BLOOD LEGACIES

I stir awake but I am too wimpy to move because strong arms were wrapped around me in a tight hold like steel. My body feels warm too with no amount of cold like I felt earlier. And it all makes my recent breakdown all a dream, but the sore feeling at my side told me that it wasn’t. It was a vivid memory of what transpired when the panic got too much and I searched for comfort as I clawed at my own skin. I thought that was something I had overcome but it came back at such a cruel time. It only makes me feel more shitty about myself. I hated it when it got too far, too deep, and before I knew it I was marking my skin.

"I’m here," his voice said to my ear, soft and deep. But it sounds far away in my sense and I was too weak to register anything. I squeezed my eyes shut before forcing them open again, steam clouded around my vision, from the hot water we were both soaked in.

"Dace" I mumbled and my senses hastened and I was fully aware of everything. The last thing I remember was being against the floor unable to reach the water as the cold took over and it was like I was suddenly back in that ocean, it was a nightmare and I had never been so scared, it felt so real. So real... it felt like I drowned all over again, it was haunting.

I lost every touch of the real world as my imagination slowly killed me.

"I’m sorry... I wasn’t here" he said, his voice holding regret.

I forced my body to move so I faced him, I felt a sharp pain in my heart when I looked at him. He looked like he hadn’t slept for days, the bags under his eyes, his dark curly hair a mess falling and covering his forehead, wet and tangled. His lips dried and pale. I reach for his cheek and cup it, feeling the stubble beards under my skin. He looked to the side having no intention of leaning into my touch and it hurt me.

His eyes were a far distance and it seemed like we switched. His record of reality was far gone and whatever was playing in his head was pulling him further away from me. I don’t want to lose him. I don’t think my poor heart will be able to handle it again, this time it will make me go insane.

"It’s not fair," I whisper. "You can’t keep running away from me. We both know the only reason you came back is because you felt my pain"

He closed his eyes and sighed, shaky and uneven. "Why were you out in the rain?" He asked as he brought his hazels back to me and my lips parted when I saw them. This wasn’t some kind of fantasy, was it? Because right now I could see Dace, the Dace I have always known, both past and present like they have become one, his dark side and his warm side but at the edge of it there was a detachment.