Rena | Open

Mandatory Tasks To Complete, 4/4

1. Call the Petrovas
   1. Console them
      1. Research psychological studies on most comforting words for grieving parents
      2. Brainstorm best childhood memories of Viktor to have on hand in case the conversation calls for them
      3. Rehearse statements to satisfactory levels of emotion
   2. Discuss funeral arrangements
      1. Romania or Virginia
      2. Travel arrangements
      3. Invitations
         1. Research whether invitations are appropriate
      4. Church
         1. Call all churches of pertinence to Viktor; receive funeral information to have on-hand for the Petrovas
   3. Distribute death responsibilities
      1. Will
      2. Burial
      3. Funeral Arrangements (see 1b)
      4. Police
      5. Telling pertinent people at White Oaks
         

Sighing, Rena left her incomplete to-do list sitting on the table of her dorm. Her laptop was open, already handling the flight arrangements and the endless other responsibilities she’d assigned herself. If she bought five plane tickets instead of four, she’d get a better deal on airfare home. Of course, she hadn’t even talked to the Petrovas to confirm that they would be going home. She was relying on the predictability of Carina and Oskar Petrova and their inability to make decisions. All of their friends and family were within traveling distance to the church Viktor had grown up in, made his first confession in, and so on. She wasn’t sure if he was going to be buried there or in their plot on Katarena’s family’s estate, but regardless, it just seemed right to have the funeral there. Then, she decided, she could plan a small memorial for him here in Virginia, something intimate and low-key. That still didn’t solve her dilemma about the plane tickets, though.

Who would she even ask to leave Virginia for a week to go to a funeral in Romania? It wasn’t the most exciting thing in the world. She could bribe someone, but that would take money out of what she saved by inviting someone. The idea of inviting Alex was cinematic, it was idealistically romantic, but it was completely unrealistic. Nothing about him screamed ‘I’m the kind of man who would drop everything to fly across the country with you and comfort you through the loss of your best friend.’ In fact, that’s what she liked about him. He granted her independence, he was distant in a way that sometimes caused her to feel as if he wasn’t there at all. Down the road, she realized, that would be extremely lonely and isolating, but she was forcing herself not to look down the road. Right now, that was a good thing. She didn’t even think to offer that option to him, she wasn’t sure she wanted him to take it. If he came, she knew there would be more to the trip than Viktor’s funeral. There would be sleeping on one another in cars and on planes, a hike to the city overlook that would probably result in impulsively acting on unresolved feelings, taking him to the abandoned castle they played in as children, it would all be so much more than Viktor’s funeral. She knew that if he came, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from letting their relationship run its natural course. Here, they’d gotten into a steady rhythm of coming right to the brink of acknowledging whatever was going on between them and then giving each other enough distance and awkwardness to keep it away for another few weeks. If she spent that much time with Alex without the opportunity for that kind of distance, she didn’t think either one of them would be able to stop themselves from letting the inevitable happen.

Then there was Reggie. He was a safer option. He was kind, he’d spent a lot of time with her and Viktor in those short few weeks. Surely, he had a pretty big heart. He cared enough to take a trip to Romania with her to say a proper goodbye to his friend. In exchange for her savings, though, she thought he might walk away with more trauma than the money was worth. Funerals were upsetting, not that she considered them to be so. She adopted apathy in the worst of times to make herself look strong, to be a role model for grievers everywhere. Either way, not only would he walk away more upset, but she’d have one more person to worry about and look after. She wasn’t sure she wanted that, but she kept him in the back of her mind. On the other side of the sheet of paper she’d written her to-do list on, Rena scribbled Fifth Plane Ticket and added Reggie’s name below with a question mark. Then, she added, random stranger/sightseer? (doesn’t have to go for funeral). That was the third option.

The afternoon flowed as it was supposed to. The Petrova phone call should have broken her, but she felt nothing. She felt the emptiness of what she was supposed to feel, nothing more. She was right about the Romanian funeral and the Virginian memorial. She got to work booking locations and making other necessary phone calls until the last thing that remained on her schedule was 1c-iv. Police. So she got in her car and drove to do the only thing on her to-do list that wasn’t just for others: get answers.

The police were the only people Rena could properly converse with in her state of apathy. She didn’t have to feign emotion with them, she could ask them all the questions she wanted until her heart was content and she could go home and sit in the emptiness and the numbness. She asked them the most obscure questions about his death, about how he had died, about what kind of suffering he did. She knew with every fiber in her being that it was a terrible choice--she wouldn’t want to know any of that when she started feeling her emotions again. She would remember every grotesque detail she’d begged for in this state vividly, she’d dwell on it. Still, she asked the questions. She asked to see his body. They hesitantly obliged after some coaxing. That was another thing she was entirely sure would haunt the dreams she would have once she decided to feel her feelings again. But, that was the feeling Rena’s problem, not this one. This one just wanted to absorb every minute detail, she was fascinated by death in an objective way. It didn’t matter that it was her best friend, it was just some guy on a table, no different than a stranger in an episode of Dateline. She felt no attachment to the lifeless body on the table, she just silently observed him for a matter of minutes, thanked the officers, and left.

Now it was evening after a full day of arranging, inquiring, and accruing future traumas for her future self. She took another shower, trying to wash the horridly colored bruises off of her flesh with no success. When she got out of the shower, she looked at herself in the mirror for a long time. All of the scrapes, the bruises, the scars. The way her ribs showed where they hadn’t before. She felt stupid for thinking she’d be pretty again once she cleaned herself up that morning, that one shower could fix two weeks of damage. She still looked like the victim she loathed the possibility of being. With a burst of rage, she threw her hairbrush across the room, letting it smack against the wall loudly before dropping to the floor. Her blood ran cold, she froze: rage was as strong of an emotion as any. That was a feeling.

“Okayokayokay,” she whispered to herself. She ran cold water over her face. She changed out of the clothes she left herself on the counter and into a turtleneck sweater she bought to hide the blemishes on her skin. She also put on a pair of tight-fitting, long riding breeches she could have cried trying to put on because they hurt so much against the bruising on her body. Still, she did it silently, frantically, out of pure terror. She put shoes on so even her feet were invisible, just her face and her wet hair, which was still dripping, was visible. She couldn’t do anything about that with shaking hands that would smear makeup in all the wrong places, so she left it be. She paced the room, frantic, manic, out of control. Her roommate seemed to have packed her things, Rena wondered earlier in the day if she was away on a trip or if she had left for good. Either way, she was relieved to miss the possibility of someone walking in on her psychotic break.

I’m out of control. It’s not working, I can’t shut my feelings out. It’s broken, I’m broken. Why can I feel it? Why is there a crack, slowly leaking emotion in? I’ll be drowning by sundown. Can’t you hear me screaming from the inside? Can’t anybody hear me screaming? What’s wrong with me? Why isn’t it working? I felt something, I’m going to feel everything. I’m not ready, not yet. I can’t feel it until everyone else is done feeling it. I have to be the strongest, the best. I have to win grief.

Now, on the verge of hyperventilating and doing nothing about it, Rena continued to pace the room, tears slowly leaking out of her eyes and into her face. She slapped them off her face with so much hatred for herself that she thought she might have added to the number of bruises she was covered in. She felt the shock of the pain she’d caused herself. Slowly, she fell to the floor, panicked. No one was there to stop her from doing it again, from holding her accountable for her lapse of self-control and her overbearing hatred for herself. She felt it all at once, as if that one small leak had turned into a nuclear explosion of feelings. Every negative thing anyone had ever told her came flooding back, the only true truth she could hear. The blame for every negative thing she had ever witnessed, especially those things she was far from involved in. And just like that, she went from the best griever to the worst, someone who physically could not stop herself from inflicting every kind of hurt imaginable on a body that could take anything without revealing anything and a soul that couldn’t take another thing without revealing everything.

Reyes | Drew, Sullivan

“That was a better try than most,” Reyes deadpanned at her drunken, sloppy pronunciation of his name. Both men glanced to each other, observing her hasty departure from Sullivan’s arms upon her realization of the other’s presence. Her wobble caused Reyes to quickly react, putting his arms out to catch her if necessary.

“That didn’t take long,” Sullivan shot Reyes a knowing look that made the dressage rider’s blood boil. How dare he assume anything about Reyes Castel, the most mysterious, dark, brooding, unlabelable, secretive, dashing man--did he mention dashing--on this side of the Atlantic Ocean? Or was it Drew that the implications were being made about? He suddenly felt very protective again.

“Say what you mean or don’t say anything at all,” he replied coldly. “Implications are the poison of modern interaction.”

Pointedly ignoring her question regarding their destination, Reyes strolled at the pace that was comfortable for her, looking up at the stars every now and again, or directing his focus on something she pointed out. He would nod and agree or add something of his own.

“I think everything in the world has feeling, whether it’s an intrinsic outward projection of emotion on the universe or the universe’s projection of emotion on the object.”

“Sprinkles? How so? And,” bashfully, he added, “what are sprinkles?”

“What’s the sexiest name? Reyes,” he smiled a wry smile he rarely showed, his eyes glistening with humor.

“Don’t leave you? Okay, I won’t. I promise.” This wasn’t his first drunk girl. In fact, drunk girls were the only demographic of people he spent time with at one point in his life. He glanced at the remnants of her outfit, wondering where her shoes had gone. He didn’t say anything, knowing that pointing out anything that was missing would warrant a drunken, spontaneous, “let’s go on a scavenger hunt,” type reaction, or a bawling “my shoes are gone” sobfest. She was being fairly cooperative so far, despite her mixed interactions with the stairs. “Stairs one, Drew zero,” he muttered with that same wry smile. It came as quickly as it went. She hadn’t given up on clambering up them herself yet, so he didn’t offer her any help. Finally, after quite a bit of repetitive failure on step after step, they’d reached the top. “What does it feel like to reach the top of Mount Everest? You made it.”

By this point, it had just been easier for the pair to link arms, Reyes walking slower than ever and pretty much just supporting her with his strong frame. He could feel her energy level starting to wind down, which he hoped meant good things for him and his morning plans. He finally got her to the door of her dorm, stopping outside of it expectantly. “Is the door open, or where do you keep your key? I’m guessing your roommate won’t enjoy us waking her up to let you in.”

Brielle | Louis

“I would,” Brielle’s grin grew brighter with his words, “I am the same.” She allowed her arms to fall back to her sides, her gaze trained on his eyes. They glittered with mirth and humor. “We have met? I do not think so. I would remember you.” She studied him for another moment, though nothing changed. He still gave off an air of class and intelligence, not one that she recognized as being someone she had met, though. Would she have really forgotten meeting a handsome, charming stranger such as he? “I am Brielle, who are you?”

She slipped her arm inside of his and together the pair made their way towards the bar. There were a few empty seats off to one side that was more dimly-lit, quieter as well which gave them more opportunity to talk. She wouldn’t have minded just staring at him instead, but a conversation seemed more necessary. After all, if she didn’t speak to him, how would she get his phone number?”

They sat down and to no one’s surprise, the bartender--if one could even call this man that--slid some shots down the counter towards them. That was all they had been offering all night, it was the strangest event, let alone wedding, Brielle had ever been to. Still, she drank what she was offered with no hesitation, barely feeling the effects of the liquor she’d already consumed. “Where you come from? I notice your accent.”

Jack Monarch | ---

With the confirmation of the target’s critical condition with the four walls of the hospital, and that the chances of him recovering would be narrow – and even if he did, it would be arduous and long – everyone involved could crack a smile of relief. As predicted by the overseer, Rena’s exceptional intelligence led her to figure out one crux of the plan, and basically delivered herself into their hands. With that, all and any of the leads would be held in their hands, stalling all investigations. It was already assumed that it was gang related, but with the thousands of gangs out there and the immense political support they had, it wasn’t likely they would ever get implicated. Jack himself could now relax and begin his life afresh soon. All would be finished soon, and the organisation would dissolve away and return home.

Or at least, that was immediate plan. And then came Viktor’s driving into the barn, for whatever reason, which would now delay the whole thing. The shock that overcame everyone’s face as the car smashed through one wall, sending splinters flying like deadly arrows and tearing through all objects with no discrimination. Monarch himself recalled the scene as if one from a movie, the crumpled, steaming hood and the shattering of glass. In some delusional fantasy, he could even imagine the other male uttering a final prayer. For purposes of drama, that prayer was probably never finished.

But the more important issue at hand than the car was really the fact that the barn was coming down on their heads, large, sharpened planks of wood charging down to collide by or on targets. He had been fairly lucky with the adrenaline working to keep any sort of pain at a far bay. But it also worked to numb his brain from having a direct, clear thought beyond reaching safety. Stumbling on towards what his instinct pulled, throwing step after step, he made his way until the effects began to wear off and the soreness settled in.

His vision felt funny – sort of like a mirage or haze and his head felt funny too – like air…or something. Presumably he had hit his head against something. The rest of himself felt alright, just battered and worn, but nothing that felt like a break. Leaning against a wizened willow tree, he collapsed down, back against the trunk. There was a distinct smell of fresh water, and there was the typical accompanying sound of baby gurgles.

Although, the thought of what exactly was he being punished for did cross his mind. Was it a type of karma, or just pure, bad luck. He’d done good, to be able to perform better things, you know, help his ailing Ma out, give her a bit of peace. Actually, what had he done – that wasn’t that important now, was it?

Sofia | Jack

Take Hugo for a hack. Famous last words, Sofia thought. She had always loved Rena’s little gelding but he was not the pleasure to trail ride that he was everywhere else. That was coming from another member of Hugo’s fanclub who believed just as much as every other member that holy was the ground his hooves walked on. Sofia amused herself with the imagery of heavenly wildflowers blooming under the unearthed soil his little hooves touched. That was him typically, but this was not the reality of that. So, why had she pulled him out of the arena after two laps at the walk and trot and down the lane towards the forested trails she’d heard so much about?

She didn’t like to think that she had a death wish. Just like everyone else who had ever lost someone, Sofia liked to think her way of grieving was the best way. Feel everything up front, slowly heal. Don’t shut out emotions, don’t shut down. Try to stay present in the moment and identify whatever feelings exist. Taking Hugo out for a trail ride wasn’t reckless or impulsive, was it? She hoped not. She, like everyone else who had ever lost someone, was taking the inventory of everyone else who was grieving and using it as a broad guideline of what not to do. Rena was trying too hard to prove to everyone that she was handling it well and would end up pushing everyone away, Katya was choosing to ignore her emotions and focus on the objectivity of the matter, getting colder by the second; their mother was a silent griever whom she knew would never pick herself up out of the grief she currently felt, and their father would act on impulse to avoid the negative feelings for as long as possible. Then, he’d probably act even more impulsively once he did feel those feelings. She didn’t like to see fault in him the way he did, it felt like he should be saved from the notion of imperfection because of his status as an adult and a father. Yet, she saw it all the same.

Where did she fit into all of it? Where had she ever fit in? As the youngest Petrova, Sofia had always just felt like a means to fill the spaces the other siblings left empty. She wasn’t exactly sure where she fit in, or if she did at all. Katya was cold, the boys had each other, and she had no one. It wasn’t until she got to Aurelisz that she really, truly made friends, Devyn being one of her best friends. If it wasn’t for Devyn, Sofia wouldn’t have pursued riding at all, nor would she have agreed to come to Virginia for the summer instead of going home. She was perhaps the only person in Sofia’s life that actually seemed to have any concept of the girl’s identity. It was one of the most comforting things the girl had, especially now, but her friend was nowhere to be found lately. Since Max had been in the hospital, Devyn had been around quite a bit, but seemed to be purposefully putting distance between herself and them. Sofia hoped it wasn’t permanent but didn’t find herself to be in a position where she would fight for a friendship even if it was walking out the door. It just took too much assertion, too much willingness to walk into the fire and get burned. If Devyn wanted to stay, she would.

A little while later, both horse and rider were still plodding along at an unsteady pace. Hugo would go from wanting to run through the entire thing to needing his hand held at the smallest of adjustments, and Sofia’s arms were sore from trying to regulate all of the pulling. She remembered that he liked water, and she wondered if the stream that ran through the property was the same one that flowed into the water fences on the cross country course. Decidedly, schooling him in the cross country field would be more productive than trail riding and it would be a lot less painful for both horse and rider. He would be able to run and jump as he pleased without instilling fear in his rider of injuring himself in some obscure way. She thought that if she could get him up the stream, she’d find her way into the far XC field with the water complex, so naturally, she changed course at the sight of water.

They had been plodding along through the creek for quite some time when she heard some noise and a flash of color to her left. She thought at first that it was some kind of animal, something harmless she hoped, but when she looked, to her surprise, a man had stumbled into and slid down beneath a thick willow tree. He was blond and average-looking with no defining characteristics that spelled out danger to her, and his clothing seemed quite equestrian. Her first thought was that he was one of the riders, and he’d been thrown in the woods with a runaway mount. That was reason enough for her to rush Hugo over to help him--as much as Hugo was willing to rush while apprehensively studying the man.

Once she had gotten him over to the weakening body, Sofia dismounted quickly and wasted no time in trying to communicate with him. She feared he’d go unconscious, though she hadn’t really located any major wounds. He had a lot of little wounds that didn’t necessarily add up with any kind of fall she’d ever seen, but looked like they might have come from being dragged through the forest by a horse. Either way, adrenaline was pumping through her veins and there was little chance she’d leave him there regardless. The story about him being a rider from the farm just made her feel more secure in doing so.

“What’s your name? I’m Sofia, I’m going to help you, okay? My sister is a doctor, I know enough to get you through until I can get you to the hospital. What happened to you?”

Rena | Katya, Reggie

[Katya]: There’s a man here with Max. I don’t want to kick him out if he’s a friend so you’re going to have to tell me.

[Rena]: alex? from earlier?

[Katya]: No.

[Katya]: [image]

Rena sighed. Reggie. She threw on a pair of cutoff jeans that had once been too small--with all the weight she had lost, the only clothes that fit her were the skimpier ones that were usually hidden at the bottom of her closet. They did the opposite of hiding the terrible condition she was in, but the clothes that hid her body extensively were two seconds from slipping off her small frame at all times. Her phone buzzed again as she put on a crop top she had bought but never worn. She knew a trip to purchase clothing was in the cards for the next day.

[Katya]: Rena?

[Rena]:i have something to discuss with him, i’m on my way

…

The hospital doors slid open, Rena’s focus was dizzy. She pulled over twice on the twenty-minute drive over to vomit--apparently the apathy didn’t apply to her anxiety. She hadn’t really expected it to, she typically felt numb when she panicked. Dizzy, nauseous, and numb. This was no exception. She wasn’t entirely sure if she was nervous about the hospital or if she was nervous about having a reaction to it. So far, she hadn’t had a reaction to anything. But that wasn’t right, it didn’t feel right. She felt like she should be reacting to stimuli. The fact that she wasn’t and she was fully and completely numb terrified her, which invoked terror that she felt something other than numbness. She’d beat herself up with words in her head and the cycle would repeat.

She made her way to the fifth floor. Max was still sleeping peacefully with tubes and cords and things protruding from his lifeless body. He looked the way Viktor had looked on that table, but the difference was that one chest was rising and falling softly while the other was completely still. Even in her coldest, most objective state, she’d found herself watching the other brother’s body for signs of life earlier that day. To see signs of life in this brother felt foreign, it felt unacceptable.

“Reggie, hey.” She smiled softly, coming up beside him. “This is Max’s sister, Katya.”

“Hello.”

“She’s great once you get to know her.” Rena wasn’t sure if she’d ever be able to use the word ‘nice’ to describe the eldest Petrova. They exchanged pleasantries and small talk. Reggie mentioned Viktor’s ‘gift’ to her. He pulled out a letter in familiar script, her name on the front. It dawned on her that it was the last thing she’d ever receive from him. She panicked.

“Oh, uh, no thanks.” She took a step back, unable to mask the fear in her eyes. She was slightly frantic, and she knew to some extent that she had to be feeling things again because her first instinct was to show up at Alex’s door. She reminded herself of how that would be seen by everyone else and that immediately curbed any desire to act on it. In a temporary moment of weakness, though, she let him linger in her mind instead of removing him with everything else. “Hang onto it,” that was too much of a burden, “or throw it away,” too insensitive, “or something. I don’t know. I don’t want it. Thank you, though.”

Smiling softly at them, she changed the subject. “How is Max doing? Has he woken up at all?”

“Once,” Katya said, ignoring Rena’s strange behavior. It wasn’t her problem, she didn’t have it in herself to pretend like it was. “But they gave him something to put him back under. He’s better off not being awake until they can sort out everything with the poison. There have been some complications in removing it from his system, it’s still pretty touch and go.”

Rena nodded. “Hopefully he starts to feel better soon. In other news, I got Sofia to take Hugo out on a hack this afternoon. I also got your horse and housing arrangements sorted out since you all have been so busy. Hopefully getting to ride will take her mind off of things for the time being.”

“Thank you,” Katya replied. “Well, there’s not much to do here but sit around and wait. I think you should go home, Rena. Get some rest. You’ve been under very stressful conditions for a long time, it’s important you don’t push yourself.”

“I feel fantastic, but I’ll listen to you since you’re the doctor.” She smiled faintly. “Good night, Reggie.”

Once Rena had left, Katya said to Reggie, “hang onto that letter or give it to someone who can. I can’t imagine she’s going to go her whole life feeling the way she feels right now.”

Back at the barn, Rena felt too socially exhausted to risk being seen checking on Hugo. She considered that maybe Alex had left her another letter down there while she had been absent and the prospect intrigued her, but it certainly wasn’t worth risking being pitied by anyone else. With that on her mind, she retreated to her room. Though she and her roommate never talked and she barely knew the girl’s name, it felt isolatedly quiet--lonely, almost--without her here. She scrolled through her social media for a while, taking a brief break from her own to go stare at the outline of Alex’s. Unsurprisingly, his account was private like hers, and though she was very curious as to what his account looked like, she wasn’t willing to create the awkwardness of requesting to follow him. It felt like a loss of dignity and pride, and she wasn’t interested.

She returned to her own account, scrolling through all of the pictures of her adventures with Viktor. What was she supposed to do with them? Archive them? Pretend he never happened? Leave them up? Pretend he was fine? She deleted the app and turned her phone off. Then she turned it back on. She fought the urge to read through her texts with Viktor, to pretend he was fine. She turned a movie on but she ended up tuning it out and scrolling through her camera roll instead. She hadn’t slept in weeks and she was terrified of what would happen if she was able to tonight. The things she would see and hear, how they would affect her--it wasn’t worth an attempt at rest. So, she did everything she could to keep her soul and her senses connected to her physical body. Is this how it would be now? For a week, for a month? Forever?

Alexander Littlewood | Rena

After the initial shock, processing, denial, or whatever name Alex chose to call it in that specific instance, there were no feelings related to Viktor's death. Of course, there were moments - when he'd almost walk to his room to ask him something, or wonder idly about him in one way or another - where he'd momentarily forget that the man wasn't alive. He should do better, he should force his memory into better working order, but nonetheless they were there. He was familiar with the process, too familiar, and although he'd have preferred if the memory lapses could be skipped, that wasn't an option. Lee might've said that it was a necessary step to acceptance, but he wasn't here, was he? He had no right to Alex's head; no one did, least of all himself.

It went against the very grain of his character, but he longed for grief, sadness, anything that was a normal reaction to death. Nothing out of control or even slightly sporadic, just a small emotion to remind him that he was indeed human. Humanity wasn't his favorite part of living - what was, exactly? Did he have one? - and was usually simply an unwanted reminder of his failures, but somehow this was different. He wanted something, anything, to tell him in clear black and white print that he was real. Pain was the only prompt he trusted - anything else was too fickle, inconstant, to believe in. A jarring twist in his heart would prove that there was still a scrap of humanity left in him. It was what he'd pushed undercover those few years ago that felt like a lifetime, and already he was misguided enough to want to pull it back into the open. Did he never learn? It wasn't worth the pain; it never brought comfort, only suffering. There was a reason he stayed silent about things like that.

But the pain, that was what he held onto. It was a tether in this raging storm some people chose to call life, while he just called it existing - life reeked of energy, desire, prosperity that he didn't have. Existence was more accurate. It was the reason his wrists were littered with scars, the reason he took pains - there that word was again, following him around like a hungry dog - to keep his sleeves low. He wasn't self conscious, of course he wasn't, it would just mar his social appearance he'd worked so hard to uphold. That was all. Winter always made that easier - no questions were asked if one showed up in a long sleeve - but it was now, in the beginning of summer, that it grew more difficult. There were only so many excuses you could use for why, on the hottest day of the year, you were wearing a jacket, and eventually he'd be forced to yield. In the earlier days, Kholo had noticed the spiderwebs wrapped around his arms - cuts, paper-white to a fresh inflamed red, depending on their age. None were deep enough to cause any worry from her side, to his relief, but the haphazard story he'd created of slipping into a bramble thicket was implausible even to his own ears. After that, he'd taken to long-sleeves. A mistake was just that the first time, but to repeat it was unthinkable.

He should have been worried about himself, he knew that, but what was there to worry about? He was handling everything just fine, everything was fine, it's fine - please leave me alone now. The obsessive patterns he carved into his skin weren't a problem, they were simply the voice of reason. He'd told himself the narrative so many times it was difficult to remember what the truth had been, before he'd bent over backward to mold it to his story. It was logical, it followed a structured sequence that made perfect sense in his mind. He deserved it. And not in a melodramatic style - melodrama was the one true evil in the world, of that he was convinced - but in a methodical system that made too much sense. He deserved it, just as surely as one light comment that the sun existed. Though some days, it was easy to doubt that too. It was so logical that it was impossible to argue with, at least in his own head. It made sense, the terrifying part. It was punishment, a type of penance for his sins. He'd long since forgotten what those were.

He was back in the dorms, first the common room and then his own room once that area had started filling up. People were to be avoided at all costs, even if everything in him didn’t want to step any closer to the room. It was illogical, irrational, everything he wished he could purge from his body, and yet it was overwhelming. Why couldn’t he control it? One step in its direction, and then another, until he was inside. His pulse was racing, and Alex wasn’t sure whether it was because of his achingly slow progress down the passage or for some other, more complex reason. After letting himself in, he almost immediately collapsed - purposefully, for once - on his bed. He curled into a fetal position, closed his eyes for a few seconds, before seeming to remember what was acceptable and that this most definitely wasn’t. This prompted a hurried unfolding of his lanky figure, and he stood up swiftly. Too swiftly, and for a moment his vision was black. He could have sworn. How had he forgotten such an integral part? Don’t stand up quickly. Leaning against the wall, which by now was his usual support, he closed his eyes until the world stopped feeling as if it was about to collapse. This was fine; of course it was. Get a hold of yourself, Alex.

The building was choking him. He needed to get out, get away, find somewhere where he could escape this prison of his own creation for a moment, just a moment. That was all he needed. What had he said to Rena earlier? Nowhere. Some things you can’t escape. He was trapped in his brain cell, and there was nowhere he could go. He could feel his body tensing, past its standard discomfort, until somehow without meaning to, he was crumpled on the floor and all he wanted to do was breath. His lungs adamantly refused to cooperate, as usual as well. Was this who he was now? Unable to control himself for barely a moment, and destined to be lying on the floor of a room which held too many memories to live in, and so overcome by his weak emotions that he couldn't do anything. Wouldn't do anything, because for some reason any movement seemed destined to only make it worse. He'd wished to feel something, anything, earlier - he had been a fool. All he wanted was to return to that peaceful apathy, not purposeful but still the most natural-feeling thing he'd had all week. Existing, not living. Was this what living was? If it was, and he was sure it was, he didn't want any part in it.

He didn't realize how tight his grip of his wrist was until, first unconsciously and then with a broken fervour, his nails were breaking his skin. It was too easy to rip off the barely-healed scabs without a second thought. The blood was less than he wanted, not as painful as he wished he could make it - desensitization, the word flickered briefly in his mind - but the slow trickle down his arms was calming. Maybe it would stain the floor. His mind seemed focused on finding the most arbitrary thoughts and pinpointing on them. He could imagine the red-brown tinge on the wooden floorboards, soaking through the small carpet until there was no more escape for it. It was rising, rising quickly and faster than he'd expected, and before he could do anything it was around his body completely. It was choking him, strangling him, and everything was suddenly blinding. This wasn't real, this wasn't real, he was creating this. Of course he was. A figment of his imagination. This wasn't real. Breaking the grasp on his wrist, he tried to find something that he could hold other than his own skin. Without any warning, or any warning he cared enough about to pick up, the skin-on-skin contact was overwhelming. It was illogical, but that didn't stop the wave of relief that flooded him when he grasped a scratchy material - a blanket, some type of fabric he couldn't place. This was real.

He struggled to separate his self-constructed nightmare from fact. As always, he fell back on a coping mechanism that made little to no difference, but at least distracted him for a moment. The bed - real. The grainy floorboards he was sure were giving him splinters - real. The blood dripping down the walls and covering the window - he faltered for a moment. False. He needed it to be. Blood dripping down his wrist - real. He re-focused his attention everywhere that he could see, forcing his gaze to slow down from its frantic study of the surroundings. Slowly. The blind, closed even though it was still light because the sun had been too bright - real.

It took longer, longer than he'd wanted, to drag himself back to a temporary place, a place where it was possible to stand and talk and mask everything with the ease of a seasoned professional. After bringing himself up into a sitting position - still on the floor, but better than lying flat - he stayed there for a long while. The silence was peaceful, exhausting, so loud he couldn't escape it; it switched at irregular intervals. He needed sound - measured, steady sound that could drown everything out. He felt around for his phone, flinching at the deluge of light when he turned the screen on. Music - a random playlist, he hadn't used in ages, no associations or memories. He'd created one a few years ago, peaceful. Quiet. Relax. It's fine. Press play, lean back, lose yourself. Permanently, if that was an option.

Shuffled, any order would make him predict what song would come next. Sound low, earphones plugged in. Maximum volume, enough to cover anything else. Everything was too loud, and then when he lowered it every unwanted thought flooded back. The better of two evils was the noise. He felt his body drift back to him, still out of his control but slightly less erratic. It was fine, everything was fine. He was fine. If he repeated it enough, maybe he’d start believing it. Almost all of the songs were unrecognizable, and he couldn’t tell whether it was because of the state he was in or because he truly couldn’t remember them. Both were likely explanations. He was thinking in probability - that was good, wasn’t it? A step back to himself.

Alex let himself sit there for a while - the time was both irrelevant and unknown, so he couldn’t label the length in any way other than his heartbeat - until he was sure he could stand up without genuinely collapsing or restarting the entire process. Or rather, until he was as sure as he would get. It was never completely certain that his body wouldn’t decide to go on strike, and his confidence in it had been fractured every time it did so. Grab the desk, pull into a standing position, pretend that nothing had happened. The usual. And when he needed four tries to successfully complete that procedure, that was fine. It took time, that’s all. It was perfectly fine.

A glance in the mirror shattered any minute belief he might have had in that statement. If his appearance was anything to go by, he was most certainly not fine. The face that stared back at him was pale, gaunt, too blank of anything to be real. Bloodshot eyes, hair that looked like it’d been dragged backwards through a bush, an obvious quiver of the right hand. Arms uncovered, and covered in tears that had been re-opened in the procedure, drawing almost painted scarlet lines on his desaturated limbs. Vampire, the word he’d used to tease Rena a few weeks before. It seemed more accurate to describe the face staring back at him now.

Rena. Slowly, irrationally, all he needed was to see someone. He shouldn’t, it was illogical, and he knew where this would lead - betrayal - but still, he needed someone. Anyone, anyone to tell him it was alright. It wasn't, of that much he was certain, but if they could lie well enough he might accept it for a second. A second was all that was necessary. Was it wrong to at least try to seek solace in others’ companionship? Yes. He shouldn’t reduce himself to dependence. He was more than this. Wasn’t he? Somehow, that vision was slipping. He had never been less than at this moment, so why not carry on with the trend until every step, big or small, he’d made in the last two years had disappeared? Why not? There was no one to stop him but himself, and he’d already seen that he wasn’t a strong enough blockade. The past hour or so - he’d stopped counting - was enough to prove that. He was shattered. Why shouldn’t he finish the job and smash himself into pieces?

He was only half-aware of what he was doing, or at least that was what he told himself. He tried to put on a jacket, winced as it hit his arms, and then proceeded to painstakingly slide his arms through the sleeves. The least contact they could make with the fabric, the better. He was too aware of the dark marks on his hands, and the fraction of his wrists that could be seen, but at this point he didn’t care to wash it off. It would make no difference. Every carefully-constructed image he’d created was already fragmented. What was the point? Nothing.

He seemed to be operating on auto-pilot, even more than usual. It wasn’t uncommon for him to fall back onto his instincts when necessary, but the slow walk down the corridor felt as if he was a spectator. Everything did, and yet he was still so filled with the emotion he’d wished upon himself earlier that day and now that he’d do anything to be rid of. Wouldn’t he?That was what he said, at least - he was walking to the very place he knew would never give him that freedom. Did he want it? No. Yes. Conflict was the only sure emotion. He’d decided, with as much firmness as he could muster, that pain wasn’t reliable enough anymore. It had joined its faction as fickle, insubstantial, still necessary to keep his head above the surface. Was conflict even a true feeling? It was the only truth, surely. The remaining touchable one.

His hand was on the door handle for a moment, before he pulled it back as if he’d been burned. This was a terrible idea. Why was he doing this? And beneath this, crying for attention: open the door. No. He couldn’t. At first, he brushed this away as another obstacle he’d created - excuses are for the weak, Alex. But the very real resistance that his hand met once he tried to turn it told him otherwise. Of course it was locked - what was he expecting? It was late in the day - was it after curfew? This was a subliminal thought, ignored almost as soon as it appeared - and it was natural to keep it closed. Safety, privacy, the reasons were endless. He should have predicted this.

It took another few minutes to find the courage, will, energy, call it what you will, to knock on the door. There was still time to escape. What meaning he chose to apply to that, he wasn’t even sure. Was he ever? The probability was very, very low. He couldn’t even properly answer that question, which gave it the necessary solution: He wasn’t. The knock was softly tentative, perfectly depicting his indecision. It wasn’t that his hand was somehow telepathically picking up on his thought processes - it was the physical pain that occured every time his knuckles hit the wood. He should’ve kept those unharmed. They were more visible than most of his skin, too visible to scar. Misguided, unthought-out, illogical. He was all of those ten times over. The fact that he was standing outside Rena’s room only doubly proved that. Why was he here, again? Friendship, solace, comfort - everything that he couldn’t find, and doubted he ever could. There was no chance he could say any of that out loud, though. He would never describe it to its true value - either he’d oversell it and make it something bigger, more important than it actually was, or the opposite. The former was most likely, and that was a route he refused to go down. Wasn’t it? He needed another reason, a more believable, more plausible one that would stand up to any type of logic. He needed her number - that was it. No, not needed. He wanted her number. Which was worse? Need said that he depended on her, and want said that he missed her absence of his own free will. Both implied a level of reliance and codependency that he preferred to avoid - but he was outside her room. That was already relying on her, the bridge had already been crossed and burned in the process. It was necessary for him to gain her number in order to contact her when either one or both of them were unable to speak in person. There. That was acceptable. Wordy, clunky, a sentence that shook on his tongue, but acceptable nevertheless. If anything was, by now.

But when she opened the door, those words were the furthest thing from his mind. As an explanation, even though she hadn't asked for one and still seemed to be processing his appearance, he said, "I don't have your number."