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I’ve always admired her.
Blaze’s pyrokinetic tricks never cease to amaze me. She moves with such grace and elegance, it feels unreal. Her smiles are so gentle and charming. She’s so calm, so kind and so beautiful…
Compared to me, I’m just a line without a hook.
Her confidence defines her every action. Whenever she holds my hands, it’s with such tenderness, no matter if my bruised hands are covered by my gloves or not. Her purple fur’s fuzzy tips glimmer like golden flames whenever she’s excited to see me. I don’t know how she can care for me so much, when I’m really just the shadows behind all the other heroes, including her. I’m not that important.
She shouldn’t care for a mess like me. No-one has ever cared enough to look past my bubbly persona before and perhaps it’s a good thing. If they knew my troubled childhood, if they knew of the scabs I give myself on my hands, if they knew my intrusive thoughts, they’ll all leave. Especially for the intrusive thoughts part.
Even now, she’s so gentle with me despite what I did to myself. She slowly wraps gauze over disinfected wounds of mine. Her eyes of gold lifted up to look at my wet face. She momentarily lets go of my arm to wipe some of my salty tears off my reddened eyes. A tearless sob escapes my pathetic lips.
“I’m sorry…”
“No need to apologize, my dear.” She wipes another tear from my face.
I sniffle.
“Silver, dear, why did you do this to yourself?”
I can’t bring myself to speak. Even if I wanted to, nothing would come out no matter how hard I tried. All I can hear in my mind is the voice of my mentors repeatedly telling me why I hurt myself again while looking at me with those piercingly condescending eyes.
Why did you do this to yourself, hm? He said, we’re giving you the help you need, what more do we need to do?! They said, If you’re doing this for attention, this isn’t the way to go! You know these scars will stay under your fur all your life, right? She said, I can be caring, but I can also get angry, She said.
So I just stay silent just like I did those years ago because it’s safer not to say anything.
Her gaze softens. “..It’s alright, no need to speak if you can’t.”
Her voice is muffled to me and I don’t know why. It feels like I’m about to cry again, yet I feel so numb at the same time. I can only barely feel her resuming bandaging my arms. I can’t speak. I’m not sure If I’m breathing or not. My hands look physically fine yet they feel distorted, foreign. In fact, everything about me feels foreign, but that’s normal. Probably.
I stare into the wall behind Blaze. I can’t bring myself to look at her face because even though she looks physically intact in my vision, everything feels distorted. My head feels empty. I can hear her voice, just not the words. Well, I can hear the words, but I can’t focus on making sense of them.
Then, I feel her arms wrap around me and suddenly, I can’t stop myself from crying.
Her hands gently rub my back. She holds me carefully. I’m not sure what she’s saying, but that doesn’t matter because her voice is enough. I close my eyes through wrecked sobs and stuff my face into her shoulder. The memories slowly fade on their own, still I can’t bring myself to speak.
“You don’t have to hide your hurt from me. We can work through this, one baby step at a time.” I can finally hear her say. “I’m here.”
I finally returned the hug, albeit a bit slowly.
“If it makes it easier for you to open up to me, I will open up too. We will heal as two.” She whispers.
Through a shaking form, I nod gently on her shoulder. She knows how to make me open up. When I feel like I can be useful to someone or help someone, it makes me feel better.
I’ve always admired her. Perhaps it is my turn to be admired too.