The room languished in dimness, its edges tendered by the reluctant swaddle of twilight, as another indistinct day bled into obscurity. A disarray of papers sprawled across the desk — half-filled notebooks, annotated drafts, and squashed failures that harbored the scars of fleeting inspiration turned sour.
Shards of fractured thoughts clung to the edge of a ceramic mug, long abandoned, its contents a cold, bitter leftover of former comfort. Amidst the disorder, a slight, rhythmic clacking emanated from the keyboard, the cadence uneven — hesitant, then rushed — each keystroke could carve coherence from the warren of your mind.
Your body had betrayed you weeks ago. Sleep came in fits and bursts, cruel in its inadequacy, leaving you more fatigued upon waking than when you had closed your eyes. Standing for longer than a few moments brought on vertigo, the world tilting like a ship caught in a storm. Your legs trembled under you; your limbs would not stop from racketing.
Even sitting upright had become an exercise in endurance, your focus slipping like grains of sand through tightened fists.
Your day-to-day flow was unmoored, the concept of time fractured into pieces of light and shadow that no longer adhered to the clock. You could not help but feel hideous, an empty shell of the person you used to be.
Even your brain, once sharp and unyielding, has turned against you. It demands stimulation, then recoils at the slightest effort, leaving you stultified and overwhelmed in equal measure. The cruel paradox is almost laughable, but you can’t even summon the energy for that.
Your posture betrayed the toll; shoulders curved under an invisible yoke, neck stiffened by hours of neglect, digits quivering with a fatigued urgency as they alternated between scrawling ink onto paper and translating disoriented thoughts onto the sterile glow of the monitor. The screen’s light painted your face in stark relief, illuminating knitted brows and eyes ringed with exhaustion.
Each line you wrote — whether traced by pen or clacked with desperate precision — felt both like a purge and a plea, a futile effort to wrest order from the chaos that churned within you. The words blurred together as you read and reread them, dissecting each syllable, cataloging for meaning in the spaces where meaning seemed to slip away.
The soft hum of the computer blended with the shift of cushions beneath you and the whisper of paper beneath your hand, a symphony of toil that bore the weight of an unrelenting inner storm. And still, you could not stop. Could not stop chasing the fleeting promise that, perhaps, the next word might finally bring clarity — or at least silence— to the tempest.
Lilia had been patient — that is, at the beginning. Truth be told, she always harbored such grand patience when it came to you. She had tried coaxing you to bed with the tenderness of a woman who had weathered storms far greater than this, easing the pen from your clutch with soft murmurs that sought to bind you in reason. But reason, elusive and foreign, had long since slipped from your grasp.
The days had obscured, each one bleeding into the next, and with them, so had her forbearance. What began as gentle encouragement turned to silent insistence, her words firmer, her gaze heavier, until tonight, she stood at the precipice of your unraveling.
Her figure filled the doorway, the tender light casting shadows across her features, etching worry into every delicate line. The ends of her maroon-painted mouth, once so immediate in baring into the warmest and sweetest smile for you, were clasped with exasperation, and her dark irises brimmed with something more profound than concern — a spiraled cord of frustration, sorrow, and love she could no longer conceal.
She found you hunched on the couch, a blanket snarled around your clammy frame, lazily draping over your dense shoulders. You did not even regard her at first, too engrossed in the haze of your own misery.
Finally, she inched forward, her footsteps measured and unhurried like the passing of time itself. Her shadow enveloped you before her voice, low and lilting with its natural timbre, sliced through the oppressive silence.
“Enough.” The utter was a soft command, steady but resolute.
You did not turn. Could not. Your gaze remained fixated on the page before you, though the words had long since dissolved into meaningless smudges. Ink bled into the fibers like a wound reopened again and again, staining your fingertips and every letter typed over, your palms, your very thoughts.
“I can’t,” you rasped, barely audible, tone hollow and stretched thin. “I’m almost done.”
Her sigh was soft yet audible, a weight in the room that you couldn’t ignore.
She moved closer, the ends of her skirt fluttering against the floor before her silhouette draped over your curved form in caution. “No you’re not. You’re grinding yourself into dust, darling.”
The truth in her words landed heavily, a stone descending into still water, the ripples quaking through your chest. Yet still, you refused to meet her eyes, refused to acknowledge her underlying honesty.
“I said I can’t stop,” you snapped, the sharpness in your tone cracking under its own weight. “Don’t you get it, Lilia? If I stop, everything— everything, just for one second — it all falls apart. I fall apart.”
“And you think this is holding it together?” she retorted, her voice cutting, each remark peeling back another layer of your defiance. “Look at what you’re doing to yourself. Do you even remember the last time you slept?Ate something that wasn’t cold coffee or a stale bag of chips?”
The coolness of her rings bit into her digits when they tightened their hold over the cushions, trembling faintly as if she were holding back something fiercer. “I can comprehend that all those things aren’t easy for you, but you’re killing yourself, piece by piece, and for what? To prove you’re enough? To push until there’s nothing left of you?”
The room seemed to diminish in size, her words closing in around you. The dull pain in your chest spasmed, a visceral reaction to the veracity you attempted so hard in brushing aside even if it lingered, it floated, it haunted. For only a second, the sole sound was the faint hum of the computer and the shallow rasp of your breath, the silence all consuming.
Anger and despair warred for control when your arms came up to push against the table in front of you causing her to slightly step back. “You don’t understand! — You don’t know what it’s like to feel this… this useless. To not even recognize your own body, your own mind. To fail at the one thing you’ve always been good at.”
Lilia’s expression softened, the sharp brinks of her frustration giving way to something deeper, sadder. What Lilia saw brought nothing but ache and pain to her poor heart. You were unwell, eyes ringed red, and bags beneath them practically the size of a quarter. While your complexion still carried its hue, it lacked the depth the sun and proper rest brought upon you.
She moved closer, her movements deliberate but unthreatening, until she stood beside you, one of her hands grappling with wanting to reach out to still your trembling ones.
“I understand more than you think,” she declared quietly, carrying the weight of centuries you could not begin to fathom.
“But this … this isn’t strength.” Her hand gestured to the mess, to your body curled in on itself, to the dark hollows beneath your eyes.
“I’m not asking you to stop because I don’t understand,” she gently spoke now but no less wavering.
“I’m asking because I do. I’ve been there, trying to outrun the weight of your mind, thinking you can carry it all alone. But you can’t. No one can. And if you keep going like this…” Her voice faltered, saddened. “If you keep going like this, then I’m afraid there won’t be anything left of the woman I love to save.”
Her words maintained a weight, a force a mirror held too close — forcing you to confront the reflection of your spiraling. Your exhale clawed its way up your throat, and your hands finally went still when Lilia’s came in contact with them. The pen fell from your grip, rolling to the edge of the desk before coming to a halt.
You wanted to argue at the beginning, to push her away and retreat yourself into abyss, but the fight had been wiped out of you. The tears came all too fast, unpredictable, hot, cascading down your cheeks.
“I don’t know h-how to stop,” you uttered in despair, words barely coherent over the sound of your sobs. One of your hands came up to bury into your tangled hair, defiance slipping into a broken plea. “I don’t know how.”
The space between her shoulders welcomed your exhausted physique, arms encircling to swaddle you just right because gosh, you needed this. Your head bowed into her chest as she drew you into her shawl, her heat, her strength, her homely fragrance.
She did not shush you, feed you with false hopes or tell you it would be okay now; she did the simple act of holding you, her hand brushing your hair despite its matted and disheveled state, her presence grounding you, painful and necessary.
The sobs came in hash waves, wracking your body with a ferocity that left you gasping for oxygen. Lilia held you with the cradle of handling something precious, palms cradling you with the utmost care, her lips falling over your forehead in murmured reassurances.
“Come, my love,” She reached down and she coaxed you gently to your feet. She wrapped an arm around your waist and you wrapped yours around her neck for stability.
She guided you into the bathroom, positioning your body over the closed toilet seat. “Sit here while I draw you a bath. ”
You sat down with a sigh, tipping your head back against the wall behind the toilet and letting your eyelids flutter shut for a moment, trying to ignore the pounding of your temples. And although your eyes were closed, your brow remained quirked. As if even in your thoughts you came face to face with the problems you were trying to avoid.
You heard the pause of movements before a soft kiss was met with your forehead, somewhat easing all the tightness you were undergoing, and that little smile of yours was enough for her to resume her actions.
You heard the streams of water pouring, followed by the grazing shuffles of Lilia’s movements; she worked with quiet and deft efficiency, adding a few drops of oil that released a grounding aroma in the air.
Steam rose around you and lazily bent at the shape of the corners in the room with gentle swirls, carrying the fragrance of herbs and oils — lavender, chamomile, a hint of rosemary. All serene and soothing within your aching lungs as you inhaled deeply. The tinge of citrine within the atmosphere made you open your eyes, already sensing your lover hovering over you.
Lilia’s chocolate browns swirled softly with compassion and love, leaking reassurance before she crouched between your legs.
“Let me help you, my heart.” Her graceful fingers worked methodically to unbutton your shirt, to slip it from your shoulders with such a tenderness that made your throat tighten, blinking back tears at the nickname she tended to call you, your head dipping down.
Her touch never lingered too long, never straying from what was necessary. When you were exposed before her, vulnerable in a way that has nothing to do with nudity, she does not gaze at you with pity or repugnance. Only love. Fierce, unyielding love.
She stood from between your legs and held her hands out for you to take, which you obliged. You delicately placed your hands in hers and stood up. She untangled the strewn string of your pants and slid them down your lower body as you stepped out of them.
“You don’t have to do anything,” she husked when your forehead nuzzled a bit against her temple, her fingers moving to tuck a damp curl behind your ear.
You did not resist as she helped you into the water, the damp heat enveloping your coolness. A soreness took over, yet you welcomed the capacity of it, the tension in your muscles unwinding in increments as the heat seeped into your aching joints. “I’ll go get you a towel and set out some fresh clothes.”
You trembled from its temperature, and while the act somewhat alleviated your body’s ache, it did not reach or thaw the hollow coldness concealed in your chest. You sat in the center of the tub, knees drawn to your bare chest, shoulders hunched like a battered bird too afraid to unfold its wings. The water glimmered faintly, lavender-scented and calm, a direct contrast to the tempest inside you. You stared blandly at the surface but could not bring yourself to move.
Lilia returned back into the bathroom and was met with your expression. The light pranced across her features — those soft laugh lines, her sharp cheekbones, and her ever-watchful gaze that had always seemed to see you, truly see you. You could not bring yourself to meet those eyes now.
“I don’t know why you bother,” your whisper was as fragile as a dried leaf, barely holding itself together in the cold season of your tone.
You brought your knees tighter into your abdomen, your gaze intended downward as though the clear dampness of it might envelop you entirely. “This isn’t me. I'm not going to stop — I’m not… that version of a person. I don’t even know who I am anymore.”
She tilted her head, silver locks framing her features in similar shape to a halo, but her eyes blazed with something sharper than sympathy — resolve. “You’re still you, y/n.”
You shook your head vehemently, tears glazing your eyes as you attempted to form the words that gnawed at your chest. “No, Lilia, I’m not. I’m not the person you fell in love with anymore.”
The words spewed out, ragged and raw and shameful. “I’m nothing. I stand here, right before the debris of everything I was, and there’s nothing left — I’m nothing. I don’t even know how… how or why am I still existing.”
Her shawl was discarded, kneeling beside you as her hands, holding a washcloth, dipped into the water and wrung it before shuffling closer.
“Tilt your head back for me,” she instructed softly. It was neither commanded nor meek — it was a simple request, spoken with the intimacy of someone who knew how to speak to you when words felt unbearable.
You obeyed, streams of warm water dampening your head. You groaned softly at the feel of warm water on your scalp, slowly letting yourself melt against her touch.
Grabbing a bottle of shampoo, she poured a generous amount upon her palm before finding its way to your hair. Discarded from her signature rings, her fingers followed and worked through the unkempt tangles with infinite patience, scrubbing away the residue of neglect, her touch both practical and reverent.
“I know it’s hard to stop,” she began, her hands moving in leisured, circular motions. “You think if you stop, everything will fall apart. That there’s no time to rest. But your body is telling you otherwise. You need to learn and listen. You are wrong, you aren't debris. You are not a ruin.”
A dry and bitter laugh emerged, and you glanced at her finally, your tears uniting with the water droplets pelting your skin, not even sparing a care if the burn of suds collided with your vision.
“Look at me,” you croaked. “Look at me, Lilia. I can barely stand without falling over. I can’t sleep. I can’t think. My body is falling apart, my mind’s barely hanging on, my heart — the very heart you say that’s yours and that you love isn’t good! You're right, there's nothing left to save! And I don’t — I don’t know how to put it all back together.”
Your breath hitched as a sob tore through you. “I don’t know why you’re still here. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t … if you didn’t love me anymore.”
“How dare you.”
You blinked, taken aback, oxygen cutting off as you completely met her gaze. Her orbs were moistened, yet they were fierce, unfaltering in their intensity.
“How dare you think so little of my love,” she spoke firmly and loudly and hurt laced every utterance.
Foamed fingers wounded around your shoulders and turnt you towards her in one smooth motion. “Do you think my love is conditional? That it’s so fragile, so shallow, that it would shatter because you are struggling? You, who have shown and given me everything — every piece of yourself, every ounce of your light, your soul, who has taught me to find my way back. Do you think I would abandon you now, when you need me most?”
Her words demolished you, the sheer force of them tearing through the walls you had built around your remorse and despair. Streaks of tears once more down your drenched cheeks, her thumbs stroking them away, her fingers swiftly swatting back the mingled water and soap from your eyes as she tipped your chin up and lightly kissed your forehead.
“My darling girl, let me continue helping you. Let me take care of you. You do not have to endure this all alone.”
With a soft nod from you and another kiss from her, this time directed to your lips, she gently turned you around and proceeded to wash your hair, thoroughly swilling every bit.
She then gathered a washcloth and preferred body wash, dipped it into the water, and rubbed it together to get it foamed. She washed you with exact loving care, moving the immersed rag over your tired muscles, cleansing away the grime and the heaviness of the past weeks.
She hummed softly under her breath — a melody you do not recognize but find comforting in the velvet brittle of her octave nonetheless — and you close your eyes, surrendering to her ministrations.
"Your hand?" As she uprose fully, without wasting a second you gave her your fingers to hold, and she steadied you onto your feet as you stepped out. She huddled you out of the tub and bundled you in the fuzziest towel you loved. One palm cradled the curve of your cheek while the other steadied upon your covered waist. "let's get you dressed, my love."
You sat at the hem of the bed, partaking in drying yourself up — though she wouldn't allow it — as she smoothed your lotion over your parched skin, gingerly taking in the way the ointment dissolved across your shoulders that was ensued with a soft kiss.
"You are not debris," she repeated as she slid your limbs into fresh and comfy clothes, aware of the way your eyes brimmed with tears. "You are not a ruin, and you most certainly are not 'nothing'." Her movements were unhurried, as though time itself had decelerated and permitted her this moment to care for you.
She does not allow you to lift a finger, guiding you to the bed with a patience that feels endless. The sheets were warm, the pillows plumped just so, and she tucked you beneath the blankets before nestling in beside you.
Those cinnamon brown pools engulfed you in their safety assisted with the loving strokes of her fingers upon the side of your face. "If you fall, then I will be there to catch you. And If you cannot sleep, then I will hold you. If you cannot think, then allow me to hold those thoughts for you. If you fall apart, and your mind is barely grasping onto reality, I am going to help build you up again, and again, and again. Every version of you, I love and will continue to love. You are here right now, and that is all that matters to me."
Her arms embraced you in a way that left no ounce for uncertainty —you are hers, and she will care for you, no matter how broken you feel. The pads of her fingers continue soothing patterns on your back, her lips landing in tender kisses on your temple, the crown of your head, your soaked cheeks.
“You are not a burden,” The warmth of her words bristled through your shaggy tresses. “You are my love. My heart, do you understand? Let me hold you.”
And so you do. You give her the privilege to hold you, relinquishing to her love. It does obliterate the chaos or untangle the knots within you— it simply cannot, unfortunately. Though in her arms, the compressing load you have carried alone for so long felt just a fraction lighter. The tightness in your chest allayed, the burn in your throat simmered down, and the tears you had been swallowing for the past days ebbed. You nestled your head in the hollow of her neck, her heartbeat lulled your aching joints, your segmented soul, your tender flesh, and you let those fatigued eyes of yours droop shut with the feel of her lips touching your forehead.