stolen smiles // {cait}

She visited me again last night.

In a dream, come, just in time to wash away the fears for a little while longer, for each day they grow in size and severity.

I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.

The shrill ringing of a cacophony of whistles jolts me back to reality, before I can determine whether it was her or me or him apologising. The faces of the only people I could ever love falter slightly before rapidly disappearing before my very eyes. I search for them, screaming inside my head, willing them to come back to me – to not abandon me any more than they already have. But it is too late.

Tired faces eagerly leave the fields, hurrying home before dark – before the real nightmares that haunt our miserable lives decide to come out. I look down at the basket placed eloquently across the dusty earth in front of me. Today’s collection is feeble, and as I take the worn straw handle in my aching hands – so used to carrying much more weight than I should be able to – I am pulled down by an aching tiredness and longing for home. I deposit my basket and take the all too familiar steps back to the only life I know, no matter the fact that I despise it as much as I loathe every other soul in this depressing place.

A shove from behind throws me off balance, and as I feel myself falling, I manage to catch his eye before I crash to the ground, bringing reality down with me.

Another monster, come to ruin my day.

He pushed, I faltered, and I fell in a single instance. I look up from the ground, my eyes accusing and hard as ice. His apology is brittle and fake – rushed words without a break in between what could he be hiding? – breaking as easily as plastic diamonds, meant for dress-ups and make-believe. I had never fallen such shallow nonsense.

‘I don’t need your help.’ To prove my point, I stand, already brushing off the dust, as simple as wiping away tears from my sodden bedsheets.

Although sunlight still seeps through the clouds softly lining the sky, already I am beginning to turn cold from the chill of Winter’s presence. The tattered rags that line my body do not provide a substantial defense against the biting cold, and as I stand, carefully studying the boy in front of me, I feel my fingers begin to freeze. Soon enough the cold will spread through my body, yet will it be any different to the blizzard constantly raging inside of me?

I was not to find out today.

Social interaction was never something I had been good with – especially not with people I had only just encountered. The sight of the boy makes me nervous, his earnest facial expressions alerting me to secrets hidden beneath his surface that I cannot see.

Yet.

His words sound odd, as if they were stolen and he was merely mimicking words he had heard through the grapevine. As he rambles, I feel nothing but indifference towards this boy, who mustn’t be any older than I. I listen to his soft, hushed words, but my mind is wandering, begging my thoughts to remain intact, for the toppling tower of hatred threatens to fall to the ground once again, dragging anything and everything in its way down with it. He risks being crushed by forgotten dreams and hopeless wishes the longer he stays here, convincing me to make sense of his foolish words. Of course, I am positive I do not want this nobody’s help – he, however, is too conceited to see that.

I walk away wordlessly; he follows aimlessly. Determined to prove a point, I vow to remain quiet until I am back home, within the safety of four plain walls that suffocate me every day. There’s a part of me that wishes the boy will leave me alone and run away before any harm can come to him, whether intentional or not. But an even bigger part of me is begging him to stay. And not just because I no longer want to be the only person who falls.