During therapy, any question that began with 'on a scale of one to ten' always made my shoulders go stiff.

Not because I didn't know the answer, but because the answer was almost, almost always seven.

But it always purled in my lungs like sludge and never made it out because some part of me — a much stronger part than the one with the answer — would already be forming an excuse.

"It's not that bad sometimes," I told myself, because it had to be three and four and three again on days when the sky was clear. Today was a six point eight but then I laughed at something River said, so does that not make it come down to a five?

If I have a worse day tomorrow, wouldn't that make today's seven point four feel like a walk in the park?

And what if today is a seven only for tomorrow to be a solid eight point nine. Eight point nine like: I can't eat, I can't sleep, the air feels like sandpaper on my skin, the shower feels like it's burning my scalp, my body's cramping up but I can't bring myself to get off the floor and the panic attack from the other day begins feeling like a tiny, almost imperceptible thorn on my side.

I kept numbers like nine and ten out of reach. Are those not reserved for people who are really suffering? Those are the numbers reserved for real problems. Not mine. I've got no reason.

So I considered five instead. Five comes in the middle, so five means neither good, nor bad... right? Five means Hey, I could use some help, but I don't want you to worry about it. Five wouldn't tell people that every morning, I wake up feeling like a lone, unmovable body floating in space.

It's not that bad sometimes, I would repeat to myself, even though some days the 'better' in question translated to I'm still alive, aren't I?

I knew I expected far too much from myself as someone who only ever oscillated between frustrated, lost, and guilty, but here's the thing: when you aren't taught love, how do you apply it to yourself?

It took years for River to teach me that sometimes, I needed to plant the flowers myself if I expected my path to be lined with them. And sometimes, the soil would reject them.

By the time the sevens came down to sixes, I had learned that the heart... my heart; it opens and closes. It doesn't understand the concept of The Light At The End Of The Tunnel. It doesn't sit around and wait for the grief to come to an end. It knows that I still tiptoe around the past, and mercilessly makes me ache more whenever I unknowingly let my defenses down.

It's cruel and unforgiving at times, but now, all these years later, it has learned to counter some of the memories with kindness.

Now that I'm down to a four, the smile of anticipation before my classes comes easier. Seeing a cat on my way home brings it down to a three point five. Finding food from River sitting on the kitchen island makes me forget about the scale entirely.

Now that I'm down to a four, the cold air doesn't nip at my cheeks as harshly as it would. The silence of the night doesn't make my bones feel hollow. Meera's presence beside me feels like a solid, grounding presence, and it somehow keeps me from going back to lifelessly floating in space.

"Can I ask you something?" she questions lowly, and I can feel her eyes on me. So I nod. "Do you... not have any questions? You haven't..." She hesitates again, like she's afraid of overstepping but the question has been sitting in her mouth too long. "Is it because you didn't want to be found?"

I shake my head, and then feel my steps falter on the sidewalk when a car shines its headlight directly in my face before it passes by.

I do have questions, I want to tell her. So many that I don't know where to begin.

But what am I going to do if I find out that he still scrunches his nose when he laughs? That he still has trouble sleeping unless every little source of light in the room is snuffed out? That he still bakes enough to feed four families even though he can't stomach sweets himself? That he still spends ten minutes in front of the mirror perfecting the double knot of his scarf?

The thread holding me and my lucidity together has thinned further from the knowledge that even a decade later, the mere mention of his name is enough to leave my chest vibrating with this nameless emotion. I can't fray it if I want to get through the day without dissipating into a hurricane of hysteria.

So, "I just don't want to ask questions I might not be ready to hear the answers to," I tell her quietly instead, curling my fingers into fists inside the pockets of my coat.

Even though I'm down to a four on a regular day, I cannot change the fact that the scale still exists. And it exists for a reason.

"That's fair," she says, voice coming out quieter than mine. And it feels wrong somehow, so the words leave my mouth before I can consider holding them back:

"I saw him a few days ago." There's an audible hitch in her breath, so I continue quickly. "Kind of. At Shelby. On my way home." The air around us seems to have stilled, even though the trees above us rustle louder than ever. "And it —" sent me into a panic attack as soon as I got home. "It was... hard."

Finch being the only source of my somewhat good memories from a decade ago doesn't change the fact that he was still part of my life when my parents viciously ripped everything out of my hands and thrust me into an entirely different world from the one I had known.

In desperation, I had removed every little thing from my life that reminds me of the time before I met River.

And seeing Finch again was like being doused in ice-cold water.

I want to tell myself that even amidst the pain, when I think about him, it comes from the core of my chest. Because that's where all the good memories have made home.

But I can't.

Not when I'm still trying to work my way around tending to my heart so it stops pushing back.

Maybe it's cowardly of me to be this affected even after ten years; maybe I should be thinking of myself as lucky — I'm safe enough to worry about things like this instead of worrying about being locked inside closets or having my hand twisted backwards by people that were supposed to embrace and nurture me — but just because the fire from my world was snuffed out doesn't mean the surface has stopped leaving blisters on my feet.

Besides, the only questions that seemed important were answered the day I saw him.

He's here. He's safe. He's happy.

"Oh."

I lower my eyes. "Yeah." The lump in my throat has started to grow bigger again, but I push it back in favor of telling her, "I... know it's a lot to ask for, but —" I try to swallow back the lump again to make way, but the words won't come out. They feel defective on my tongue. Selfish. "Just a little more time," I squeeze out, and feel my eyes water from the force. "Please." My steps come to a halt, a harsh breath leaves my trembling lips, but my eyes are still downcast when I twist my body in her direction. "Please. I —"

"You thought you would never see him again."

It's not a question. It's a statement I've always flinched from.

The words settle in the pit of my stomach like burning coal.

My nails leave more indents on my palms inside my pockets, but I let my shoulders curve inward in defeat. "Yeah," I admit, because now that the words are out in the open, I can't help but wretchedly resign myself to them. "Yeah."

Meera has stopped too, and I still can't bring myself to look at her because her breath comes out in trembling wisps. "I just need to know one thing," she rasps. "I just... if I'm going to stand in front of him and — if I'm going to lie to him every day. I need to know just this one thing, Sky."

I just respond with a nod, because I'm fighting for air even without trying to speak.

"If he knew," she starts, breathing hard, "would that... would that be bad?"

"The Lawsons? They agree with us. And we decided that this is for the best. And it is, isn't it, sweetie?"

My chest constricts at the voice. "That depends."

"On what?"

"His parents." I choke out, and her sharp intake of breath makes me flinch. "Are t-they still in touch with him?"

a/n

thank you for reading ♡