Nate Part 3

There's a truck parked on my heart, its weight suffocating my breath.
How could I break the only beautiful thing that ever existed in my life?
"How did you get in?" I ask as she wraps herself around my neck and hugs me.
I wrap my arms around her waist, resting my head on the curve of her slender shoulder, exhaling. The smell coming from her face is of “weed,” even though it’s sweet. She’s completely high from a weed brownie, like the ones I saw Pierre selling today. I’m going to kill that worm! I made it clear to that creep never to give my girl that crap, damn it!
"Through the stage exit, the one you dragged me through when you made a fool of me in this hellhole. Remember? You keep stepping on me, and stepping on me, and stepping on me," she says, jumbling her words. She’s also completely drunk. I tighten my hold on her. Guilt washes over me. Damn it! It hurts so much to see her like this. "I only loved you. And I’m going to buy, okay? I’ll buy your college so you’ll be happy and never hate me again."
I ignore her delirium. I can’t even take out my anger on the bouncers. She came in through the stage, using the same door I dragged her through on Singles Night.
"Don't talk nonsense!" I shake my head at her ramblings. I think I’d kill myself if she were the CEO of this place. "Did you come from home?"
"Yeah, I almost blew my engine... It was insane... insane... insane... I drove so fast," she says, completely animated and crazy, stabbing more arrows into my chest. Her voice is drawn out, and she repeats the words as if she's taking a long time to finish her thoughts. I hold her tighter, sinking into the insane fear that something could take her from me forever, her driving like this, out of control. "I feel so alive. And look, I almost died with this."
My whole world collapses when she shows her wrists. Bloodied bandages wrap around both, under the sleeve of her sheer shirt. My eyes spill over, and I don’t even try to hold back the damn tears as I lift the fabric to see them.
"Damn it, Isabela... I can’t believe it! What the hell!" I pull her tighter into my arms, unable to contain the pressure in my chest, the sting in my eyes, sobbing, as I lift us. I set her down on the floor, just to pick her up in my arms, sideways, like a baby. "Call Bianca and ask her to meet me in my room, then go to the pharmacy and buy everything for me to take care of her. If this is too deep, I’m taking Isabela to the hospital to get stitches."
Ian is staring at me, hand over his mouth, stumbling away with wide eyes glued to Isa’s wrists.
"I’ve had stitches before, but I must have opened one and didn’t even notice," she says, resting her head on my shoulder. "I love your smell. I love you so much, you know?"
"I love you too!" I sniff, trying to walk as fast as I can to my room. I lock up the crying now, as is my specialty, as I’ve been well trained to do.
"Swallow your tears, you little faggot! You don’t even look like a man!"
I hear the shouts and try not to revert to being a boy. I fight to push the memories away, reminding myself I’m an adult now, that I’m no longer in danger. Yet, I still obey them, shoving the crying deep inside me.
"Pretty... But such a little liar! You don’t love me," she accuses. Her speech is getting even more drawn out. "You only give me pain!"
Ignoring the real blow that her words are, I set my foot on the ground, bending my knee briefly to sit her on my thigh so I can open the dorm gate. It's a real battle to get up the stairs with her in my arms, but carrying her down isn’t an option because she could end up falling and worsening those cuts.
Did she really get stitches? If they’re deep, I’ll have to take her to the hospital. And what if they admit her? Is she suicidal, or does she just like to mutilate herself? Should I call her grandmother? And what if she gets an infection?
Damn it!
I enter my room, after yet another battle to get the door open, then take her straight to the bathroom, sitting her on the toilet. I finally allow myself to breathe, though all I want is to never need to draw air into my lungs again.
Damn it, Isabela!
"When did you do this?" I ask, rummaging through my drawers looking for a nail scissors.
I know I have one of those somewhere, and I’ll need it to remove the bandages around the gauze. I feel the whole world crashing down on my shoulders all at once. I wish I could throw my entire room down, climb to the highest damn building I could find, and tag it... Splash paint everywhere, leave everything around me destroyed, to feel that it’s not just within me that chaos resides.
I destroyed her.
I managed to extinguish the sun.
Little by little, I’m starting to freeze.
How could I not see that when the lights in Isabela died and only darkness took over her, the cold would consume me? Because she’s in my life. And even though we’ve been apart for so many years, there hasn’t been a second when she hasn’t lived in my skin, dilating my pores and embedding herself in them. And I depend on her to continue being that damn sun to warm me up, because if the sun died, nothing here on Earth would survive. Our entire solar system would collapse. That’s exactly how it is here, inside this bathroom. She is my sun, and I depend on her to stay alive.
"I... was sad. You betrayed me." A tear slips out, even though it contrasts with the crazy smile dancing on her little face. "You told me I can’t belong to anyone. But you’re not mine."
"I didn’t betray you. Who told you that lie?"
"I saw you with Fabi."
It’s sweet to see her accept that we have something, even with how I’ve been an idiot. She... believes I betrayed her. So, in her little red-haired head, she’s sure we’re a couple.
"High like this, I imagine you saw unicorns screwing centaurs around," I tease, bending down in front of her, calmly rolling up the sleeve of her shirt. I make a small cut in the bandages. "I didn’t sleep with anyone, and I’m not going to, nor do I want to. I’m yours, okay?"
I gaze into her eyes, then drop down to her lips, and her smile seems so innocent. Damn, I’m scared of what I’m going to find as I manage to remove the bandage. And I really see sutures on her arms. But even with the wound closed, the depth of the cuts is noticeable. My hands are shaking, and I feel a tear breaking the barrier and escaping.