(Trigger warning: contains suicide, abuse, and self harm. Reader discretion is advised.)
Aiden's POV.
There was a time in my life where there was nothing but pain and darkness. My world was constantly falling apart, but I never noticed until I was crushed by it. Maybe it started with my father. Maybe his cruelty turned me into what I am. Or maybe it was my mother. Maybe it was her death that truly broke me.
Everything passed by out of focus. All that remained were the muddled fragments stringing along inside a concoction of memories. They floated there as if they once belonged to someone else, a different life. But pain was not just a memory for me. I was filled with it. It lived on my skin as torn pieces of paper. It hid in my thoughts as a reminder of who I truly was.
Wounds turned to scars and the pain faded away behind them. It was proof that I survived. But I survived for so long that I forgot what it was like to really live.
There isn't a day I'm not disgusted by the sight of my past without feeling every limb burn or my lungs slowly shut down until I suffocate.
However, as I looked at Emma, tears flowing down her pink cheeks in small rivers, I knew I would give her every breath if it took away the hurt. I would show her all of my damned scars if it meant she could take back her words.
Despite everything, she taught me a different version of my darkness. A version that was not something evil or tormenting, but something that absorbed all colours of light. She showed me how naive I was to imagine that I could exist without relying on anyone. She proved to me that I didn't have to bear the weight of my pain alone. She weaved herself into my life, my heart, and refused to leave. She intruded on every thought, every moment of happiness until I couldn't imagine a life without her.
She willingly took my soul and wiped it clean with her gentle hands.
And it dawned on me every time I looked into those sinking blue eyes that Emma was the true reason I was still holding on.
But even though I believed in love, I never thought it was meant for me. I was rotten; a poison to every person who entered my life. I'd been told as much, time and time again, that even the thought of getting close to anyone never crossed my mind.
Then, there was Emma. She was the kindness in the world, always taking care of others before herself even though they didn't deserve it. She chose love. She always chose love. And then, she chose me.
She always found a way to redeem me. To see me. To understand me. There was so much of me she did not know, and yet, she trusted me anyway.
But she deserved someone who could hold her. Someone who could touch her without being so afraid of himself that he didn't even think about pulling away.
On more than one occasion I wondered how I could possibly love her when I was so filled with self-hatred. How could she love me when I was proof that our monsters reside inside us?
If my touch had caused this reaction from her, I couldn't even begin to imagine what she'd do if I told her the things she wished to hear. I wanted to keep those things far away from her – from us. I did not want to show her what I had become. But I didn't have a choice anymore. I was on the verge of losing the only person I had learned to love.
"Emma," I tried to reach her once more, to feel her warmth, but she was cold.
Having her pull away with so much repulsion twisted on her features felt worse than any scar marked on my skin, visible or not. The emptiness in her eyes filled the cavities in my chest and weighed me down with metal chains. That dark tunnel I had lived in my whole life was beginning to surround me again, trapping me in a box with no windows of worth.
"I won't keep loving you like this," her eyes fell against her face, losing their once bright light.
"Stop saying that," I shook my head, something thick tightening in my stomach. "You don't love me. You can't love me, Emma."
"Why?" Her voice ripped through my chest, tearing me in half.
"Because you don't know me! Because you don't know who I was before you. If you knew, you would not love me, Emma. You would leave! And if you leave, I have nothing!"
Every part of me burnt in that familiar, spiteful and mocking way. I pushed it down with every ounce of self-control I had. I would not let it win this time. I would not lose to that thing inside me.
More of Emma's tears fell, urging the panic to rise further within me. I was so desperate to reach her air that I began to drown in her presence.
She was going to leave me. I was going to lose the only thing good in my life, and it was going to be my fault.
In the thick silence smothering my words, I realised that the room we stood in, the room I had lived in for the past two years, held so many memories of her. I bore no attachment to the four walls until she stepped inside them and made them a part of her life.
It was Emma who broke through the thought. Her voice was small, but her words held far too much weight behind them. It was a last hope, a final signed letter of resignation. "After all this time, can you really say that you don't love me?"
My legs numbed. I shoved my hands deep into my pockets, wanting to hide the tremble from her. I wouldn't be able to contain the resentment bottling up inside me if she saw them. I did not want to make the verge of another fucking panic attack the centre of attention. They took far too much from me already. I would not let them... I would not let him have her, too.
"I... I can't answer that." I tried to reason - to veer the conversation away, and yet, I was fighting the inevitable.
"Bullshit!" She yelled, wiping at her face with her sleeve. "You choose not to answer! Well, now you have to. Because you either love me, or you don't. It is as simple as that."
No matter what I said, there was no mistaking the indignation emitted from her. Every single word thrashed harder against me, telling me that I was running out of time.
My palms began to sweat and shake inside my slacks. I tried to breathe through it. I tried to remember the exercises I was taught. Nothing worked. My heartbeat turned into the sound of a ticking clock, building on the pressure already there.
"I am terrified of loving you, Emmeline." I yanked my hands out of my pockets and held them out to her, showing her the violent and uneven trembles. "This is what I am! There is nothing you can do to change that!" My arms cramped and tensed and spasmed as I showed her my shame and reason. "Do you have any idea what I can do with these hands? Did you even stop to think about what I could do to you with these hands? I am so fucking afraid I will hurt you! No matter how much I care for you, no matter how much I need you or want you or love you, nothing will change the fact that there is something rotten inside me!" I could barely take in a breath. "You have no idea how long I have hated myself. And if I ever hurt you, I would never forgive myself."
Emma's mouth was agape. She closed it, swallowed, and wiped at the uncontrollable splatter of tears. "Why do you think you'll hurt me?"
I glanced down at my hands before placing them on the wall to support my weight. My trembling had spread from my hands to my legs. "Because it was my fault...."
I stammered my way over to my bed and sat down on the edge. I loosened my shirt's first and second buttons as if it would ease my breathing, but the painful inhale came anyway.
Emma moved to stand a few feet away from me, keeping her distance.
"What was your fault?" She sniffled. I hated the sound. Not because it was annoying, but because it was caused by me.
I looked at her one last time, etching every dip and curve of her face into my memory because I knew it would be the last time I saw them.
"My mother's death," I said. "It was all my fault."
"Aiden, you can't mean that," she mumbled.
I did not look at her again as I began to explain. I knew the tremors would get even worse and my lungs would constrict until I couldn't breathe. I would not be able to fight the shadows that always threatened to swallow me up.
"I didn't grow up with much wealth. I had a father and mother." The back of my throat began its battle with my words. "My mother... She was kind and sweet. She taught me how to play the piano on a small keyboard we kept at home. It was an ugly old thing, but my mother never cared."
I held a deep breath, fearing it might be one of my last. "My father, on the other hand, was not so generous." My mouth dried instantly at the mention of him. "He would come home late. Drunk. Unhappy with the way his life turned out, I guess. So for years, he took his anger out on my mom. I tried to stop him, but I was never big enough. I was never strong enough. I was never enough. I just stood there, watching as he hit her over and over again until she bled because I was useless."
My stomach churned, my insides heaving at the thought of what I had to say next. I stared at the floor. "One day, when I was around eight, my mother and I were home alone. I had been somewhere else in the house, playing with the fes toys I had. But when I went to go and find her ...." I trailed off, the vomit sitting in my throat burning.
The bed sank beside me, but I refused to look at anything besides the floor.
"...When I went to the bathroom and pulled that door open, I found her lying there in the bathtub. Her clothes were still on, soaked by the red water dripping over the side. Her eyes were closed like she was sleeping peacefully." The sickness in my stomach grew. "I called out to her until my throat was exhausted. I shook her until my arms were in pain. Nothing I did brought her back."
I recalled the way my screams echoed through the walls, begging and pleading to take her place so she would be given back to me again.
I recalled the way red water splashed at my efforts and the sweet smell of my mother disappeared as she bled onto the white tiles. And I recalled how the knife sat in her hand, coated in a thin line of who she used to be.
"I held her hand, desperately trying to stop the bleeding as if it would somehow help. Then my father came home. One look at my mother and whatever good piece of him remained completely disappeared. He tore me away before I could say goodbye." I hated how tears pooled in my eyes like I was still the same pathetic boy. I hated how his words still pounded in my ears. 'She's dead because of you. You did this to her.'
"My mother killed herself because of me, Emma. I don't remember how it felt to be loved by her anymore. But my father made sure to remind me how much I was to blame every day after." I spread open my shaky palm and looked at the old, faded scar tissue. "He placed my hands above the stove and burned my skin until I stopped screaming. He said it was to teach me a lesson. That it was what I deserved." I choked out a miserable breath.
"My panic attacks started soon after, followed by nightmares of my mother dead in that bathtub where I was covered in her blood. My father considered them as tantrums." I wrapped a hand around my throat, trying to soothe the area. I had to keep going no matter how badly I wanted to stop or how much my body protested.
"When I was sixteen, I crawled into that same bathtub with my clothes on. I filled it up with water and-" Hot and heavy tears coursed down my face. I covered them with both hands, trying to regain control, trying to convince myself I was not pathetic; I was not weak. "I didn't want to die... I thought it would make the pain go away. I thought it would make the nightmares stop. I thought that it was what I deserved, but I didn't want to die.
"The next time I woke up, I was in a hospital. They forced me to speak with this therapist. I hated it - hated telling anyone about the pain. But no matter who I spoke to, I couldn't escape him. I always ended up back in that fucking house. It didn't make a difference that I was better. It didn't matter that I had talked to someone. He was still the same. He would never be proud that I got accepted into college with a scholarship or that I found someone in the shit storm that is my life, which I loved. I would always be a disappointment to him. And I would always be responsible."
I could hear the blood rushing through me and feel the rough thumping of my heart as I waited for Emma to break the silence. I expected her to tell me that it was all my fault or leave me behind and never look back.
But she just sat there.
And then she completely caught me off guard.
She wrapped her hands around my neck and hugged me fiercely. She embraced every part of me like it was an extension of herself. And It was intoxicating.
The smell of her floral perfume encased me in further, welcoming me into a new home. I nuzzled my face into her neck and pulled her tightly into my chest, needing to feel her closer, needing to feel her heart beat wildly against mine.
We held each other for a long time. And I knew it was all I would ever need. If I had her with me, I would be okay. I would keep going.
I was fuelled by her, addicted to her.
I may have survived this far, but she brought me back to life.
She was the only reason I was still holding on; a fearful angel among the ordinary.
"Something inside me is broken, Emma." I admitted.
"We're all a little broken," she argued.
"I don't want you to stop looking at me like I'm as bright as the sun. I don't want you to see me as the same monster everyone else sees." I closed my eyes, revelling in how her warmth stretched to me.
"I never looked at you like you were the sun," she whispered. "I looked at you and I saw the stars."
Her words consumed me like a drug.
"When we first met," I began. "When I first saw you at that party, I had just come from visiting my mother. It was the anniversary of her death. I brought her flowers."
Emma's muffled sob resounded into my shoulder. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "I'm so sorry."
I didn't want to let go of her, but I pulled her back. Emma's eyes were red and full of tears. I shook my head. "You have nothing to be sorry for. It was my fault."
Emma's fingers wiped at the streaks under my eyes. "Your mother's death was not your fault. Her choice was influenced by pain and grief. She did a bad thing, Aiden, but you are not to blame for it." She held my face in her hands, stroking my cheeks with her thumbs. "You are not your father, Aiden. You are not a monster. You are a boy who has been through things no child should go through. And despite it all, you are here. You survived."
I took in a sharp and painful breath. "Emma, if you don't think I can make you happy, if you still want to leave... I want you to know that you can."
Her eyes searched my face. "Do you love me, Aiden?"
"More than I've ever loved anyone," I said. It was my truth. Emma was my favourite song. She was the rush of happiness that pushes through the heart and bursts inside you like a firework, reaching to the blackest parts of yourself with her light.
She had no idea how beautiful it was to fall in love with her.
"And... your conditions?" Her tone became wary and low.
I looked down at her hand and slowly interlaced our fingers. My skin immediately sparked at the contact. Every part of me had learned to need her, whether during a desperate kiss, an unintentional brush of the hand, or the thought of her drowning out everything else.
My gaze was drawn to hers. "I can't promise I will be perfect," I told her. "But I will try to be. I don't intend on ever letting go of you again."
The smallest smile graced her lips, and even though it lacked in size, I didn't care about anything else except for the fact she was smiling.
I kissed that smile hoping it would never disappear again.
My whole world consisted of her.
Emma was my northern star; my home.