BROKEN (Herophine Fanfic)

53

I nod. "After work."

"I miss it."

"Me too." I miss everything about her. About us. Right now, with her in my arms, it's so close I can taste it.

I need her.

Our souls are bound together.

There's a hole only she can fill.

It's cheesy shit, but it's as true now as it's ever been.

"I thought I had to be okay enough. Because I was taking my medication. But medications can fail. You can build a tolerance. When I checked into treatment, they tried all sorts of cocktails. Finally found one that worked."

"Did it help?"

"Yeah. It lifted the cloud. Made it so I could see the sun again. Just in time for the weather to go to shit here." Her laugh is as sad as it's happy. "It's hard to explain. I've had phases since then, but nothing like two years ago. It was like I was wearing tinted glasses. I couldn't see things as they were. I really believed that I was worthless. That nothing would ever get better. That I was a burden."

"You weren't."

"I know."

"I doubt it helps, me saying that. But you weren't. You'll never be a burden to me, Jo."

She wraps her arms around me. "It helps. Now. But not if I'm depressed. It feels worse. Like it has to be a lie."

"When was the last time?"

"A year ago. I keep waiting for it to drop again, but it hasn't. I felt awful for a few weeks, then I started feeling better for no reason at all. And I was okay for a while. A long time." Her voice gets soft. Until it's barely a whisper. "I went off my medication a few months ago. To see if I could be okay. And I have been. I'm steady."

"Yeah?"

"Enough, at least." She pulls back enough to look up at me. "We missed like three rounds of the light."

"I like it here."

"We're supposed to talk by the water." She nods to the sound half a dozen blocks away. "It's a better setting."

"So?"

"I don't get a lot of chances to confess my secrets to the one guy who needs to understand them."

The setting doesn't matter to me. But if that's what she needs, I'm going to give it to her. "Come on." I take her hand. Lead her across the street.

She's quiet for the first block.

The second.

The third.

"When I started treatment, it was a lot of talking. I didn't really absorb it until my meds started working. That was a month of cursing every day in the hospital. Feeling like no one could ever understand me." She squeezes my hand. "But once it started working... It's hard to explain. My head was a mess. But I finally felt equipped to deal with it."

"Yeah?"

She nods. "Part of it was the chemical imbalance. That's there. My brain is always going to be serotonin deprived. But there's another part. My thoughts were twisted. I was in these bad patterns. Maybe that caused the depression. Or maybe the other way around. But... I guess I had to work on both at the same time."

"Now?"

"I'm getting there." She moves into the cross walk. "I'm not sure I'll ever be there."

"That's okay."

"Is it?" She steps onto the sidewalk. Stops. Turns to me. "Damn it. We're still two blocks away."

"And?" I bring my hand to her cheek. Catch a tear on my thumb.