333. Chapter 333

It’s not something she talks about – Danvers is right.

She doesn’t like talking about herself.

And with good reason. Who’d stay, if she really let herself talk?

Who’d stay, if she said that the first time she tried to kill herself, she was fourteen and the second time, she was seventeen and nearly wrapped her beloved pickup around a tree?

Nearly, because at the last moment, she couldn’t bear the pain she’d cause the tree with the damn truck.

The concussion and the stitches from the crash off to the side were almost enough pain to make the attempt worth it.

Almost.

But it was still pain.

Which was exactly the problem.

So it’s not something she talks about.

But it’s something she thinks about – usually passively, sometimes actively, sometimes a painful combination of both – nearly every day.

Because who the hell would miss her, anyway?

For a long time, she didn’t know how to answer that question.

For a long time, the idea that her father might miss her spurred her to do it, to end it, to spite him, to relieve him, because look what he did to the daughter he called disgusting. He might miss her, but he’d also be happier if she were out of his life.

Is having a daughter who killed herself more or less humiliating than having a daughter who loves other women?

No one would miss her.

But now?

Alex would.

And she loves her for it.

And she hates her for it.

Loves her, because god, god, god, no one’s seen Maggie’s scars and not flinched before. Alex just looks and listens and holds her, and tells her things about helping her heal, about not judging her, about wanting to be there for her.

Hates her, because god, god, god, if she didn’t feel guilty enough, selfish enough, before, well, having someone care about her? Having someone care about her, maybe even love her – Alex says she loves her, and god, Maggie wants it to be true, doesn’t want it to be true, because god, so much pressure – having someone love her gives her all this responsibility.

All this responsibility not to break Alex’s heart.

And she’ll fail.

She knows she will.

She always fails.

Better sooner than later, she figures, on one of those nights.

One of those nights when her one side convinces her other that she’s not enough, that she’ll never be enough. That it’ll never get easier, that there’s no point in hoping in a hopeless world, because turn on the news, because look out the window, because check the twitter feed.

Everywhere there’s hope, there’s even more pain.

Because hope is just that – pain. Delayed. Pain brewing, pain waiting to bloom, to consume, to destroy.

She sits on the edge of her bed and she fiddles with the bottle of sleeping pills she holds loosely in her hands. She turns it over, and over, and over.

She reads and rereads the note she wrote – and wrote, and destroyed, and wrote, and destroyed, and wrote, and destroyed – the note she’s been writing since she was fourteen years old, now finally addressed to someone who might cry over it. Not that she wants that. Not that she wants her to be in pain.

But better pain now than later, right? She’ll move on better, the sooner it is.

Alex. Alex, Alex, Alex.

Her hands don’t shake with the fistful of pills, but her entire body jumps, because there’s a knock on her door. An insistent knock.

A knock with a voice.

“Maggie. Maggie, open the door.”

Alex.

Alex, Alex, Alex.

“Gimme a second, Danvers,” she calls, and she’s surprised and a little bit impressed by how normal she thinks her own voice sounds.

She’s not sure if she’s relieved or disappointed or infuriated.

She’s probably all of the above.

She thinks she spills all the pills back into the bottle, and she thinks she puts the bottle safely under her pillow.

She does neither successfully, and Alex? Alex notices right away.

“Maggie,” is all she says, because she must read something in her face, she must see something in her stance, she must have gleaned something from her overly affectionate, then overly withdrawn, then overly affectionate, then nonexistent, texts.

She strides past her and she crosses the studio in one step and she sweeps the random pills Maggie missed off the floor and her hands shake when she retrieves the hastily stashed bottle from under the pillow, and her hands shake even more as she takes Maggie’s folded note into her fingers.

She doesn’t open it, but she stares at her name on the front of it – ornately written, beautifully written, simply written – like she’s burning the script into her memory, and she doesn’t look up at Maggie for a long, long time.

She sits on Maggie’s bed – where Maggie had been sitting, just moments before – and she stares at the note without reading it, and she stares and she stares and when she speaks, her voice is calmer than Maggie expected it to be, and her voice is deader than Maggie expected it to be.

“I’m not gonna ask you to tell me why and I’m not gonna ask you to talk more than you want to. Which, I get, is probably not at all. And I’m not gonna ask to read this note, because dammit, Maggie, I never want to have to. I’m not going to call you selfish because you’ve had enough of that bullshit in your life, and I’m not going to tell you it’ll get better, because I can’t promise that it will. But I am gonna be here for you, I can promise that. Whether you like it or not, I can promise that I’m gonna be here and I’m gonna love you and I’m gonna make you as happy as anybody can, as often as anybody can, and I’m gonna promise you that you’re worth it, because god, Maggie, you’re everything good in this world and you don’t even know it. But before I promise you all that, before I show you all that, I need you to step outside the apartment. Just for a minute.”

Maggie’s too bewildered to argue. Too bewildered to protest, too bewildered to do anything but turn and step out into her own hallway.

She tries not to listen. Tries not to listen, but she does.

Because Alex is letting out muffled screams, probably against a pillow, and then the chain on her heavy bag is clanging and punch after punch after punch is being thrown, and Alex is sobbing and Alex is raging and Alex is beating herself senseless because she’s not enough, she’s never enough, and god, god, god, she doesn’t know what she’d do if Maggie wasn’t… here… one day, if… she can’t…

Maggie waits in the hall like Alex told her to, because she’s too numb to do anything else, and the silence that soon fills her studio is scarier than Alex’s fists, than Alex’s muffled screaming. But still, she waits. Waits. Waits. Not sure if she’s feeling nothing or everything.

Alex opens the door again, and Maggie catches a glimpse of bloodied knuckles before Alex holds her hands out, palms forward, telling Maggie that she’s gotten out what she needed to get out, that she wants Maggie in her arms. If she wants to be there.

Maggie shakes her head and pushes past Alex into the apartment, dragging her by the wrist into her bathroom.

Neither of them speak as Maggie sits Alex on the edge of the tub and rummages for alcohol and neosporin and gauze.

Neither of them speak as she kneels in front of her and cleans Alex’s knuckles and bandages Alex up.

Neither of them speak until Maggie, inexplicably, chuckles.

“I’m the one trying to kill myself and you’re the one getting injuries cleaned up.”

Alex inhales sharply, and Maggie shakes her head, leaning forward to rest her forehead on Alex’s chest.

“I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t joke, I just – ”

But Alex’s arms are around her and Alex is kissing her hair.

“I know, I know. I know.”

“It’s not that I want to leave you – ”

“I know.”

“Or for you to be hurt.”

“I know.”

“I never want you hurt.”

“I know.”

“I just – ”

“Maggie. This isn’t about how I feel. This is about you. And we’re still somehow talking about me.”

It’s Maggie’s turn, this time.

“I know.”

They both smile a little at the role reversal. Smile through bloodshot eyes and stinging tears and shattered spirits.

“You don’t think I’m a bad person?” Maggie chokes out, not for the first time, and what’s left of Alex’s heart breaks.

“No. I think you’re a brave person. I think you love so deep it feels like it can kill you, so I think you need to learn to let me love you, to let me be here for you. To love you… yourself. But no, Maggie. Of course I don’t think you’re a bad person.”

A heated combination of disbelief, disgust, relief, and pure, pure agonized love do battle on Maggie’s face, and she shudders in Alex’s arms.

“You’ll stay with me tonight?” she’s terrified to ask, but Alex doesn’t think she’s a bad person, Alex thinks she’s worthy of her love, Alex thinks she’s worthy of loving herself, Alex is… here.

“I’ll stay with you always, Maggie.”