chapter 265 : Blood is relatively easy, compared to some things

Esmee

My head screamed in protest. And then it screamed back at itself. I wanted the blade open up my skin then watch as blood burst out from the veins by force and emptied over the kitchen floor, but I couldn’t allow that to happen at the same time. I spent my life telling teenagers to fight and throwing them to the floor when they said that they couldn’t. I had to fight and I had to win alone. There was no one that was going to throw me to the floor if in the end I decided that emptying my vines would be the best idea, and the person to find me… my bouncing baby two year old daughter. She by herself should have been enough for me but she almost wasn’t. I loved her more than anything in the world, the trouble was, even though I hated myself for it, a part of me loved cutting as well.

I studied the blade between my fingers as I bounced the balls of my feet up and down against the floor. It was a very unimpressive object to have so much power over me. It was tiny and unimportant compared to some things in the world but it towered over me with its presence and left me breathless and on the edge of vomiting. I wanted it so much. One cut would save me. It promised it would change the past the present and move mountains inside my head. It was impossible to describe what wonders it promised me if I just let myself press the tip into my skin.

“mummy!” My head snapped up at the word said in the sweetest innocent voice and I jumped up from my seat as Mia ran into the room with green painted fingers at the ready. She roared playfully at me on the spot before hopping forward to my feet and grabbing hold of my leg.

“Hello missy! Did you miss me?” I asked placing my hands in under her arms and lifting her into the air above my head as she squealed and kicked her feet. Her hands grasping out towards my face so I kissed the palms of them and pretended to nibble her fingers before I placed her back on the floor. She ran back out of the kitchen towards Leo  who scoped her up and held her against his hip walking into the kitchen wither her.

“Was she good?” I asked at the same time as turning away from him discreetly trying to hide the box that was still on the side from view. I knew that the blade was still on the floor where I had dropped it when Mia had called out to me but it was hidden on the black tiles from peoples view. I could retrieve it later.

“She was a little angel as always weren’t you,” Leo smiled turning to Mia and kissing the side of her face. “I am sorry she is a little green, we got the worst of it off. I am sure the rest of it will come off in the bath.”

“That’s fine, I’m just glad that she had fun. How about you Lenny? Are you OK?” I asked as Lenny came and stood beside Leo and ruffled up Mia’s ginger hair. His fingers were also stained green with paints.

“Yeah I’m fine thanks. I have a twilight shift on the RRV tonight that I am not looking forward to but I can’t moan too much, not with you working nights and still having to get up this early.” I rolled my eyes with a forced smile on my face before reaching up and pushing the offending cupboard closed.

“You have time for a cuppa or have you got to rush off?” I prayed that they would have time; being left alone would leave me venerable. Mia would not have been enough to keep me OK. She was already rubbing her eyes on Leos shoulder and would be going down for her nap. To cut myself when I was the only one looking after her was almost unthinkable, and as a mother I wanted to scoff at the idea, however, I was week.

“Yeah I think we have a bit of time. Why don’t you go and put miss sleepy here down for her nap Lenny and I will give Esmee a hand with the Tea?” Leo handed over Mia to Lenny and they moved back out of the corridor and up the stairs, while I span around and grabbed the kettle dragging it over to the sink.

I jumped as Leo placed his hand on my shoulder and almost dropped the kettle. I could feel my hands shaking and my breath short and stuttering inside my lungs. It had taken a while but the adrenalin had finally kicked in flooding my system. It made me feel physically sick to think of what my own daughter might have walked into see. It made me sick that I could cut myself when she was under the same roof as me. It made me angry that all I could really still think about was the blade under the table or how the kettle would feel pressed into the side of one of my thighs.

“Do you need me to have a look at them?” Leo asked wrapping his arm over my shoulders. “It’s OK, I just want to know if they need some stitches or something.”

“I haven’t done anything.” I turned around where I stood so I could look at him. “Look at my arms, clear.” I pushed them towards his face like somehow that would prove my point even though I know it didn’t. I could already see his eyes wondering down to my thighs. “I didn’t Leo, trust me, it’s much worse than that, blood it relatively easy to deal with compared to this.”

“You want to,” Leon said his voice now worried. We had suddenly stepped out of his comfort zone. He could give stitches and administer pain killers but he admitted that this side lost him. He openly admired us for our jobs and claimed he had no desire to ever be in our shoes. It wasn’t fair what I had just asked of him but I nodded anyway gripping onto his shoulders. I wouldn’t win the fight alone.

Chapter 264 : The good and the brave... made him cry.

Mi

Emmet hesitated at the door as he watched my broken body lied on the floor being pelted with the jets of water. His expression was pained as he fought with himself for the best way to react. He wanted to help me but he didn’t know how which left us all at a loss. I needed him to take over, to stop things, to put on the bandages that would heal much more than the physical wounds.

“Can I come In?” He asked his voice as strained as his face, he sounded almost angry as he watched me unravel.  I sobbed harder against the floor and brought my head up and banged them against the tiles. It was a basic instinct to make the images go away. If I damaged the part of my brain that remembered them and felt them with such intensity… then I would feel… well hopefully I would be dead.

“No, no Mi, I’m sorry I can’t let you do that,” Emmet said reacting to the head banging as he kicked off his shoes and came over to where I laid on the floor and turned off the water before sitting down next to me. He remained silent for a few more second before he growled “fuck it” under his breath and easily scoped my body up from a lying position and into his arms. I coiled myself in as close as I could get to him not even able to care how the blood from my nose would ruin his cloths or how the whole bathroom smelt funny after the smell of my vomit mixed with the steam of the shower. Nothing perturbed him when it came to the feelings and the heath of others. Everyone would have understood if he allowed the hopeless situation’s to knock him on his ass. Everyone would look the other way if he left the ECA and didn’t come back but he wouldn’t. He cared more than that.

“My nose is bleeding,” I cried scared at every little thing that was happening to me. “I feel really sick .. and … and… I can’t stop shaking.”

“Your body’s stressed and it reacting to that in any way it knows how. I know it feels horrible but it might be helpful to think about it from a physical point of view. Your flight or fight instinct was triggered and your body reacted by getting you ready to do either by sending in adrenalin which makes your heart beat faster and your breathing to get quicker, this also increases your blood pressure and that is why you have a nose bleed; there are a lot of very tiny blood vessels there that are easy to rupture. Adrenalin also explains the shaking and the feeling sick and anything else that happened you feel worried or embarrassed about.” I guess he was talking about the fact that I had wet myself before throwing my guts up.

I nodded before wiping the blood from my nose. In my hands and watching as it dripped of the end of my fingers and onto the showers floor. I was thankful for his patience and understanding. It would have been so easy for him to laugh at me or to walk away and not come back. He didn’t need to be here. In the ECA I would have been considered safe anyway. I loved him for his effort but his words were not enough to ease the embarrassment… but he was something to hold onto even though everything was falling apart. I snuggled in close to him further letting his heat sooth the rapid beating of my heart.

“The steam won’t be helping your nose to stop bleeding. It stoops the blood from clotting. So could we get you back out into the other room and sort that out. You can come and have a shower after the bleeding has stooped if you want, then at 12 you have an appointment with Doctor Jordan in his office. I think the aim is to try and get you out of the ECA today and possibly off one to one observations, of course that is his choice though but I will be meeting him a few minutes early to discuss my thoughts with him. I think Jacob will be there too and Esmee has written her thoughts down.”

I cringed at the thought of Jacob knowing as much as Emmet did. Jacob was the opposite of what Emmet was, A human being first and a nurse second. Crystal was exactly the right choice for Jacob as was Esmee for Emmet. There coldness and solid heart made anyone feel inferior and that was what they enjoyed. It wasn’t the caring that made them love their job, it was the power that came with it. They chose what happened to people and enforced it with plastic card keys, verbal demands and physical force. Jacob would ask for the opposite of Emmet and Esmee wishes because he could, my safety meant little to him.

“Come on Mi, let’s get you sorted,” Emmet announced giving me no time to tell him that I didn’t want to move from the shower, or support my own weight, or to let go of my monster grip on his t shirt that was now covered in my blood before he got to his feet. I instantly went after him like my body was pulled on a string. I wasn’t sure right then how to survive without him, I would have followed him anywhere. He seemed to be making the demons a bit more bearable then my head trying to cope alone.

“Sit down on the mattress for me Mi and just hold this tissue to your nose for a bit. It should stop on its own, if not I will go and get an ice pack in a bit to help it along its way.”  

 “I am sorry about all of this you know,” I said gently after Emmet sat down on the mattress next to me, spreading his colossally long legs out in front of him. “There are no words to describe how sorry I am to be doing this to you.”

“You haven’t done anything wrong. I would ask you not to use me as a weapon to hurt yourself again because I hate to think of me hurting anyone but other that I don’t think I need an apology from you. I think you have been very distressed and said some distressing things but that isn’t bad. I think it’s a result from being human and having some things happen to you that are just awful. We are creatures of emotion we can feel intensely. I believe that sometime such intensity is a bad thing, but that dose not mean you have done something bad. Do you what I mean?”

I nodded slowly. I know what he meant but I didn’t really feel that way. I remembered what I said to him. I knew how it would have made him feel. “I was testing you,” I said gently, “in a way. I wanted to know if you would, hurt me, if you would still be able to touch me or even look at me if you knew about some of those things inside my head. I know you would never rape me or play games like that, but… it would make sense to me if you did. I could understand that. I could probably even forgive you. Does that make me terrible?”

Emmet shook his head and gripped his hand tightly into the mattress while wiping his face roughly with the other. He then turned to look at me with a smile on his face even though his eye where sparkling and there was a ring of moisture around them.  

“You’re not terrible honey, Emmet said in a gulp before he stopped and looked away again. “You’re good and brave… I’ve got to go for a bit OK.” His voice broke on the last words before he slapped both his hands on the mattress and got to his feet making a beeline for the door. I just heard a faint sob and saw his shaking shoulders as it clicked closed behind him.