat picking up the pace as an anxiety attack kicks in. My hands shake and I feel my terror, my anxiety gets higher and higher, and my vision tunnels in. Trying to calm down it spirals faster and higher until I feel his hands on my shoulders, eyes worried.
"Hey, hey calm down mi amada," The Spanish shocks me but is enough to start chipping away at the anxiety still controlling me. "Hey, I'm right here, listen to my voice. I'm right here. Just take a deep breath." I try to do as he says but it's hard since my panic is still too high. "Ok just breathe in with me ok?" I try to do that. Focusing on his hands on my shoulders, on seeing him breathing with me. "Now breathe out." We both let go at the same time and I feel some of my panic fade. "Ok, now good, again." In. Out. It's a little easier. "Again." His tone gets a little firmer and my eyes widen before he shakes his head, eyes softening. "Please, again, for me?" I nod and try to do it again but it's not working the same. "Close your eyes and do it again Riv. Focus on my voice. On the two of us. Right here, right now." I nod and curl my hands into fists to try and keep them from shaking. In. out. In. out. Each time it's a little easier. Until the ringing stops and my panic is gone. I open my eyes. "You ok?"
I nod, "Flashback that's all." Memories of what happened at home after that same expression he'd pulled without realising come to mind. Smashing plates. Shouting. Bruises, burns and cuts. My mother's rage. The punishments she'd give out if we crossed the line, even when Dad was still alive. "It...it's what my mother's eyes used to look like before the pain. The blank expression you just had." He looks hurt and ashamed then but when he tries to turn away I stop him with a hand on his shoulder. "It's ok, you didn't know. I never said." It's true. I didn't go into every detail with him about what happened. Didn't want to remember all the times it happened. All the ways she hurt me. Even when I know he's seen them.
The scars from being hit, and thrown into things. The plate shards. From her belt. The curtain pole. Whatever she could find. The burn marks from when she'd punish us in winter with hot coals and cinders from the fire. Candle wax she'd drip onto our skin when it was still hot. Hot enough to scar and leave ragged, red burn marks. He's seen every inch of me and yet I still feel afraid. Still, trying to hide how bad it's been despite the marks. Some from her and some from the self-harm over the years that can and can't be seen easily. All still marks. All still scars. No matter how visible or not.
"I'm sorry Riv, I didn't know that would cause..." Again his words dry up but I can see he's upset now. Eyes haunted by regret. See. even now you can't stop hurting people. People you claim to care about. Failure. Damaged. Broken. The voice came back for the first time in a week then and I shivered. Battling with keeping them down. Hidden. But it's a hard task since it means breaking my promise to myself of no more secrets. "Hey, come back to me Riv. don't disappear like that, it does no good." He tries to reach me but until I silence the voices and placate my demons I can't respond to him. Not with words. Instead, I keep hold of his hands. Using the physical touch to ground myself and push the demons back. But it doesn't work like before, not when they know I've thought about visiting my mother. Their creator.
"I....I...." Just like when Nix tried to comfort me a few moments ago my words don't seem to come. Trapped behind the wall of pain that awakening my demons has caused me. Is causing me. "I....I can't explain it but I...." I tried again but it didn't work. Not until I feel Nix move enough that he can hug me so my head rests under his. Grounding me ever so slightly. "I can't explain it but I need to go back to face her." I sniff, realising that I'm still crying. "I want to move on, to heal but I know to do that I have to confront the person who hurt me before. Derek's out of the picture since I can't reach him but my mother did more damage since she treated him as an extension of her. All my pain, my loneliness and feelings of not being good enough stem back to her. I need to face her but I can't do it alone." I look up but he's already nodding. "You...."
"I'll come with you. I said I would before and I don't want you alone with her. Now I know what she can do." His expression is full of pain then, pain and a fear I've never seen from him besides one of the times I was sick last week before I told him the truth. The same panic I'm sure I would have seen had I been awake after my mother did her best to kill me and El all those months ago. "All you have to do is ask," He seems to snap back into the present after a moment, eyes serious when they lock on mine. "All you ever had to do is ask. I'd burn the whole world down for you Riv. All you'd have to do is ask."
That gets a small, weak, smile out of me. Something that still hurts to do given all the years I was kept from it but it's good. It's a step toward recovering from the trauma. Even a little. "Does that go for anything?" He gives me a wary glance but nods, expression confused. "Ok, well then I need to ask you something."
"Anything. I'd do anything for you. Ask whatever and you can have it."
I snort, not able to pass up an opportunity. "Careful what you say or I might just use it against you. Or take it to mean something it shouldn't." My words are teasing but his reaction is beyond hilarious. He blushes. For the first time in all the years I've known him, both before and after our separation, I'd never seen Phoenix North blush. Until today. "Stumped you have I?" I chuckle as he gives me a tortured expression. But then I remember what I want to say and my humour vanishes. "Promise me that you'll let me keep you safe in all this mess with the Spades?" he opens his mouth to argue but I give him a pleading look. "I've had training and time to make peace with whatever happens to me but I need to know you're safe. Let me do that and protect you for once."
He scowls playfully. "Not very romantic. Isn't it the guy supposed to take care of the girl?"
I laugh, "If you're trying to quote romance books to me North then you've forgotten that he's also supposed to be the reason she's in danger in the first place. Bad boy stereotype and all with the angle you're working. Not exactly what we equate to given the role reversal."
He shrugs, "Unless you're a guy and didn't tell me?"
I snort, "Hilarious one there North. Trust me if I have a gender change you'll be the first to know, intimately." He looks horrified for a second before shuddering. "Or not if it's so bad."
"Nope, just trying to..." He trails off and shakes his head. Looking back the seriousness that's replaced the humour from before saddens me. "Ok. I'll let you as long as we make decisions together. We're a team, remember?" Holding up our joined hands he uses the heart as proof and I smile sadly. Nodding. "Ok. fine." He gives me another look. "When do you want to do it?"
I swallow, forcing down nausea at coming face to face with her again. "Tomorrow. After school. That way I know Lib and El are safe since your dad can take care of them. I checked he'll be home and said he wants to spend time with them. Us too but I need to do this. Before it's too late and we're out of time." Nix gives me another half-confused look before my words must have reached him since he holds me closer. Tighter. As if he's worried that one day a memory of me is all he'll have.
When I'm gone.
The next morning dawns earlier than I wanted it to, given how a nightmare wakes me in the early hours. I try to fall back asleep but with how nervous I am it's not easy. It makes me envious to see that everyone else can. That the rest of the house is asleep and I wish I were too. It just isn't happening. Not now. Instead, I just lie there with my eyes closed. Trying. Always trying. Reaching, always reaching.
But never get what I'm reaching for, no matter how hard I try.
Letting out a sigh I keep my eyes closed, even when I feel Nix move next to me. Tensing I hope I haven't woken him up when he shivers once. Opening one eye I notice he's still asleep facing me but the peaceful expression is gone. Twisted into one of fright. Pain. holding still I can feel when he twitches again, muscles tensing and then spasming as if he's trying to run from something or someone. Sitting up I watch and try to figure out what to do when he starts talking. Low soft words.
"No, no. Look I'll be there soon, just hold on. Hold on and wait for me, I'm coming." He shivers again and I think about reaching a hand when he turns and screams. "NO! NO! DON'T HANG UP ON ME I'M COMING. HOLD ON! PLEASE! NO!" The last no seems to stretch longer and bounce off the walls. "No, no, she can't be. She can't be. SHE CAN'T BE DEAD! ZOEY!" Shaking again he seems trapped. Trapped in a nightmare I can recognise given the name. Zoey. The shout had been angry as well though, not sure who to or what, but the anger was there.
But it couldn't erase the pain. The expression of pain that I can still see on his face when the moon comes through the curtains and washes over him. Showing me how he's stuck. Reaching out a hand I push his hair back away from his eyes and feel when he shakes again, the pain in his voice the next time he speaks seemingly stronger yet making him sound younger. As if I'd gone back in time. Showing me the past. In all, it's ugly colours. All its pain and suffering on the one person I loved above all else besides my family.
But without the anger to hide it, his pain is clearer. The suffering and grief that's so strong it pulls me toward him even more. The desperation cuts through me. Trapping me. "She can't be dead. They can't be gone...MOM! LUNA! NO! NO! COME BACK TO ME! I STILL NEED YOU! WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME WHEN YOU PROMISED YOU WOULDN'T!" The pain is hard to hear but I know he's heard enough of mine when I had my nightmares and woke screaming. The ones reliving the abuse. The loss of Hails. Indra. Delia. But I'd never seen how much he was hurting from what he went through. How hard the healing still is for him since he's hidden his pain so well I've never seen it so clearly. Not until now. "Please come back, you're all I have. She's gone, I'm gone. Don't let.....NO! COME BACK! NO! NO!!"
I can't listen to him like this anymore, not knowing he's suffering. "Nix? Amado, I need you to wake up. Wake up please." I try to shake him once before he moves so violently, shaking his head and jumping, that he ends up falling off the bed and pulling me with him since I'd refused to let go. He keeps shaking and I hate feeling so powerless, not able to do much more than push his hair back off his face and hold him gently until he suddenly sits upright with a jerk, eyes glassy and full of tears. I tap his shoulder and he jumps, stuck half in his head from the nightmare. "Hey, it's just me. You're ok. You're awake."
"R-Riv?" Nix sounds so scared, so heartbroken then that I nod and pull him toward me gently, letting him rest his head on my shoulders as we sit against the wall, the moon seeming to light up the room. Feeling how he keeps shaking, crying into my shoulder. It's hard seeing him like this but I know all too well where these nightmares come from. Trauma always leaves a scar, even if we can't see it.
A while later the sky seems a little paler outside and the shaking slows. The crying too. But he doesn't stop completely or fall back asleep again, just stares at the wall with hollow, vacant eyes and a deadpan expression I've never seen from my best friend who always seemed to me like bottled sunshine. I've never seen him this trapped in the dark. Looking so alone as if he has nothing left in the world. No one.
Holding him as tight as he once held me I notice when Nix returns the embrace as tightly as if he's trying to keep me here in case I disappear when he turns away. Kissing the top of his head He keeps shaking and I know there's nothing I can do since I won't push him to talk about it, already knowing the trauma behind it. Knowing what he's remembering is trapped in his head in the nightmare. That doesn't make it any easier to watch him suffer though since he seems to fold in on himself at this. Breaking.
Eventually, it all stops though. The shaking. The tears. The blank expression cracked ever so slightly as the lavender hush of the dawn broke and Nix releases me ever so slightly where he'd almost been stopping me from breathing before. "I-I saw it all again." The first time he speaks his voice is low. Scratchy and sore. "I-I saw them come to tell us about what happened to mom and....and L-Luna. I-I can see when I lose control and end up hurting the guy that got me put in juvie. I see the night we lost Zoey. The fight we had and when you saw me with your ex that morning before I left. What happened to Celia. They interchange over time but the pain is always the same. Always like someone ripping away a part of me that I'll never get back. Leaving me full of holes inside. Ones I can never fill, no after how happy I feel. The emptiness, the pain....it's all still there." When he looks up at me his eyes are full of tears again, making the silver flecks shine like falling stars as he breaks apart in front of me. "How did you live through what you did and not break?"
TW: Suicide mention, Dark Thoughts
I sigh and try to find the words. How to explain just how close I came to breaking once before, my scars seeming to prickle with heat where I remain silent. The ones from when I tried, when I broke.
"I did break once, a long, long time ago mi amado." He looks confused for a second until I show him. Turning over my hands I show him the diagonal lines that run from my wrists toward where they end just shy of my elbow. His eyes widen and I nod, with a tired smile. "It was after Dad and Hails died. I didn't know how to carry on. Still trying to be a kid but having to raise Delia and El by myself since Indra had started to pull away from the moment we heard the news that Hails was dead. I was done with losing people I cared about. Of having my heart broken. So when it failed and I had to stitch myself back up, that's when I stopped living and started existing. Just to turn off the pain of being half here. Half looking for something I never found. Of feeling numb. Alone."
Nix's eyes are haunted yet thoughtful when they meet mine, "You were numb and reaching, I was lost and reaching. I wonder if we were both reaching for the same thing." He looks down at our joined hands, the expression still there. "Maybe that's what you meant by what you said when we were toxic for each other. Tied and cursed." He sounds a little like he's giving up and strangely it's harder to hear now than when it happened before. Then when I tried to get him to hate me. It's harder since it sounds not only like he's given up not just on us but also on himself. On everything.
I sigh, "Maybe we were. After all, it seems we're better together than apart." He offers me a broken, tired smile and I sigh, letting him rest his head back on my shoulder like before. "Can you promise me something?" I whisper into his ear, feeling him hold me closer as if he's worried I'm going to choose now to tell him that I'm leaving. "Can you promise me what you asked me to promise you before? Don't hide the pain Nix. Don't pretend to be strong when you know I'm here. You can lean on me too. I won't leave you. You don't have to be strong all the time. Let me help you as well as you help me." I tip my eyes up then to see he's looking away. Pushing down whatever I'm feeling I guide his eyes back to mine and almost break at the expression. I pull him closer again as the tears start. "Please don't push me away. Let me help you. Don't do this alone, you're not alone."
He's still crying, the sound soft and broken. One I haven't heard from him in all the time I've known him. A sound that breaks something inside me that's been trying to hold onto the hope of something. Of a chance to go back to the time before all of this crazy shit entered both of our lives. Before the pain. The trauma. The scars and the memories. To a time when we were simply just a boy and a girl who were inseparable best friends who hadn't seen the horrors of the world so thought they could do whatever, be whoever they wanted. Before the world reared its head and showed us its ugly colours as it threw horror into our lives. Staining that picture with what we have now. Changing us and the way we were tied together so that instead of being a pure, simple love like it was it's darker. Darker and twisted like vines that keep us from breaking apart. Not quite co-dependent, yet needing one another to survive.
Poisoning us.
Twisting us so we looked for the good in the messed up world we live in. for the snatches of happiness that get pulled away before we sometimes even notice they're there. The people we care about but become too selfish to share. To be unable to let go of the few things we have to keep hold of them until we suffocate what little good had been trapped in it. Contained like a fragile flame that's all easily snuffed out when we try to shield it from the world and its horrors. To keep in a glass case that shatters when too much pressure from the world around us pushes too hard and we give in, even for a second. When we let it in.
When we let in the grief. The sadness. The emptiness and the pain. Trauma. Scars. The holes we can never fill because of what's missing. What was taken from us too soon and at too young an age. Meaning we had to grow up too fast to protect those we care about from having to do the same. Even at the cost of ourselves. Something I know well since I won't say it out loud but I know that I can only run from Ivar for so long until he figures out who I am. Why I'm hiding. What I'm hiding. And then he'll take things from me. Take and take until I have nothing left and have to face him. But even that doesn't necessarily mean a happy ending, at least not for me. I either kill him or he kills me. The thought leaves a sour taste in my mouth but I swallow it down. Pushing it away. Ignoring it until it will eventually swallow me when the time is right.
"O-ok," The quiet word makes me feel a little better since it shows he's not pushing me away. Both of us are afraid to be alone so we trap each other in our loneliness instead. "I-I'll try to remember that." He looks up at me again, eyes tired despite the slowly dawning day. "Stay? Please?"
He sounds so unsure and I can't stand to see him looking like this. Without another word I nod and hold him a little closer, the tears and shaking having started stronger again the longer he keeps his eyes closed. Hiding from something that's killing him inside the longer he doesn't say it. Holding onto each other as we are, I miss his words minutes later. Words spoken softly into my shoulder as if to hide them. "What's that Nix?" I can feel his shaking get worse but don't move. "Hey, talk to me, I'm here. I'll always be here."
"Can you promise that R?" When his eyes open again they're glassy, bloodshot from all the crying. But even that can't hide the pain I can see there. Laid bare where he's broken in my arms. Fallen apart the way I keep trying to stop myself from doing the longer this game of waiting goes on. "Can you?"
"I would if I knew I could keep it." My words are steady but slow. Tears damming up my throat the longer I think about what could come when Ivar finally finds me. What he might do. Take. "I would if I could but you know I can't. So I'll make you this promise instead. I promise to try my hardest to come back to you when this is all over. To be here when it's all done. But that doesn't matter because I'm still here now. I'll be here until someone takes me from you because that's the only way I'll ever leave. If I have no other choice."
He sobs again then, burying his head in my shoulder in a rare moment of complete vulnerability that I've never seen from my strong friend. Again I hear him mumble something but this time it's softer than the last time to the point I would have missed it if not for how he sits up a little and repeats it, his voice low and shaky. "I'm broken."
The two words break me. More than what happened to my siblings. To my dad. More than the abuse and everything we'd already been through since he sounds so hopeless. So lost. As if he's already disappeared and just waiting for reality to let him go. As if by magic I can suddenly see what he thinks of himself and it breaks me inside even more than when he'd spoken, the eyes I love so much seem to not see what's here. That seems blank and empty of everything other than sadness. Sadness so deep it's as if he's drowning. In his past mistakes and regrets. In what he deems is enough that he....he thinks he's broken.
I cup Nix's face with both my hands, forcing his eyes to meet mine as my tears finally spill. "You're not broken mi corazón. Neither am I. We're hurt. Hurt and slowly healing. But not broken. Broken would mean we had nothing left to live for. To fight for. And that's not true mi amado. Both of us do. It just took me a while to figure that out. And you to remind me."
He gives a tired laugh. "I killed people Riv. I killed people and you claim you can save me? How can you save someone who's already gone? Who's already written themselves off?" The tears make the silver flecks in his eyes shine even brighter then as if they're made up of dying stars as they give a final shine before fading for good. "How can you save me when I can't even save myself?"
I sigh, "No one's innocent in this Nix. We all have blood on our hands. Some of us more than others." Memories of what I did haunt me then for a second before I push it out of my mind. "We're all to blame for this, but the world is as much to blame as we are. Neither of us is broken, it just takes time to heal. To figure out what to do to help yourself get past it. And you can. You can Nix because you are the strongest person I've ever met. Don't ever forget that." He still doesn't look convinced. "I love you, remember that when you think you're alone. When life gets hard. Remember I love you and hold onto that. Because it's never going anywhere, and for as long as I have control over it neither am I. I promise."
"Ok," His soft words seem full of pain but also a little hope. "But I can't lose you. Then I will be broken. I can't live without you, I-I don't know what I'd do without you amada. Please..."
I silence him with a kiss, both of us holding the other tighter as if we're afraid to let go and see that it's all been a mirage. A lie. That we're alone. We've always been alone. "I promise you that I won't leave you unless someone tries to take you from me. And even then I will fight until I have nothing left. I can't live without you either."
He gives another sad, broken smile before his eyes close and he finally falls back asleep, arms around my neck and head on my shoulder, the shaking and tears eventually slowing and then stopping as he does so. I followed a few moments after.