"Oh my god, baby. I have so much to tell you," I say as I enter Harry's apartment, giving him a quick peck before walking into the kitchen. Harry closed the door and locked it, a new little habit he'd adopted since we had returned back to his home.
"What's up?" he asks, sounding somewhat deflated and looking tired.
"Are you okay?" I ask, a frown setting between my brows.
"Yeah, baby. Just tired. That's all," he tells me. I place my things down onto the island chair and wrap my arms around his waist.
"I missed you," I tell him, kissing his, somehow still-solid torso through the thin fabric of his tee.
"I missed you, too." he says, placing a small kiss to the top of my head. "So, what's this news you've got to tell me?" he asks me, pulling me out from the hug to look at me.
"Have you been crying?" I ask, suddenly noticing the red veins lacing the whites of his eyes.
"What? No," he laughs, looking away from me. He itched his nose, and walked into the living room.
"When I couldn't reach you on my break, I thought something was up," I tell him, following him like a lost puppy.
"I know, babe. Sorry. I've already told you, though; I was sleeping."
"I guess," I sigh.
Harry laid his long body out on the sofa, patting his lap for me to join. Happily, I did as instructed. Harry closed his eyes and pulled my body close to his, a feeling I had missed during the day today.
"What's the news?" he asks me, his eyes still closed.
"Lauren and Luke are sleeping together." I tell him, my good mood now deflated and as flat as his mood.
"Oh, yeah. I know." he tells me. I sit up to look at him.
"How do you know?" I ask.
"Luke told me."
"When? Can you open your eyes, please? It's like talking to a wall," I chuckle lightly.
"When he came over earlier," he says, opening just one eye.
"Are you high?" I spit, judgement thick in my tone.
"Me? No," he huffs. "I'm tired, Zahara. I've told you that already-"
"No, you've been tired for weeks and not once have your eyes looked as red as they do now. So, either, you've been crying or you've been doing drugs. And since you're my fiancé, I'm entitled to know what's going on because I care and I'm worried about you, Harry." I say.
Harry finally opened both of his green eyes, and the bloodshot whites became even more visible than they were in the kitchen.
"Both, then." Harry says after a few moments of having a stare-off.
"Both what?" I dare ask, feeling dread form in the pit of my stomach.
"What you said," he mumbles, looking away from me.
"What did you take?" I ask, my voice cracking slightly.
It wasn't that I was a crybaby. But these past few weeks had been so intense, so stressful, for everyone involved. And now, hearing Harry say those words to me, it felt like a world that was repaired only by bandaids, came bursting through the cheap, sticky plastic and crashing down again. But I should've known. I should've known it would happen because bandaids weren't permanent. They couldn't fix things. I couldn't fix things. And I knew better. I knew better than to believe he was 'okay'. To believe that he was 'coping', because, to be coping, the doors wouldn't have to be locked at all times.
"Just took a few of the leftover fentanyl's," he tells me. "Just wanted to feel nothing. That's what they did in the hospital-"
"Under care. Under supervision. Giving you the right amounts. A safe amount!" I say, my voice raising as a tear fell down my cheek. I wiped it away quickly.
"I know," he croaks. "Just, um, been a bit, I dunno. Paranoid, or something." he whispers.
"That's understandable, though, Harry." I whisper back, looking down at the broken man.
"I don't want it to be 'understandable'," he huffs. "Nobody gets it. Nobody knows what I'm fucking going through, and I can't tell anyone because you'll all think I'm fucking mad and it won't make any sense," he tells me, tears beginning to fall down his sculpted cheeks. "And even if you did understand, or even if it did make any sense at all, you'd be on the phone to a psych ward quicker than I could say your name."
I felt my heart shatter into a thousand pieces. Seeing him so hurt, evoked a pain so deep from within me; one I'd never experienced before.
"I won't think you're mad, I promise." I say gently, the tears still falling loosely down my face, though I was trying to collect myself. "And I won't send you off anywhere, ever." I promise him, because I, of all people, knew exactly what it meant, how it felt, to be placed somewhere full of pain, and told to 'heal'.
"You will," he cries. "Because it doesn't make sense,"
"It doesn't have to," I tell him.
It fell quiet for some moments, the only sounds coming from Harry's attempts at stopping his own tears from falling.
"It- it sounds like someone's-" he begins, but cuts himself off. "Never mind, it's fucking stupid," he mumbles.
"No it's not."
After taking a deep inhale, Harry began to speak again.
"Sounds like somebody's being beaten to death inside of my fucking head. I'll be fine one minute, and the next I can hear boots cracking a skull, or blood leaking onto concrete. I can hear the groans of pain. I could've sworn it was coming from outside; that's how real it feels. But every time I looked... nothing was there. And I'm left with the taste of metal and a racing heart." he tells me, his voice shaky, eyes closed. "Or, sometimes, I'll look out of the window and I'll see them. I'll see them standing there waiting to come and kill me. But then, I'll blink, and then they're gone. Just like that. Because I'm insane, I'm clinically fucking insane, Zahara." he says, his voice becoming shakier as painful cries began to tack through his chest.
Instead of responding, I laid my head down onto his chest, and held his body as close to my own as I possibly could; hoping, wishing, that somehow, my body, pressed against his, would bring him some form of safety. It was a small gesture compared to the heaviness he was experiencing, but when I felt unsafe, being in his arms felt like the safest place on this earth. And I wanted to give him that feeling, even if only a little. Even if only for a split second.
"Luke thinks I'm mad, too." Harry croaks.
"When you hear these things, baby," I begin, with caution. "Do you play it off as feeling unwell?"
"It's easier," he mumbles.
"I wish you didn't make yourself so isolated from me. From everyone who cares," I whisper. Though, I didn't blame him. I would probably do the same. But I felt pathetically helpless, selfishly.
"I know,"
"I've never elaborated on this before, but I've been to a psych ward. As in, stayed at one. Unwillingly. I know you know. I know you heard what Daniel said that time at the party. You never mentioned it because I never mentioned it. But, I need you to know that maybe those places help some people, but it didn't help me. Being stuck in one place with likeminded people isn't the revolutionary solution my parents thought it would be. Therapy, however, was. It saved me a few times, really. Having somebody declutter your mind helps. It truly, truly does help. Having somebody nurture the sorest parts of your mind and tell you that you're not mad, that you're okay, helps. Because, sometimes, fearing of your own potential madness is the scariest part. And, once you learn that actually, your mindset, your reaction, is normal... you can heal a lot easier." I tell him, my words spoken soft, slow, and deliberately so as not to scare him off with the concept of speaking to somebody about the way he's been feeling.
"Why did you go? When?" Harry asks quietly. "If you don't mind me asking, that is."
"I was 16. My parents sent me off to a psychiatric hospital miles away from home. They masked their pride with faux concern. I remember them just shouting continuously at nurses to take me in. I was out of control, according to them, and this was the only way to stop it, to stop me. It's funny because, sometimes they'd slip up; sometimes their acting faltered and their pride would show. They'd remind me that nobody could know of my stay there, and that they'd tell people I had been continuously spiked by some evil friend or boyfriend. That way, it'd be 'oh my goodness, your poor little girl!', as opposed to the dreaded 'what the fuck is wrong with your daughter? Where did you go so wrong?'." I recall to Harry, a small smile on my face as I allowed their stupidity to be of humour to me, rather than pain.
"I'm sorry they did that." Harry says.
"It's okay," I shrug. "I was out of control. Drugs, alcohol, sex, and accidentally forgetting to feed myself. I was quite the ugly picture for their polished frames," I say.
"Oh no, not sex!" Harry teases, his voice still small and pained, but somewhat lighter now.
"I know right?" I laugh. "But, I mean, it stopped me from getting blackout drunk every night. Not many people know about that." I say. "So, I understand. I don't quite relate to the extent of your pain, and I wish that you didn't have to. But, I understand wanting to feel nothing. I understand not wanting to be seen as mad. I understand, baby. But what you need to understand is that talking helps. Believe me, if I hadn't had my brain taken care of as a teenager, I'd be way more fucked up than I am now."
"I hate that you went through that," he sighs. "I'm glad it helped you, though. But I don't think it'd help me. I think all of this will just wear off and eventually I'll be okay again," he tells me, though I could tell by the tone in his voice, that even he didn't believe his words. "I'll fight again and I'll be fine."
"I'm afraid that's not how PTSD works, Harry."
"I just don't think anything can save me from myself at this point, baby." he says quietly, almost inaudibly. My heart cracked.
"Don't say that, Harry." I say, looking up at him.
"I don't see how 'talking' will fix this. I-I can't grasp how somebody telling me I'm 'fine' will get rid of this taste in my mouth. This fucking taste." he says, raising his tone as he sat up a little further. "I dread every minute of everyday knowing that at any given point, I'll hear their voices or see their faces. Knowing that, at any given point, it'll be my skull cracking against boots. Against concrete. Knowing that, at any given moment, I'll be reliving my own hell once again. Maybe I deserve it. Maybe this is karma for all of the shit that I've done. But I'm telling you, talking will not help me. I feel like- fuck, I don't even know. No, I do. I do know. I feel like, I'm underwater. Rocks tied to my extremities. Heavy rocks, too. Not just little pebbles. And once upon a time, I was fighting. Once, I was managing to get enough rocks off of me to rise back up again. But then it started to take longer, and longer. Until eventually, now, I can't. Rocks are really heavy, Zahara. And I've been in hospital for weeks so I'm weaker. I don't have what I once had. This is it; this is all there is left for me. I'm drowning."