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"dear heart,

please let
these feelings
fade."

Steph: all she told us was that she needs to talk to you.

Nora.

"I can't believe this," Luce murmured for the seventh time since I had joined her for breakfast. I wanted to do anything but have breakfast right now. Not when I felt like throwing up a little.

I switched off my phone and placed it aside, shifting uneasily. I didn't know what I felt so tense about: the last text that I got from Steph, or the direction this conversation with Luce was heading off to.

"Why wasn't anyone supervising the security area? Why wasn't I there?" She asked. The way she was scowling right now, she was obviously blaming herself. "Why didn't you call me, Lia? Or like, any other staff?"

I merely shrugged in response. I was still left a bit unsettled from last night.

"But...it's not your fault." She shook her head but managed to pass me a small, reassuring smile. The worry was still there. I couldn't blame her. "You handled it very well, Lia. Thank you."

Why was she thanking me?

I hadn't handled it very well, I wanted to tell her. I hadn't even known what to do when Alastair started panicking like that. There was something about that music that had got him so frightened. But why?

"Do you think there was a particular reason that caused it?" I asked Luce in a small voice. She didn't know about the song on the Walkman. Nobody knew, except for me. And it wasn't like I was planning on telling anyone about it, not anytime soon.

Luce glanced at me and shook her head.

"What happened to him?" I asked her in just a whisper, a quiet one, though Luce obviously heard it. I grew a little conscious of her stare.

"What do you mean?"

Fidgeting with the silver ring that I usually wore, a silver zigzag band, I decided that it was time I ask her the question that I had been wanting to ask her for days.

"Tell me about him, Luce," I said. "Why...How did he end up here?"

She seemed to realize what I was asking and her shoulders slumped a little. Both of our plates had been left untouched for a while now. I think she didn't feel like eating right now either.

"It's confidential," she whispered, her gaze directed to her plate. "And I know we're supposed to give out the patient's background to the working staff at least, but I'm not allowed to. Besides, I don't think it's my place to tell you, Lia. And I don't think..."

I furrowed my brows just a little as she trailed off.

"I think I may not know much myself." She seemed a little miserable now. "I know it's strange and I can't believe it either sometimes. I...took pride in myself because I helped fixing people. I helped people fix themselves. It made me happy about this job, right here. This made me happy."

I could feel my heart swell with a warm feeling, all towards my sister.

"And you're my biggest inspiration, Luce." I leaned towards her, my eyes on her all the while. It was the truth and not my first time saying it. "The things you do for others make me so proud to call you my sister."

She smiled at me but it came out a little sad. "Alastair's different, Lia. Yesterday was probably my fifteenth therapy session with him. He's still...closed off."

It's like he doesn't want to be helped, I remembered her words.

"He's not opening up. Keeping everything within himself. I was hoping I could help, but...only time can heal, I guess." She murmured with a sigh. "We're all here for him till then."

I stared at her, watching the way her shoulders seemed to deflate from all the previous tension.

"What about his aunt?" I asked her. "Doesn't she know anything that led him to...to take his own life." Even saying it out loud seemed to get me all uneasy. I didn't like saying it out loud. Not when I was starting to look forward to meeting Alastair every passing day. The thought of him just leaving was unsettling.

Luce seemed a little surprised when she looked up at me. "How do you-?"

"He told me," I said.

"He told you," She repeated, sounding a little taken aback. "She...she doesn't know anything either. We're all equally clueless. I think that's majorly what's taking a toll on his mother." His mother. She didn't even try correcting herself.

"When it happened recently, the police were involved. They're still involved but much less than before. They tried claiming it as an attempt at murder, especially since the Hawthornes seem to have many rivalries going around. You know how it goes with business."

"But it was pretty clear," She continued, falling silent for a few seconds, contemplating. "The slashes on his wrist. The amount of self-harm he had inflicted upon himself. The alcohol abuse. The whole drowning incident when he's a pretty good swimmer himself. All of that shows that he wanted to do this. That's what they don't want to accept, the people, the media, even his own mother."

I found myself thinking about Maria and Mrs. Hawthorne and that ginger girl--Gwyn. I was left a little surprised, especially since I hadn't known about most of this stuff. "Oh."

Both of us remained silent for a while. I didn't really know what I felt exactly. Confused mostly, but sad too.

"Do you think he'll be leaving the sanitarium soon?" I asked her, remembering the time back in the yard when I had taken Alastair out of his room. The snowy yard. The hidden frustration and anger in his voice when he'd told me that he wanted to get out of there, those hospital boundaries.

He hated it there.

"I don't know, Lia," Luce spoke up, her voice coming muffled as she rubbed her face. "With his condition, I don't think so. But I know we can't keep him there for long. It's already been two weeks. If his family wants him out, I don't think we can do anything about that."

I looked down at my phone, at the black screen.

"He doesn't like it there." It was just a whisper that escaped my lips. Luce caught it anyway. "He told me that he...he wanted to leave the hospital."

What Luce said in response was far more stranger. "Isn't it a bit strange that he's been opening up to you more than any one of us. The people that he should open up to."

I was quick to take offense even though I'm sure she didn't mean it like that. "What do you mean?"

Her gaze softened and she placed down her spoon.

"If I haven't mentioned this before, which I'm sure I must've, he barely talks, Lia. I ask him a question and he ignores it like I'm not even there."

"He does that to me too," I told her a bit quickly.

"I know. But he also feels like...he should trust you and at the same time, I think he's stuck between yes or no. He wants to, he knows that he should, but something's stopping him."

I looked away uneasily. "Maybe he just has serious trust issues?"

She seemed a little lost in her thoughts. "That could be it. He's just scared. And...for what I've gained so far, I think he's more scared to ask for help than anything else."

I already knew that, I wanted to say. I knew the helpless look in his eyes. I knew that because I saw it last night. It had been engraved right behind my own eyes for hours now. The fear and confusion, every time I thought about it, it made my heart race a little more.

"Do you think he can eventually open up to me?"

She looked up at me with this strange sort of fondness in her eyes. Was it towards me?

"Off-topic but I've always liked this about you," she said.

"Liked what?" I asked, growing a little uneasy under her gaze.

"Helping people. You like helping people."

"Everyone likes doing that. Don't you like helping people?"

She smiled and looked away. "Most of the people I know do it out of mere responsibility, or maybe because they know they'll get something in return," She said. "But you do it because you want to. There's a major difference, Lia."

I glanced down at my plate. She wasn't right, not entirely. I didn't just help out of mere goodness. I did it because it made me feel a little less useless. I did it because I wanted to feel like I was worth something. I helped people just because of me, just so that I'd know that I wasn't truly a messed-up person. It helped me be sane.

All selfish reasons. I wasn't selfless.

Helping Alastair was different, though. I wanted to help him because I could see how much he needed it. No one else saw how much he needed it. I did. I did because I knew how it felt like.

"He'll open up, Lia," Luce told me. "I think he will open up to you."

°°°°°

I silently walked across psych unit 200, down the empty hallway, with my hands stuffed in the huge white pockets of the lab coat I was wearing. I tried not to cringe thinking about it.

For some very unknown reason, Luce had been so adamantly persuasive for me to wear it today. Try it for a day, she had said. I tried it in front of my bedroom mirror. And what a shocker! It still looked like the coat was awfully large, when it really wasn't. The problem was me.

It made me look so pale and thin and just disgusting. I hated it. Luce, on the other hand, told me that I looked amazing. And the large beam on her face forced me to swallow down all the insecurities I felt at that very moment. I sucked it up and wore it for the day.

How freaking amazing.

When I entered Alastair's room after a decent knock this time (unlike last night), I realized that once again Alastair wasn't the only one in the room.

It wasn't Luce this time. It was Wren--the other part-time aide who checked up on him before my shift. She was a few years older than me but just as nice as everybody else amongst the staff. I hadn't really talked to her before so it was a bit awkward.

But since awkward could've also been my middle name, it wasn't that much of a mess.

I was expecting both of them to look up at me, but it was just Wren who did. And a small part of me felt a little disappointed when Alastair didn't.

Wren passed me a warm smile. "Lia! Good that you're here. I was just waiting for you."

I didn't know why she was waiting for me and I didn't really get to ask her either. Because right when she said my name, Alastair looked up at me. And even though it was just a small glance, it still made me feel a little warm and a little happy.

This is pathetic, I told myself.

I trained my gaze back at Wren and tried controlling the grin on my face. I didn't think I have ever grinned at someone that I barely even knew. Wren raised her brows at me but kept smiling nonetheless.

"You seem happy. What's the occasion?" She asked once she had cornered me. She didn't even have to corner me, though. Alastair never really paid attention to anything else other than that head of his.

"No such reason, honestly." I gave her a sheepish look.

She laughed and grabbed her coat. "Okay, I'll get going then. I've checked up on the monitors and they seem fine. I've done the usual too. Oh, but yeah," She jerked her head subtly towards his direction and lowered her voice. "He didn't let me change the bandage. See if you can do anything, yeah?"

I nodded.

"Bye." She passed me another smile before leaving.

I watched her leave before walking over towards Alastair. I didn't even realize until now how badly I wanted to bombard him with questions--about last night specifically--but I didn't want to scare him off either.

"Hey," I smiled a little. "How are you doing?"

It was a bit surprising that it didn't take him long to reply. I stopped near the armchair when he spoke up bluntly, "You look like the rest of them." And he said it with this...hint of disgust. It left me stunned because I'd never seen him talking to anyone that way.

Consciously, I pulled the ends of my coat closer against myself, and the smile on my lips wavered, threatening to fall off any second. "What?"

He looked up and his gaze was narrowed. The look in his eyes was what surprised me. "The bloody white coat." I felt the smile slipping off my lips. If he noticed, the stone-cold look in his eyes didn't even seem to waver.

"Well, I am one of them," I murmured. "I don't understand what's so surprising about that?" And then I walked towards the other side of the room, diverting my gaze, urging myself not to think too much over it. Over the look in his eyes. Over the disgust in his voice.

But how was I not supposed to? Was this about last night? Did he suddenly hate me now? It made sense because a lot of people got like that around me, but it also never really happened until I did something to mess it up. And things last night, hadn't they turned out well in the end?

When he didn't say anything, I added in further, trying a little desperately to change the topic, "Are you all right?"

He said nothing in response and when I turned around to look at him, he didn't even spare me a glance.

I pursed my lips, trying not fidget as I frowned. "What's wrong?"

I heard him inhaling sharply before leaning back on the pillows and looking up at the ceiling. "You," he said. "You need to stop talking."

My eyes widened a little. It seemed like the Alastair I had seen last night was nowhere near the one I was with right now. I pressed my back against the wall and eyed him cautiously. He was fidgeting a little with his bandage. I knew when he did that, he either wanted to take it off or he just felt restless.

"Do you...want me to change your bandage?"

"I want you to shut up and leave!" He said out loud and I didn't realize how much it took me by surprise until a tiny flinch escaped my lips.

My face heated up and I set my jaw, straightening up. "Fine." I snapped, which I probably shouldn't have. "I hope you enjoy the fucking silence."

I was angry and sad when I left his room and slumped down on one of the waiting benches out in the hallway.

Wasn't I just trying to help him? It hadn't seemed like he'd been shouting at Wren. It almost looked like it was me in specific that he had wanted to shout at. Was I being too pushy? Clingy? Could it be that I was making him feel suffocated by my questions and my presence?

I stood up and walked away from his room, feeling my lips tugging downwards at the corners. I wasn't welcomed there. I wouldn't go back in there. Not right now.

Jim met me halfway on my way towards the elevator.

"Lia, hey! What a pleasant surprise!" He stated a little too dramatically before slinging an arm around my shoulders. "What's up? How's life going? Seems like we haven't been talking much lately."

I wiped the frown off my face but still didn't say anything. I didn't feel like talking.

"You know, I've been meaning to ask you something. Do you think your sister would agree if I asked her out on a date?" He asked. I felt a little surprised, but it was less than the anger and hurt I felt at that moment. "Would she say yes? I suppose she wouldn't. She's always so much into her work. I've seen that woman turning down so many men. I'm lowkey scared for the rejection, Lia."

I kept my eyes down on the ground and followed him inside the elevator. He finally seemed to catch up on my downcast look.

"What happened?" He asked, pulling his arm away from my shoulders to press the elevator button. "You look like someone crushed all your biggest hopes and dreams."

I looked up at him and managed a small, weak smile. "Nothing much, what about you?"

"Are you telling me that you didn't hear me rant back there?"

My eyes widened and I shook my head. "Of course not. I was listening. Why wouldn't I?"

"Maybe because you look so distracted?" He suggested and his eyes turned questioning. "What happened?"

I kept quiet for a while but felt too embarrassed to tell him that Alastair had practically kicked me out of his room. "Nothing," I repeated. "I'm just a...little out of it." Ironic how Wren had just told me how cheerful I looked.

Jim hummed and the elevator doors opened. I didn't know where we were going until I stepped out and realized that we were up on the hospital's very huge and open roof. The crisp night air hit me like thin shards of ice and I shivered.

"Wow," I murmured and wrapped my arms around myself, a bit cold now that we were in the open air. "I've never been here before."

"It's a bit scary actually," Jim added before going over towards a small compact room at one corner. It seemed like a storeroom. He returned with a white box filled with identical files.

"I needed this," He told me with a grin while holding up the box. "Let's go."

"I think I'll stay here for a little while," I told him as he headed for the elevator. He turned back around and eyed me with a frown. "It's nice here." I didn't tell him that I had a thing for rooftops at night.

He faced me fully and shrugged. "Yeah, well, I don't think I should leave you here. It's a bit dangerous. The edges are slippery and you could most definitely fall down to your death."

"Wow, you're direct," I stated. He just grinned in response. "I'll be careful. Promise. Just don't tell Luce about it."

He seemed a little unsure but nodded anyway. He was way more chill than Luce could ever be. With that going through my mind, I stopped him before he could've entered the elevator. "Wait."

He turned around once again.

"I think you should ask her out. And if you're taking suggestions, I think you should take her out to that famous Italian restaurant she loves so much."

He beamed at that.

"She totally loves to check out the hot waiter there."

He burst out laughing. "Thanks, Lia. Remind me to never ask you about such stuff."

I was smiling by the time he left. And then I was all alone. I couldn't find it in me to smile again after that as I quietly walked across the empty rooftop, nearing the edge before sitting down and dangling my legs over it.

Jim had warned me not to, but I couldn't not do that. It was peaceful and silent up here. That's mainly what I loved about rooftops. They were a nice place to be when you felt like shit.

I looked down at the white coat I was wearing and let out a heavy sigh. Did I really look so bad in this that Alastair had seemed like he needed to shout at me?

Why not, I thought, everyone felt like pointing it out once in a while. Nothing about that should feel surprising anymore.

I blinked down the edge, before shifting a little and slowly shrugging off my coat.

Another small shiver ran up my spine, now that I was wearing no coat, but the long-sleeved sweater that I was wearing inside was just fine. I pushed aside the coat and leaned back a little, supporting my weight with my palms on either side of me. The moon wasn't really visible up there, hidden somewhere between the clouds, hiding from the eyes of everyone. I liked when the moon did that.

Sometimes, I wished I could hide

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