“Maggie.”
“Brooks.”
His eyes shut tight at the sound of me saying his name. “Again?” he asked.
“Brooks,” I murmured.
When he opened his eyes, I was closer. My fingers landed against his chest. “Brooks…please, don’t do this. Don’t keep pushing me away. I want to help you, but you keep punching me each day with your anger, your hurt, and I can’t take anymore. I can’t keep being your punching bag. Don’t do this to yourself,” I begged. “Don’t make yourself drown. It’s too much, and I should know. I’ve been drowning for years. You’re sitting here killing yourself each second, as if you were alone, but you’re not.” I took his hands and placed them against my chest. “I’m here. I’m here for you, but you gotta stop punching me with your words. You gotta stop acting like I’m the enemy in all of this.”
I dropped his hands, and he kept staring, stunned by my voice perhaps? Or maybe by the words my mouth produced.
“It’s going to be hard. It’s going to be really hard. I’m not backing down, but you don’t get to treat me like that, Brooks. You don’t get to become something you’re not. You’re not a monster. You’re the complete opposite of a monster. You’re gentle, and kind, and funny, and my best friend. You know this. So, I’m not leaving here until you find it again,” I said.
“Find what?”
I placed my hands against his chest, and gave him a gentle kiss on his cheek as I whispered. “Your voice.”
You promised.
Her voice. Her first words in years, and they were directed toward me due to her frustration. The truth behind those words kept me up all night. Along with the sound of her voice. I hated the fact that her voice came out when she was angered and hurting. I hated how I was the one who pulled her to that level.
What had I become?
“Maggie,” I whispered around five in the morning. I tapped her shoulder slightly as she lay asleep in bed. “Maggie, wake up.”
She stirred for a moment, before yawning and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She raised an eyebrow, puzzled.
“I know it’s early, but can I show you something?”
She nodded, and I wondered if I’d imagined her sounds earlier that night. She climbed out of bed, and I led her to the back of the cabin, down the dock, where I sat down. She joined me, sitting beside me.
Tilting her head, she narrowed her eyes at me, confused.
“Number sixty-seven on your to-do list. Watch a sunrise or sunset over the water.”
A small sigh escaped her lips, and she looked up at the dark sky that was slowly beginning to wake.
“You toss and turn in your sleep at night,” she said.
“Yeah. I know.”
“Do you wake in sweats, too? Sometimes does it feel like you’re drowning in the water and even though you know it’s not really happening, it feels like you’re there again?”
Quick nods. “Yes. Yes. Exactly. It’s hard to describe what’s been happening in my head. Everyone kept telling me I’d bounce right back, but the memories, the voices in my head…”
“They’re real. The voices. The flashes. The fears. All of it is real, Brooks, and no matter how often you try to describe it to a person who’s never been in a trauma, they won’t get it. What happened to you had to be terrifying. I know about the tossing and turning. I know about the sweats. I know how it feels as if it’s happening nonstop, every second of every day.”
My head lowered. “It’s been like that since you were ten?”
“Uh-huh. That’s why I couldn’t leave you. I know what it’s like to be afraid to begin again.”
“I feel stupid for my actions now…selfish. You’ve been dealing with this all your life, and never once were you cold. You never turned against anyone. I’ve been so shitty to you, Magnet. I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “Everyone deals with trauma differently. Just because I reacted to my issues in a different manner doesn’t mean you had to react the same way. What happened to you was traumatic, and I completely get you being afraid of music, because of what happened to you. You feel cheated. The one thing you love, you can’t yet have. But you’ll get there, Brooks. You’ll find your way.”
“I picked up my guitar the other day. It was just sitting in the corner of the room, and out of habit, I picked it up, and then remembered I couldn’t play. So instead of getting sad, I just got angry. I got drunk to stop the hurt. But after the buzz faded, the hurt was still there.”
“It’s going to hurt. It’s painful, it’s hard, and it just freaking hurts. It hurts for so long that sometimes you think the hurting will never fade. That’s kind of the beautiful part in the hurting, though.”