She couldn't sleep.
She sat up on her bed, sleeping beside izuku who insisted on staying with her for the night, she allowed it thinking it would help to close her eyes and be relieved someone was breathing next to her, but she was wrong, she couldn't take her eyes off the curtained window, fearing he would return to inspect the house again.
Holding her breath she stood up to her feet and slowly maneuvered in the dark to get to the living room, feeling the walls around her she kept her pace, feeling for a switch she fumbled to turn on the lights, squinting her eyes at the sudden brightness she walked towards the couch and fished out the knife she hid that morning, then she turned around to see if anything was amiss.
Everything in the dark remained a mystery and she didn't want to go into it.
Hoping izuku wouldn't wake up she quietly sat down on the sofa, eyeing the hallway and the rooms she could see from the lounge, she didn't move for a while until she heard a faint tapping on the window behind her, she knew she saw nothing when she entered but her reflects were faster and she hurried to take in the scene.
Finding nobody, she wondered if paranoia could cause a person to make up sounds in their head and believe it happened in real-time.
Her body relaxed for a bit and she bit her lip watching her reflection on the blank screen of the television, she looked like she was out to kill someone with the way she was gripping the knife in her hand and darting her eyes all around to find the intruder when there wasn't. Should she wake him up?
What was he going to do? Did he have sleeping pills somewhere? Even if she wanted to rest and sleep was evident in her eyes, her mind wouldn't shut up, and her survival instincts would flare up, having her be on defense day and night.
Standing up she walked to a corner where she remembered Izuku taking out some medication, soaking in the details of the labels on the boxes she picked out a couple of them and scanned through them. Eventually, she found it. Sleeping pills.
Smiling she grabbed a glass and filled it with water, chucking the pill in her mouth she gulped it down and tried to walk back to her room without looking anywhere, but she failed. She only meant to take a peek at the front door, walk past it, and return to bed, but as it turns out, she had lost total control over her paranoia and didn't have any other choice but to comfort herself with the fact that she saw nothing.
Putting her eye on the peephole, she observed the outside and found it empty, the lights were dimmed, and no soul was out and about, she remembered the voices she heard that morning and found herself in a stupor, she hadn't been out of the house for a while, let alone get out of her room, the fact that she's standing here is a miracle. The old her almost seemed like a dream, how she's diverted back to her old habits was disheartening.
Could she ever go outside? She doubted she could.
How is she supposed to go about her life?
She had to step back and draw in a deep breath, she didn't understand why tears automatically formed and flowed down her cheek, everything was ruined and she knew that, her job, her family, her livelihood.
Ironic how she's trapped in a different scenario with the same feelings as before. She didn't think of this house as a prison, but she's not exactly sure what she thinks of it, how she should feel about locking herself up voluntarily.
She wanted her young days back. Maybe then, her sister would be there to console her like she always used to. She always used to have a solution just for her.
"[Y/N] What's wrong, why are you crying?"
It's the one thing she feared hearing when she broke down in tears around her family, but if she had to pick, crying in front of her sister was the safest option.
If her mother's frantic fret hadn't evolved into a screaming and blaming scheme, she'd have picked her. Being a kid who knew nothing about feelings didn't help her case. Neither did it help her sister.
"You're going invisible..." she quietly muttered, watching her sob and whimper audibly now that her emotional state was compromised.
She hiccupped, "I just...-wanted to play... I refused to do my homework, so- I got hit..." It didn't help that at the time the isolation from her peers was tough on her mind, so all she wanted was to forget about it.
That included her homework.
"Hey it's okay, I'm sure they didn't mean it." thinking back, her sister believed in her parents more than her, she loved them, at least she thought that. Until she didn't. "But it hurts..." She rubbed the skin on her thigh, hidden underneath her blue skirt.
"Oh... Uh- I know let's put some cool water on it! It'll help. I'm sure it will." she didn't have much of a say, she found herself being dragged to one of the bathrooms and told to stay put while her sister went in and came out with a bucket filled with water.
"Do I need that much?" She looked at it and then back to her grinning sister. "Yeah!"
They both sat down in their small backyard and she allowed her sister to pat her burning skin with water, and she watched her do it. Somehow it helped that she wasn't alone, somehow the hurt seemed to vanish too.
"Is it helping?" Her sister asked. She nodded, the breeze also helped in cooling down her skin.
"Tell me what else happened?" at that exact time, she faced away and refused to elaborate more on the topic, maybe even avoiding going to the room where the incident took place.
"You know, I got hit once or twice on the head for being a brat too." her sister was clever enough to try and bring her out of her shell, she always envied that her sister could talk on about anything. To anyone.
"For what?" She'd asked and knew getting an answer would help in not reliving the incident over and over again in her head. Her sister smiled, "Apparently, I was throwing a tantrum over a toy doll."
"Oh... What kind?"
"One that looks like you!" she chimed.
She narrowed her eyes and pouted, "Are you trying to cheer me up?"
"Is it working?" She'd laughed.
"...Yeah."
She plopped down on the floor and shielded herself, hugging herself to gain some sort of peace, but it never worked. It never will.
She couldn't go back home, if he ever came back she'd be defenseless again. She couldn't ever feel safe in that house again.
So what was she supposed to do? What could she do besides waiting, and waiting...? She didn't have her sister to give her advice anymore, she feared relying on her parents because she didn't know how they'd react.
Maybe she'd need to prepare to be abandoned or even be forced into a long relationship. When she is not sure if she can handle one, or even feel safe in one.
But without money, she's as helpless as she can be. She didn't want to depend on Izuku forever, she was already a burden sitting on his shoulders.
But it was not like he was going to leave her either.
She's not sure what to do. She needed to get her life back together and get on her feet as soon as possible. As soon as he forgot about her.
She took the knife with her and walked to her room, but before she did, she glanced at the phone charging at the counter, she retraced her steps back and looked down at it, unlike her, even the device seemed more serene than she could ever feel.
Picking it up, she frowned, the screen reflecting her image and letting her see all her features contoured in a sad mess, she closed her eyes and let out a sigh, she knew it was a bad idea. But she couldn't help herself.
Darting her finger across the lid-up screen, she scrolled around for a minute before stopping to fully register what she was doing, the numbers on the keyboard almost too overwhelming.
She wanted to see if her sister cared about her now. Perhaps then, she can get rid of all her happy memories.
Tapping the numbers, one at a time. She stopped to rethink her decision but it didn't matter now she'd dialed in all the numbers and stared at it. She can see this through.
Connecting the call she waited. She waited till her sister would pick up.
But did she?
The cruel answer was waiting for her at the end of the call, silence and not a single voice spoke out to her. She should have guessed it was impossible to get the love she lost.
Silence seemed like a curse. To her, to her frightening thoughts and her racing heart.
She tried reasoning with herself, she tried to call from a number she didn't know. But, what was the point?
She didn't know.
She walked into her room with a heavy heart, immediately seeing izuku sound asleep, she could only guess what her parents would think about her now.
She carefully approached him and sat down at her side of the bed, softly breathing in and out and wiping the tears off her skin, resting her hand on her stomach she stared at the wall.
Sliding the knife under her pillow she closed her eyes, gently laid down on her back, and loosened her tensed muscles.
She was drifting off to sleep until she woke herself up four hours later, with Izuku still resting and her, sitting up straight to stare at the space and feel her headache raging. She got up the second time and walked back to the lit living room, checking the locks on the windows and going back to the room.
She rubbed her face and her eyes, leaning back to relax her head and try to fall back asleep, she blinked her eyes a couple of times, failing to control the urge to look at the door again, she stared at it, then slowly clasped her eyes shut.
She was sitting alone in the living room, holding up a pair of blue tiny clothes, her stomach was bigger than she remembered and she thought to herself if it was real.
She had the windows open and she felt herself relax and smile at the wind caressing her skin, blowing back strands of hair from her shoulder, it was an early afternoon, and the sunshine was welcoming, she could almost mistake it for a happy dream.
She got up and underneath a pile of newborn clothes was a knife, the same one she'd hid under her pillow, and all she could tell was that if nobody else ruined happiness for her, she would ruin it herself. Then she looked out the window.
It was such a happy dream. She could let herself be happy for once.
Did she want it though?
She grabbed the knife and walked towards the threshold of the window. It felt nice to look at the scenery from the top of the building, it felt real.
It felt good to finally drive the blade inside her stomach and feel the warmth slowly leave her body, blood stained her like a second dress, and she didn't feel any pain. She didn't know why.
At last, she could end it all together.
She heard three loud bangs at the door.
She immediately sat up and looked at izuku who hadn't even stirred a little or furrowed his eyebrows as if he had not heard what she did, for a second she thought she had imagined it and maybe she did, surely he would have woken up with her, but he didn't.
She massaged the tension around her temples and let out a sigh, she was losing sleep and she couldn't tell how long she'd even slept for seeing how regularly she woke herself up.
She glanced at the clock and saw it was almost dawn, she had managed to get some rest, it wasn't much but it was better than being weakened all day long, she peered down at izuku, she should probably wake him up to get ready for work.
She just hoped this wouldn't be her every night.
First update of the year? Lol