artgirl 15: heal
In this chapter, there will be many references to depression symptoms/thoughts. if that will trigger any kind of sadness, don't read it please my loves. My goal isn't to torture my characters. It's to tell their stories in the most authentic way that I can. And yes, people can fall into depression after situations like this. Depression can happen in a moment or over years.
ANY comments criticizing Zoey's demeanor over the next chapters will be deleted. Zoey's my baby. Treat her well. I can't stress enough how annoyed I get when some of you call Zoey "annoying" or "stupid" for let's say not wanting to forgive Nico completely or "stubborn". She's human, just like you. This story isn't ONLY about love, it's about Zoey and Nico's paths. No one is cheery 99% of the time; no one is loveable 100% of the time.
ANYWAY, proceed.
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"I felt her absence. It was like waking up one day with no teeth in your mouth. You wouldn't need to run to the mirror to know they were gone." James Dashner, The ScorchTrials
Zoey Willow Hunter
MY HAND HURT.
Every pulse of pain sent by the frantic rescue team my body was became a warrior I was too tired to fight. Al I could see were images of me telling Jessie what had happened. I'd have to close the store. She'd have to look for another job. I'd move back home. Maybe go back to university, study into teaching. What would I teach? Art was out of the question. Math did nothing but confuse me. Maybe I could teach kids how to deal with the mess that your heart makes when it breaks, how to clean it up. I'd tell them to thank God if they get their hearts broken by someone else, because then—they could lean onto themselves to see the world through a clear view, not the foggy one that love brings. I'd tell them to pray every night, beg to never get their hearts broken because of themselves. When that does happen, the view is shattered. Everything they'd know would crash onto the ground as quickly as their heart, in a split second.
I wouldn't make a good teacher.
Neither would the doctor who took care of my hand. He was stoic; acting as if I was nothing but a dollar sign the government gave him. He very calmly explained—while fucking stabbing more alcohol onto the wound for no logical reason, since the nurse had already done the exact same thing and he had already done enough tests—that some of the motor nerves in my right hand had gotten damaged. I'd need physical therapy and meds to bring my hand to the state it was before. For now, it would take time for my hand to heal. It would still twitch after healing from the trauma, and be weak.
I wanted to go home and sleep, but my mom was married. She was already worried enough about me, I didn't want to make her run out of her own celebrations to take care of me.
I was fine, anyway. Truly, at least that was what I'd repeated to Nico and Diana every time they asked. By the tenth time one of them had questioned my health, I'd pretended to be dozing off. I didn't need to tell them what hurt me; the best thing to do was to suffer through it by myself. They didn't have to carry my burden with me. All I had to do was survive the next days.
It's okay. I'm going to be fine, I'd been saying that over and over in hopes of actually believing it. But my throat was tight and every time the sentences appeared, I heard my soul get lost a little more. I believed it less and less. I couldn't fake having a good hand until I made it. I couldn't fake being able to paint. I couldn't fake being happy as much as I'd like to, because life was a race and I couldn't pretend to be able to run with a broken leg.
I didn't even remember the waiter's face. The one who pushed the tray from the other side of the door. It took too much energy to think. I did know one thing. My heart was damaged more than my hand was. How many hours of physical therapy, of meds will it need to heal?
As many as I'd like to sleep at the moment. God, if I could really sleep. For at least five minutes. Ten seconds, even. It would be a sweet escape from this bullshit. And I wouldn't have to think.
I am here, now. And there is a party to attend.
Smile, sit still, look pretty, I thought, entering the celebration hall. My mom was dancing, looking like a queen in her dress. She stopped once she saw me and I noticed the look of fear when my bandaged hand came into sight.
"I'm okay. It's just a little broken bone. I'm fine, it's okay. Don't worry about me," I told everyone who asked. I tucked myself in a little corner of the hall, with a glass of wine and nothing on my mind.
Julia danced and danced, she enjoyed being passed along from one person to the other. She knew all the words to the songs and made sure that everyone knew that she did. She giggled jubilantly, and I couldn't help but smile.
I was her, once upon a time. Before there was not much to worry about. I was in love with the world and everything it had to offer. But as I grew up, I discovered that the world could offer you absolute shit.
Fuck, I was so in love with the world.
I used to think that paint was the blood in my veins, the one I could control. It was the thing I had the most power over. In fact, when everything seemed to be going wrong, I could enter a peace of mind. Paint was like sleeping. Everything that didn't matter was gone, but it still hung at the back of my mind. I could create stories, tell-tale lives, be whoever I wanted to be in that canvas. I could draw myself, draw those I loved, but I could also draw faces of people I'd never met and places I'd never see, from a small memory. I drew people and wondered if one day, someone would recognize themselves in one of my paintings.
Even when I was a kid, paint was my best friend. Until Lucy and Diana came along. I'd splotch paint around and try endlessly to recreate an object. Upon failure, I'd just dip my hand in the can of paint, put it all over the messed up canvas and call it my own art. My art never judged me, it never looked down upon me, and it never doubted its love for me.
Until now. Until the moments when I realized that my art had the possibility to leave me without preparation, without any buildup. If my art left me, I'd be a kid again. I'd be holding onto nothing at all.
Skye came at the table, a thin layer of sweat on her forehead from the dancing. That, of course, didn't stop her from shining with beauty. Everything about her was full of youth and love; she was truly someone to look up to. Especially when she said things like: "You wanna ditch this place and go get some milkshakes?"
"I'm good, thanks," I smiled. "How's the dance floor?"
"Boring without you. I can actually dance, so I'm breaking the white-girls-can't-dance stereotype. You need to dance to reinforce it."
"That was genuinely rude."
"I genuinely don't care. I do care about you, though. What did the doctor say?"
"Nothing. It's a little break."
She huffed and swallowed the rest of my wine glass. I really did want to punch her, in that very moment. "Cut the crap. What happened?"
"Nothing, Skye. It's a little break. I'm fine."
"You're bullshitting me now, eh? Just because we don't live together doesn't mean I don't know you."
I poured more wine into my glass and took a careful sip with my good hand before answering. "I never said that. I'm saying that I'm fine, but you're disagreeing. Do you want me to tell you: I'm miserable and I want to crawl into a hole and hibernate in it forever?"
"No," her eyes softened, "I want the truth."
"Well, the truth is that I'm fine. I'm not wonderful, I'm fine. That's all. So, if you don't mind, I'm going to go back to being alone and sipping on this wine."
She opened her mouth to say something else but shook her head. "Fine. I love you, though."
I mumbled a small hum of agreement. "Me too, Skye. I'll head home a little early; you think mom would be cool with that?"
"No, stay until midnight. You need to at least stay for that. There will be fireworks."
"All right, fine."
"Say the word fine one more time and I'm going to pick you up and throw you on the dance floor," she smiled.
I glared at her until she walked away. I loved her, I truly did. But her sarcastic joy could be a little too much. Everything was a little too much.
Then Nico came along. He'd been dancing for an hour or so, and midnight was soon approaching. I'd been visited like an old building by most of those closest to me, but I felt alone. Maybe I should've danced, tried to absorb the music into my heart in hopes to start the healing process. I needed to ache before I healed.
"Hi," he sat beside me.
"Hey."
"Do you want to talk?"
"Not really, to be honest."
"Do you mind if I stay here?"
"Not at all."
I looked at him and wondered why he was alone. Why he wasn't with a beautiful woman, enjoying every single moment in life. He was handsome, sweet and charming. A perfect 10 in anyone's book. He used to come off as cocky, but seeing him take baby steps into falling a little bit more in love with the world everyday changed my perception of him entirely. He is warm, kind and rough all at the same time.
He was one of my favorite people. Maybe that was why I decided to change the usual lines I used with everyone else. He wouldn't judge me or pity me, at least I hoped so. Being with him was easy; I had nothing to lose by talking to him.
"So, the doctor said my motor nerves are damaged. My hand won't come back to the way it was before, not anytime soon. I need physical therapy and meds. It will twitch and be weak. I probably won't be able to paint."
His eyes lingered on mine and I saw the sadness flash in his eyes. His hand, a few centimeters away from mine, reached out to the good hand. "It's going to be okay. You'll get through this, Hunter. It's going to be okay."
I eyed my bandaged hand and had the urge to saw it off, seeing it so lifeless. I hadn't tried moving it, any movement would cause pain and I didn't want to feel anything at all.
"It's almost midnight," he said, very softly. "Don't you think you should dance at least once?"
"I don't want to," dancing wouldn't make my hand work. "There are too many people."
A new song started playing. "One song, Hunter. I promise it won't hurt you. Let the music swallow you whole for a little bit. It'll be a good feeling." I saw the love in his eyes for music, and envied him with every fiber in my body.
"I'm going home soon."
He got up. "Zoey. Don't start the new year with a broken heart."
"I can't do much about it, though. I can't exactly unbreak my heart."
His hand was wrapped around my good one. "I'll ask one more time. Do you want to dance?" his voice was so smooth that I wanted to make a blanket out of it. "We could forget about everything for one dance. We'll be kids."
It was the last line that seemed more tempting than anything. I got up on my feet, forgot about the time. I closed my eyes and tried to forget about the heavy burden that my right hand had become so suddenly. Soon I was dancing.
Nico reached out to hold my hands in the traditional way, but I put my hands on his neck instead, never letting my right hand fully touch him. His hands went on my waist as a reflex, and we swayed to the music. I didn't know the song.
"I don't like this song," he mumbled.
I mustered a small smile. "Me neither. Kinda ruining the mood, isn't it?"
He nodded, slipped away. He went to the DJ and the slow, sappy song stopped playing. Instead, a loud pop song that only the younger ones knew amongst the crowd came on. I grinned. I'd told Jessie in front of him that this was my favorite song at the moment, a while back. He came back to me, shimmying through a happier crowd. The sight itself made me smile. He was so silly and stupid, when he wanted to.
We both knew that this was coming to an inevitable end in the matter of minutes, but I couldn't care less. He twirled me around and the wine danced along, like the third wheel that was always invited.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, I repeated over and over.
We danced until the music started dying down, or the crowd's shouts were louder than the music, I wasn't too sure. I was laughing too hard to care, because no price could be put on seeing an Italian geek bust out robot moves that didn't even go along a little bit with the music.
"Ten!" shouted Skye, along with the rest of my family. She grabbed her boyfriend close and looked at him as if he was the brightest star in her sky. "Nine!"
My mom was giggling with Rafael. They were leaving for the week-long honeymoon in Hawaii as soon as the clock struck twelve. "Eight!"
The song ended. Nico and I were both out of breath. I looked at him and thanked every good thing in my life. I knew that nothing would be the same after this wedding was over. I wouldn't be able to recognize my life.
"Five!" Julia, on Rafael's shoulders, cried out. She and my mom giggled in the same way.
"Four," Diana grabbed Joel and kissed him, never being one for patience.
Three.
I wasn't sure what came over me in the next seconds. The thought of falling into sadness was too hard to bear. The idea of looking down at my hand and seeing everything I'd ever known vanish twisted my heart strings. I needed to start crying, but I needed to say goodbye to this wedding.
Two.
So, I clutched onto Nico's shirt, tugged him down to my height—which wasn't too low, thanks to the heels— and kissed him with every power I had left in me. Among everything that had changed through four years, his lips hadn't.
One.
The fireworks set off. (The wedding planned ones, obviously.)
He reacted immediately, steadying my waist and deepening the kiss. I pulled away, smiling for the last time in a long time. The kiss made me want to fall apart. "Happy new year, Forrest."
"I—" he closed his mouth and kissed me again, this time taking his sweet time to savor every millisecond of it, to remember and forget the taste of my lips. Then, he smiled. "You too, Hunter."
For that moment, I was okay. When I was in his arms, music was playing and I could remember the nice side of being in love with him. Right now, my hand wasn't broken. He had never broken my heart. Nothing was broken, everything was stable—on hold, accompanied by the cheery music that everyone learned to love. I was okay and I knew that wouldn't last for long.
So, I kissed him once more, danced with him twice, memorized his carefree smile and headed home to get some sleep.
I was okay. For now.
-
MY HEART was exhausted. From the lack of sleep, from the overwhelming urge to stay in bed all day, from the stress of dealing with my hand that weighed me down. Skye and Julia bickering didn't help either. The almost 12 year difference should've made their relationship smoother, but it didn't. They were both hard-headed and refused to accept any protest from each other.
I showered first, before looking anywhere else. Tied a plastic bag around my hand, I didn't want to get the bandaging wet. I almost fell three times in the shower, almost burnt my skin and almost started crying. I didn't, though. I hadn't realized how much being without my right hand would affect my everyday routine. Even holding my phone was a chore.
As soon as the latter lit up, I saw five missed calls and two voicemails, half from Walter, half from a foreign number. I expected him to be blabbering again or dialing the number expecting to hear my younger self's voice. He did that often.
Hearing his voice would make everything better. It would make up for him not being there yesterday.
I played the voicemail from the unknown number first, saving Walter's for last. If anything could help cheer me up, it was him reminiscing about the mail delivering days and wondering about the use of voicemails long enough for the message to end by itself.
"Zoey, it's Bea," a shaky voice filed my ears. The dread started stretching throughout my body, like an old sweater that still fit after a few years. "Oh God, I'm sorry," she tried to stop crying. "He's gone. You were like a daughter to him. I'm so—oh God."
Just as she continued talking and crying, the house went very silent. Skye knocked on my door and came in, her face solemn with bad news. I could hear Julia's sniffling. I saw Skye's eyes gathering tears. She only cried when she saw something die in people, as she believed in them too much. Now, she had to deal with having someone die and seeing their loved one suffer of an inevitably eternal one-sided love.
I could hear everything, Bea's voice replaying in my head, explaining that it was a heart attack. The snow crackling on the roof above my head. Julia's crying. Skye trying to say something to comfort me, but staying glued to the ground.
The only thing I couldn't hear was the sound of my breaths. I wasn't sure if I'd stopped breathing, but perhaps that was why I felt dizzy. The world was turning around me and everything hurt. I tried to remember what the last thing he'd said to me was.
Oh God, I had to remember what the last thing Harry Walters said to me. He wouldn't say anything to me anymore. I couldn't remember anything at all. All I saw was his face, smiling at me through the years. Being the only father figure I'd ever had. Laughing with me, never at me. Loving me when I didn't love myself and teaching me how to laugh in the face of a hostile universe.
Walters was dead, and there was nothing I could do about it.
If there were any strings holding my heart together, I felt them fall apart, one by one.
I walked past Skye downstairs, where the smoke of grief was already washing over. All of the town would soon know. I didn't want to see them cry. If I wasn't crying, why would they be? I had to be able to breathe to cry.
I couldn't breathe not a single inhale or exhale to save my life. I grabbed my coat and boots, walked outside. The snow was thick; I almost thought its goal was to stop me from going anywhere.
But when everything went wrong, you had to fight it. I had a bone to pick with the world first. The only problem was that I couldn't drive with my hand. The engine wouldn't start and my hand on the wheel felt like a stranger's hand. I held onto the wheel, stubbornly, refusing to stay stuck here. The action ruined anything the nurses had done yesterday, my hand started bleeding.
The pain from that got mixed with the one in my heart and I failed to recognize the difference. "Fuck!" I hit the steering wheel with my good hand, cursing everything I'd ever known about luck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. This isn't happening.
Walters is dead.
"Zoey, let me," Skye opened the car door, offering a hand.
I stared at her and shook my head: "Go back inside," I said instead. My hands were furiously trembling, and I couldn't see anything straight. Nothing made sense. I slammed the car door behind me and started making my way out to the streets.
I walked and walked, stomped my energy out into the snow. Everything felt empty, void of anything that made any sense at all. Nothing was logical; there couldn't be a simple, logical explanation for all of this happening.
If nothing made sense, then it wasn't real. Walters couldn't possibly be dead. He was fine. He was at home. He was trying to read poems and make Bea laugh. He was believing in people and giving them kindness. The light in his heart shone on anyone who knew him everyday. He was laughing, right now. In fact, this was all just a bad dream.
My hand wasn't damaged. I could paint. My heart wasn't broken. I was whole. I am whole. I am okay. I am fine. I am alive, and so is Harry Walters.
In fact, if I headed to his house at the very moment, he would be home. Sleeping, maybe. Watching television, absently. And Bea wouldn't be sleeping at the hospital because she wouldn't stop crying. She'd be home, telling him stories and drinking chamomile tea with a hint of lemon.
My face was wet with snow when I got to Walter's house. I knocked three times, waited for anyone to answer. I twisted the door knob, with a feeling that the door was open.
A small part of me whispered: "Bea left the door open because she had nothing else to lose. Even if robbers rummaged through the place, she wouldn't care. The most precious thing in the house to her was gone."
I made that voice die down just as quickly as it had surfaced. "Walters?" I cried out, shutting the door behind me. "Walters?"
The house was impeccable. I saw him in every corner, every chair, and every piece. I sat in his rocking chair and picked up the last book he had read or heard Bea read to him. It was a collection of E.E. Cummings' poems, and my eyes fell upon the bookmark. The last poem he'd heard was the one that I'd read to him two days ago. He must have died yesterday, because he never went to sleep without being lulled by the sweet sound of poetry.
He'd smiled when I read: "here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart. I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)." He said: "This guy's silly. How do you carry someone else's heart in your heart?"
I replied: "You make a little space."
"Hm," he hummed, eyes already closed. "I carry your heart; I carry it in my heart."
Everything inside of me unclenched. I felt foolish; helpless. I breathed out. With that breath came every suppressed emotion since yesterday. I clutched the book closer to my chest and started crying. Crying until I'd gotten drained, crying until my skin had gotten drunk off my tears. They didn't seem to stop, because my heart was crying and I couldn't make it stop. I didn't want to stop crying. I didn't deserve to stop crying. Walters was gone and I—
I couldn't carry his heart with mine anymore.
-
so...that happened.
Sometimes everything goes wrong. You have just witnessed someone's breaking point. This is the climax of the story. This is where the fight for happiness begins, for our dear Zoey.
As you have reached the middle of this story, I thank you. Thank you for bearing with my cheesiness, the ups and downs of Mailboy. Thank you for continuing to read and loving my characters, defending them even though I don't always agree with your "weapons." Thank you for helping me build these characters and watch them grow and fall apart.
Buckle up, buds. The second half of this story will be stronger and will touch you more than the first. Maybe because sometimes we all feel Zoey's pain, sometimes everything feels wrong even though everything around you feels right. To anyone suffering of depression: You will be okay. Take care of yourself. Seek the help you need. Talk to people. Read. Write. Love yourself the way you'd love others, love yourself the way you'd want to be loved.
until next time.
love, yas