“Change that thought, right there. I am wanted. I am seen. I am loved, tell yourself that.”
“Affirmations don’t work if a person doesn’t feel them,” she snaps at me.
“Then, feel them,” I say, cupping her face.
“Feel my touch. Feel how I care. Feel how I love you,” I say, and then kiss her.
I try to put as much as I can into that kiss.
She is hesitant at first.
“I am here,” I whisper against her lips. “And I am not leaving.”
But then, she kisses me back. Softly. Carefully. But just enough to make me feel that one feeling only she can give me.
That feeling of being home.
25
AMELIE
PLAYLIST: HOLDING ON AND LETTING GO – ROSS COPPERMAN
“You don’t have to do this,” Jane says, with one hand on my back as we stand in front of my studio. The hospital released me against medical advice, but Jane assured them she would take proper care of me.
I don’t want to be cared for.
It makes me feel incapable.
Less of a person.
We are standing in front of the door. A door I can’t open. Because everything behind that door reminds me of all my failures. How I failed El. How I failed Jane. How I failed everyone.
Every piece of furniture in that studio reminds me of El. She furnished it. She decorated it. She lived here. It was practically hers.
My eyes wander into Jane’s.
I feel sick to my stomach as I stand in front of a door I can’t open.
Paralyzed by the loss.
Broken in pieces.
Crushed by guilt.
“Come,” she says and walks me back to the stairs. You sit here, and I get whatever you need. Just tell me.”
I sit down and stare at my hands.
I feel so useless.
Incapable of doing the most basic things.
I just sit there, spiraling into the crushing numbness of the endless void I am left with.
I can’t even run from myself anymore.
Jane returns.
