Souls Unfractured

Lifting my head, stomach empty, I wiped at my blade gashes with the rag placed to the side of the bucket.  But my gaze was still fixed on that bathroom door. Reaching down, I pulled up my leathers, and crawled on weak arms and legs to the closed door.

My heart hammered as I lifted my hand and pressed my palm to the door. “Maddie…” I whispered, her hand over her mouth and tears running down her cheeks replaying in my mind. There was no sound from the other side of the door. I wanted to go in, I wanted to tell her I was so sorry. But I didn’t know how.

Pulling back my hand, I dragged myself to my feet. I stood, looking out over the room. My eyes fell on the blood and cum dripping through the cracks of the hatch and I felt my stomach lurch again. Moving toward it, I picked up the rag beside the bucket and covered it. I couldn’t bear to look at it.

Then my stomach dropped again when I looked at the chair by the window, that Maddie had been sitting in. And I knew, I just knew when she came out of that bathroom, she would leave.

I knew she would leave. Because everyone left. No one ever wanted me for long.

My feet carried me forward to the chair. Maddie’s sweater was laid over the back. Taking it my hands, I lifted it to my nose and inhaled. And it smelled of her. Of strawberries, and… my Maddie.

Then on the chair, tucked in the side, was her sketchpad. I glanced to the bathroom but the door was still shut. Maddie was still inside. Probably still scared. Probably about to leave.

Reaching forward, feeling drained of all energy—something that happened every time he took me again in my mind—I took hold of the sketchpad and opened it at the first page.

My breath locked in my throat when I saw Maddie’s smiling face look up at me. Moving my finger, I ran it over the outline of her cheek. My hand was shaking as it moved over her hair, her long black hair hanging down her back.

“Maddie,” I whispered as my fingers ran over her lips.

I turned the page to see her walking outside, under the sun. Her hands were in the air like she could feel its warmth. Turning the page again, she was sitting with three girls, with her arms around one, head resting on her shoulder. I recognized Mae and Lilah, but not the third. Although she looked like Mae and Maddie. The same black hair. Maddie’s eyes were closed as she hugged her. And the girl was smiling, holding Maddie back.

Then when I turned another page, every muscle in my body tensed. It was… me, my face, my eyes looking up from the page.

Hands shaking, I quickly turned the next page, and what I saw dropped me to my knees. It was my hand, my hand wrapped in Maddie’s.  I traced the outline of our joined fingers with my finger, then drew back my hand. I held it in the air and wondered what it would feel like holding Maddie’s. My eyes fell back to the picture and the lump thickened in my throat.

Finally, I turned the page one last time, and a pained moan slipped from my mouth. It was me, it was her, both standing. And I was holding her. My arms were wrapped around her waist. Her hand and cheek were on my chest. Our eyes were closed, but we looked… happy. Happy to be touched by each other.

Unable to look at that image anymore, I pulled the sketchpad to my chest just as the creaking of the bathroom door told me it had opened.

I snapped my head back, still clutching the sketchpad. Maddie’s eyes went wide when she saw what I was holding.

“Is this what you want?” I hushed out.

Maddie’s face flushed with redness and, bowing her head, she whispered, “It is what I dream. Everything I wish could happen for me, to me… with me, is drawn on those pages.” Maddie shrugged. “I live my life on the pages because I am too afraid to live them in real life.”

My breathing stopped, then I rushed out, “You… you want to touch me? You want me to touch you? Like your sketch?”

Maddie’s gaze then fixed on mine and she laid her hand over her heart. “In here I dream it could be true. And I pray… I pray that maybe one day it could happen for us.”

Pulling back the sketchpad, I stared at the perfect pencil drawing of me holding Maddie and shook my head. “I would hurt you,” I croaked, “the flames, the evil—”

“Are not there,” Maddie interrupted. Keeping her head down, her cheeks still flushed, she shuffled forward and said, “I held you before and I was fine. You have laid your hands upon me and I was fine.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but something inside stopped me. Maddie moved forward again. “And there is nothing you could do to me that has not already been done before.”

My stomach clenched, wanting so much to believe what she said. Maddie moved the final few steps until she stood right beside me and asked shyly, “Do you… ever think about me, too? Do you ever wonder what it would be like to touch me, too?”