Sorrowed Souls

The silence wasn't like you.
It wasn't like you to get... so damn quiet. You tried to speak, tried to crack a joke as the radio went to static, but you couldn't.
You just cried in silence instead. When Andy looked over, offering what was left of the Pringles can in between you two, your head bowed and your wrist came to your eyes. Quick enough to quickly erase the tears that had leaked onto your face.
You weren't wearing makeup again. The hospital wouldn't allow it, and it felt like your masacara was water in a desert. At least it did when your bestie handed you your bag and you began applying, ceiling mirror pulled down.
"It's been forever," you joked, seeing how red your eyes looked. You sensed your bestie smile a little, surely still concerned. Neither her nor Andy had yet to ask anything, not even what the hospital psych ward was like.
You weren't sure you were ready to explain it, anyway.
You had kept everyone at bay, when it came to visiting. To your idol/boyfriend, to your Warped Tour buddie/best friend, to your strict but loving parents. During those seventy-two hours, no pairs of feet except yours had walked through those halls, no feet had ventured out into the visiting room.
No one had come to visit you and you had kept it that way. Limiting yourself to dial tones and five minute phone calls. Brevity was key to survival, when you were at war with your own mind.
And so brevity is what fueled you, tucked against a car seat and a seat belt's strap.
The mascara wand finished its last stroke, tucked away in your demonic Hello Kitty zombie bag.
You glanced at yourself, fluttering your eyelashes as Andy took your hand in his.
His humbling comment on your "beauty", with or without makeup, ziplined through your mind. You didn't expect it, and at the same time, you did.
Andy... It was like him to do something like this. Compliment someone so small
So worthless.
So scathingly rotten.
A waste of space.
A broken heart monsooning blood.
It wasn't fair, subjecting them to something so disgustingly frail.
Even with the therapy you recieved in that hospital, even with that quiet, mostly one-sided conversation, even with the small smile that came with the mention of Andy, with the mention of Warped Tour... You couldn't run away.
You held your tongue, zipped your lips while staying at that in-patient program. And now, just like gears turning the hands of a clock, that time struck again. You were back, no more broken than you were before. Because you'd dragged Andy and your blue-haired bestie through this mud, deepening and seeping them into that wet dirt.
Soiling them.
Rotting their core, just like yours was. Poison apple already bit, already coursing through and just waiting to reach the heart.
You needed to distance yourself.
Quickly.

Notes