A/n another venting fic, as well as my first agatha fic
I want to hide. I want to cry and hide and sink into the ground never to be seen again. I want the world to go away. I want it to stop. I want my brain to shut down again. I like it better when i’m numb. It’s easier to fake it. Easier to smile and pretend to be okay. I want to stop feeling. I hate this feeling. I hate how I feel all the time. Numb or sad, numb or sad, nothing else. I can’t even remember the last time I was just happy, with nothing else going on. That’s not to say I can’t feel happiness, it’s just always accompanied by the feeling of bittersweetness and sadness. God i wish I could just be happy.
My depression comes in waves. Sometimes I’m okay, sometimes I can forget that things were ever as bad as they were, even just for a moment. But then it comes back, it always fucking comes back. And suddenly I’m struggling to eat again, I’m not even trying to not eat, I just completely lose my appetite. And I get sad, so sad that anything remotely going wrong makes me want to curl up into a ball and sob. I forget things. Not like, where I left something or little things like that. I forget what’s normal, what I’m allowed to say, I forget how to behave. That’s what’s the most obvious, though people don’t put the 2 things together. Maybe that’s why people can’t deal with me anymore. I stop talking and when I do talk I mess it up.
I should talk to someone about it but I can’t bring myself to. I don’t want to talk, don’t want to take up space. So I hide. I shut myself in my room and hide under the blankets. I try to sleep but I can’t. I tell myself that I don’t want anyone to notice, that I don’t want to be seen and I want to be left alone. But god, do I wish someone would notice. Would tell me it’s okay. Would just lie with me quietly without a word. I wish I wish I wish. Maybe it’s too much, maybe the universe knows I don’t deserve it.
Truthfully I was stupid to think no one would notice. She would notice me not going to school. Why wouldn’t she? I’m in her classes and we meet up before school. I hope she didn’t wait too long before going in.
I know school’s over because there’s a knock on my door. It’s gentle, like she doesn’t want to alert me. I think she knows because she gets like this. Maybe not the same but she gets sad. When I don’t respond she comes in slowly. She calls my name gently before walking over to my bed. She puts her hand on my shoulder over the blankets, a reassuring grip. It makes me want to burst into tears. “I’m going to get changed and then we can just lie down together okay?” I don’t respond but I feel as she withdraws her hand, making me ache somewhere inside, and I hear her change.
She lifts the blankets and crawls inside, our faces practically nose-to-nose. I open my eyes to look at her. She was pretty, she never thought so but she was. She smiles at me gently, that smile she so rarely shows anyone, even me. I almost feel something other than sadness. Almost. “Do you wanna talk or do you just want to lie quietly together?” She asks, and my heart aches at her kindness.
“Tell me about your day?” I manage to croak out, despite myself. She does, complaining about Tedros and Sophie and all the other snotty princesses who can’t control themselves around the princess. Tedros is a friend of mine, our families having been close, but I find him a pain as well, at least when he’s around other people.
I watch her every movement, I struggle to keep listening but I find her voice soothing. I think she notices I’ve stopped listening because she stops talking and tucks some of my hair behind my ear. “What are you looking at?” She asks, whispering like I’m about to share some deep secret.
“Your face. It’s so pretty, I know you don’t think so but it is. You’re beautiful. I wish you knew that.” I whisper back. It’s true. I wish she could see herself how I did.
Her hands move to cup my face, “As much as I appreciate it, please darling, stop trying to take care of me for 1 minute. Just relax please, I’m okay, and it’s okay for you not to be.”
This time I actually do burst into tears. Ugly, snotty, tears. I feel ashamed, embarrassed. But she pulls me in tight, letting me cry into her chest, stroking my hair softly and holding me tight, as if to say that she’s not letting me go and she’s not going anywhere.
I don’t know how long we stay there, it felt for a while like I would never stop crying, then I couldn’t keep going, so exhausted, and I fell asleep on top of her. I woke up to her still holding me, I felt safe. I curled further into her, not wanting to move.
After a while she asked me if I could try to eat, she’d brought a snack with her, knowing I couldn’t handle much. She brought her own food, much more than she brought for me, it was nice that she ate with me, so I wasn’t alone. I nibbled on it slowly, it took me a while (she had almost finished her pile by the time I did) but I did manage to eat it. She gave me a warm smile and cuddled up close to me again. She put a TV show on, one of my favourites and held me tight for the rest of the night.
I was still sad, nothing she did would fix that. But it did make me feel cared for, like maybe there was a reason to get past the sadness, made me think about having a future. That maybe, hopefully, it would one day be worth every moment of wanting to hide, if it meant we would be together.
