Page 207 of Eternal
A few seconds later she walks in, holding a plate of cookies. She looks kinda sad, I think her father was mean to her again.
“Hi. I have cookies.”
She sits next to Vik, handing me one before shoving one in her mouth. “Why isVishahurt?”
Vik puts an arm around her and takes a cookie too. “Because flowers can’t run.”
I giggle and Kat just shakes her head.
Flowers don’t cry and they can’t run.
60
AZRA
“Brother” by Kodaline
Present
I’ve always thought that when you break something, no matter how hard you try to put it back together, it will never be the same.
The pieces don’t fit right anymore.
The edges are too sharp, too strange, and no matter how much you try to smooth them down, the cracks will always show. Even if it’s not broken anymore, it’s still changed forever.
One small thing can change you forever, and maybe that’s worse,because brokenness doesn’t just leave cracks, it takes away the freedom to remain whole, to be what you once were.
I used to think loneliness was what stole that freedom from me.
But then I’d watch the petals of my favorite irises, torn from their stems, drifting in the wind, scattered, weightless, still beautiful, still free, even when they’re alone.
Maybe that’s why they never seemed sad to me, because once, when I was younger, I felt that way too.
Maybe, deep down, I recognized their freedom, I was free too.
Free in the way only children can be, free to be happy, to run, to smile without thinking about why. Free to laugh without knowing what it meant to lose. Free to cry without feeling weak.
I was free to exist.
Then I grew up, if we can call it that, and I realized freedom isn’t what I thought it was. It isn’t something you have, it’s something you lose, piece by piece. First, I wanted to be free from my mother’s pain, then, free from the pain, from the grief, then from the bruises and scars, from the hands that hurt me when they were supposed to protect me, then from the drugs, the alcohol, the numbness.
And now… now I just want to be free from being a weapon, from being a monster. I want to be seen as something more than what I’ve done, I want to be seen as a woman, as a person.
I wanted to be seen by him the most, because I thought he was capable of it.
For a small instant I thought that maybe someone would understand. But the reality is so different.
I trusted a man, and he lied.
I should’ve known better, should’ve seen it coming. People don’t just walk into my life smiling and laughing with me. They don’t stay, they disappear as soon as they see a tiny real part of me.
But he didn’t leave, he held on, he kissed my scars, braided my hair and caressed my skin.
He looked at me like I was something worth keeping and worth looking at.
And the whole time, he was waiting for the right moment to end me.
I keep going over it in my head, trying to figure out the exact second I lost.
