“To be fair, no one knew I was having trouble sleeping.”

“Someone who hasn’t slept in days doesn’t need to announce it to people. Especially those closest to them,” he said bitterly.

“It doesn’t matter. They just didn’t.”

I didn’t want him thinking I was like those spoiled kids who would spend years clinging to that fact and never let it go. It wasn’t like that. Sure, it wasn’t the best memory, but it wasn’t like I dwelled on it.

“I would’ve,” he said, softly. “I would’ve noticed it.”

It was the kindest thing he could’ve said.

“And I definitely would’ve believed you,” he continued.

Second kindest, definitely.

It made me smile, regardless. Though I didn’t know if he noticed it or not because during the time it took me to tell him all of this, it had become harder and harder to look him in the eye, so I was mainly looking straight ahead that whole time.

“That’s when it started. The monitoring, along with the therapists and the drugs and the wrong dosages and all the shit that came with it and…here we are.” I casually skipped over the part where I’d started to grow fond of the blade.

He stopped walking. I took another step before doing the same. I didn’t turn to face him though; I couldn’t. I found myself dreading that he was going to ask me to elaborate. Make me dissect it, relive it all. I knew it was something that, if it ever came to it, I’d do gladly. He deserved to know these things if we were expected to have any sort of…whatever it was we were morphing into. I just really—really—didn’t want to feel any more exposed than I already did.

I couldn’t lie. I didn’t want to scare him off either. Truth was, I was scared. I was so scared to look at him. Not because I couldn’t, certainly not because I didn’t want to. I…I was afraid of finding out how he was looking at me. I didn’t think I’d be able to keep walking had I turned to him and found that the way he looked at me had changed.

Fifteen to twelve.

I checked my phone again. I’d been doing that all night, increasingly so. I’d always had this theory that if I didn’t check the time with any sort of regularity, it would sneak up and rush by. But if I checked it every now and then, sometimes it would move a bit slower, and it was possible—sometimes—to fool it, squeezing every second out and living with more awareness. It wasn’t airtight and it certainly didn’t hold up to further scrutiny, but it was enough to trick my (very troubled) mind.