Where It All Should Have Ended
She was shaking and sobbing in her sleep. Her moans were helpless, they torn the silent of the night like scissors stabbed at tender flesh. Soarin had no other choice than to open his eyes, and when he tried to touch her, she started to shake even more. Yet, he couldn't let her in such a state of pain and desperation, he had to do something. Never before had she done nightmares when they were together. She even liked to say he was her best remedy against sorrow and misery.
Her eyes opened wide, and she sat straight on the bed at the same time, like hit by something. The breath out of her mouth was irregular, and he was scared she would choke. But she didn't. She only stared at the darkness in front of her. It took time to readjust to reality, to take into consideration that this room was Soarin's room, and that she was safe.
It startled her when he touched her back. The clothes she bought here to sleep were soaked with sweat, so at first, he rubbed her back slowly, until she accepted the contact fully, then he patiently took off her clothes, so the fever could lower.
Once nestled against his body, skin to skin, the sensation of dread vanished away. Her throat was still dry and lumped, but at least, there were no more tears and she wasn't afraid. The stroke on her hair, and Soarin's voice who whispered to her that everything was okay and that she was safe now would eventually appease her completely, she knew. Maybe that was what they called 'the magic touch'.
"Was it a nightmare about your mother?" he asked her softly.
"No... It was about Green Haven..."
Green Haven. The psychiatric institution she went to, in order to heal after her attempt at killing herself... She never went into details about what happened to her when she was there, yet from the little she had told him, the young man could guess this wasn't the sanctuary its name indicated.
Maybe it came from the fact she had to go back there on a regular basis, so she could see and talk to Dr. Horse. Maybe it came from the fact that her therapy, though on a good way, was far from being over. Maybe it was because it would never leave her.
When she said the months she spent there had been the worst of her life, she didn't lie. Nothing sounded like hell more than this place. The memories of her stay would never fade away, never cease to chase her in her nightmares. It all started when her heart was too full, or maybe too empty. When everything had lost flavor, when everything meant nothing to her. It all started where it all should have ended.
I don't want to see anyone and I don't want to talk to anyone. I don't want to do anything, neither. At first, I was trying to fufill the emptiness of my existence with futilities, anything that could help me to forget, even for a short while. It's all in the past... I'll never be the Rainbow Dash I used to be. I don't want to put on an act and pretend I'm happy though the only thing I deeply want to do is doing myself in. I don't have the courage to smile to make sure appearances would be kept. I don't have courage for anything anymore.
Each seconds of lucidity feels like endless pain to me... I'm replaying the last words Mommy said, I can hear the suffering inside Daddy's voice when he told me she has died, and it kills my heart everytime.
When their voices finally leave me alone, I see her image, again and again, and her eyes before she went away.
And Daddy, since I went out of my sideration state, since the funerals, who's always leaving and who's never there... I can hear his footsteps on the floor, as he goes away.
I curse him for leaving me alone, on my own, I spit in the face of his insensitivity.
I wanted him to scream, to break everything around. I wanted that, despite the hate he feels towards me now, he could stay with me, next to me. I wish the worst of torments to him, I pray for another accident to happen so he would suffer like hell, like I suffer myself...
And so I'm twisting in the web of my own pain, my stomach cries for help, my heart bleeds like an opened and displayed wounded.
In order to shut down this pain gnawing me and killing me from the inside, I take another sip of whisky and wait for the drug to knock me out. The tiles are cold under by back and my bare arms.
I'm crying, calling her name but Mommy would never come to comfort me, and I know it. No one comes to comfort me. This house is empty. If I die tonight, I think no one would care, not even him. I know he hates me, I know he wish I were dead. So, it'll probably make him feel better... It makes me want to bang my head against the wall...
Since she's gone, pain and demons wouldn't leave me alone, even through my sleep. I have nightmares where faceless persons are screaming and jumping into a blaze of red flames and thick smoke, black as ebony. "She's dead, she's dead", they repeat. I don't want to believe them, yet I know they're right. So, I would wake up soaked in sweat, with shaking limbs and my heart about to explode.
When it happens, which means almost every night, I barely have the courage to drag my body to the bathroom to pour cold water on my face. When I do reach the room, I never turn on the light, and I never look at myself in the mirror. I'm scared I would see her behind my back and once I would turn around, she'd disappear.
Really, I'm nothing but an empty shell, soul less. I can't take this anymore. The only thing I want is for everything to be over. Dead and gone like her.
Author's Note
Well... Maybe this isn't the story you were expected (as I promised a new SoarinDash short story), but I've spoken about this one earlier, saying it would probably be published by the end of the Rainbow's Blues chapter from The Truth About Girls. So, here we are...
Oh, and I don't know how often new chapters of this story would be published but I think this isn't going to be as regular as my other stories, so I hope it won't bother you. And I also hope you'll like it. And yes, I'm done babbling 
The door of my room creaks and sounds of heels are getting closer. I'm curled inside my bed, hoping I'd be forgotten and left alone. I don't want anyone to see my face. I know without seeing it how pitiful I look. My hair tangled, bags under my eyes, cheeks gaunted, pale face, and lips so chapped they burn. My body isn't any better... Skinny, ill-treated, no longer athletic. I might look like an abandoned cokehead, after nights and nights being high, looking old and ruined.
My only hope is that this person would be here to finish me. To get rid of my sick and useless carcass once and for all.
But of course, I know this won't happen because this room isn't my room. It's an hospital room, which white walls and disinfectant scent are making me feel even sicker.
I can't remember clearly, but it seems like I've failed.
Someone pulls the curtains, exhibiting me to the broad light of rays of sun through my window. As a reflex, I'm curling tighter and clench my eyes.
It's the same nurse than the one I've seen last night when I woke up. Her voice is like a melody, her calm contrast with the anxiousness and the pain radiating all over my wounded body. She stinks hope and positivity.
I hate hope, this stupid thing making you cling to crumbling branches while expecting for something better to happen, for a miracle to come and change the streams of your worthless life. Yes, I hate hope and I think hope should hate me just the same.
I feel like even breathing is a complicated action. Her brown eyes are staring at me and I can't tell whether it's pity or something else I see in her eyes.
"Your state is a bit better than last night. You're very lucky you father found you right on time. He was very worried..."
There's tears up in my eyes, but not from anger or pain. In my mind, my father have always been someone way too caught up by his own belly to notice he has a daughter completely going awry. There are two possibilities: either I've been wrong about him, either a sudden urge of being a father is growing in his heart because Mommy's death saddens him.
"You have visitors", the nurse says with a smile I wish I could cut off.
"Tell them to get the hell on! I don't want to see anyone."
It doesn't matter who's behind that door. My zombie-like face isn't a vision you want to see right after breakfast. Somewhere deep inside, might be surviving parts of me that are still lively, from the girl who prouded herself with a bright reputation. I'd rather stay face to face with those white walls than being in front of anyone, even those who care about me.
Yet, the nurse ignores by order, surely because she knows it's nothing more than a whim from a child whose heart and soul are sick, with no taste for anything at all.
And so my two best friends appear in front of me. Twilight and Applejack. Although the second before, I was thinking about grabbing the first thing within reach and throw it in their faces, seeing them make flows of shame and guilt come to the surface and I burst into tears.
Immediately, Applejack runs by my side and holds me in her arms. I'm grabbing hold of her as if she was Mommy and flood her thick flannel shirt with my tears.
"Everything's fine, sugar cube. We understand why ya did this and we won't judge ya, don't make an orchard about it."
"Yes, don't worry", Twilight addes, slowly approaching.
"We're going to take good care of ya, and do our best to help ya gettin' better. I've asked Granny Smith, she's OK for ya to live with us until you're recovered."
"But I... don't... want... to be... a burden... for you", I claim between two hiccups.
I can't even bear myself. Insomnias, followed by terrible mental distresses, stopping myself from breathing, making me feel as if the world was made of quicksand in which my body is buried inexorably, a fear of everything surrounding me, then my nightmares, worse than staying awake... During days, being thin-skinned, feeling every emotions multiplying by thousands, with this unpleasant sensation of having the world staring at you, wanting to strangle you.
Applejack's family has been through their loads of tragedy. I can't impose them such a burden.
Yet, my friend wipe off my tears, strokes my back. They're both smiling at me, assuring me there's nothing to fear about. I'll be just fine at the farm. They won't even force me to go to school if I don't want to go to school. I'll be able to sleep until noon, to run and ride horses. I won't be alone and I'll eat only good and sane homemade food.
This kindness gets the best of my stridency. I'm beating in retreat. I haven't been able to disappear, anyway, to join her and make the nightmares stop. If I have to feel bad, it might as well be sheltered in a farm far from everything, surrounded by friends than alone in my father's gigantic house, with cleaning ladies and gardeners as my only company.
I can't even have a pet.
My room's door, ajar, suddenly moves and I'm expecting to see the nurse again, so she could change my drip or bring breakfast, although I probably won't eat it.
Instead, my father comes in. He's wearing his pilot suit, with his cap under his arm. When he steps closer, he stinks cold tobacco, whisky and female perfume. I don't know where he comes from, but I doubt it is the airport.
Out of all the persons in the world, he's the last one I thought would visit me. I've failed. I've tried to kill myself, I haven't fought. He's always saying fighters are the only ones worth something and he refuses to understand. I'm only thirdteen, my mother's plane crashed in front of me, the only person I have left is him, who's never here for me, and I know, I KNOW, he's ashamed he has even conceived such a wreck.
Until now, I was walking straight on a suspended bridge called an adult, and the only stable structures has fallen apart. There's only a stone left between me and the depths.J
"Well... We leave ya, Rainbow. We'll come back later."
Twilight and Applejack both leave the room, in order to let me with my father. I want to stretch out my hand to tell them "come back, don't leave me alone with him, please", but of course, I don't do it. Here I am, stoical, looking at them leaving the room, going behind the door and closing it behind them.
"That's lucky I've found you lying on the bathroom floor", he says while arranging my pillow. "I think you broke the mirror on the door when you fell. There was a lot of blood..."
He's speaking with a voice he might try to make sound soft, but I just think it sounds sinister. This, as always, without looking into my eyes. Or even at my face. Seeing my hair, the only part of me which has his attention, he's probably thinking about his own, which I inherited of, and how pity such a flaw of nature shares the same DNA than him.
I hate his sudden manner of acting like a devoted dad. Come on, there's no need to pretend. Not with me. In fact, I'm tired of seeing everyone around me pretending. I want a bit of honesty for a once. I want someone to tell me things as they are, even if it f*cking hurts. It's not as if it could get any worse...
"There's nothing I could do for your mother. She's always been too reckless, I accepted it. I knew when I married her, and even loved her for her foul temper. I knew she would become who she was, there are things you can't never escape. But I wanted my daughter to be different. I know what you're thinking, Rainbow Dash... You can judge me. And I know you're in pain, I know you can no longer understand how to go on and where you belong, but I won't let you turn into a wreck who won't fight."
I don't dare saying a single word. I don't know who the man in front of me is. I don't know him, I only know his wallet and his lectures about the fact that I act to much like a boy for him... I only know what faces he decides to show me.
This isn't normal. This isn't how things are supposed to be in a family. And he's here today but for how long? When, in two or three days, he'll go back to his business trips all around the world, what difference will it make? He can't stop me from falling deeper...
"You have... no idea what I'm going through", I tell him with a hint of bitterness in the words.
"You're right. But I know You have a problem... So, I've made up my mind. I've called a friend, named Dr. Horse. You're going to rest at an institute called Green Haven, where they'll heal your depression, or whatever it is they call it."
"What?!"
I can't believe what I've just heard. Is this his solution? To send me far away from him? He might be the one who's deranged!
My mother was my everything. The sun on my skin when the clouds parted. The breeze blowing softly when the heat was too unbearable. The ground which always caught my fall. Water when I was thirsty.
And she's dead. In a horrible, dreadful, nightmarish way. Knowing we all were here, right under, seeing everything. While doing one of the thing she loved the most, one of her reasons to live. With all those witnesses, and me among them, and nothing who could help them, not even me.
This is what has shattered hope inside of me, what scares me so much that I'm in ruins, here, ugly and weak, letting weariness winning the game, the prey of the worst tortures, bleeding and marking my skin.
"I don't want to go to a loony bin! I want to stay home... If you're scared I'll do it again, I'll go at Applejack's for some time. Her grandmother proposed it."
"Rainbow Dash, this isn't a negotiation. At Applejack's? With her both parents dead? Let's be serious... You got a problem. And we're going to settle it before it gets even bigger and you try to kill yourself again."
"I don't want to go to an institute! I don't want to go to an institute!"
"I know you hate me right now... But it's for your own good. You're going to get better, and you need to be surrounded by specialists."
Yes, that's what I need. To be surrounded, but by my family. And I don't even have a family, because my mother's parents have died and my father's parents don't want to see me and my father hates me and chooses to throw me to the mercy of lunatics rather than trying to support me. We could have helped each other, like a real family. Instead of this, we're going to die separetely, like two strangers.
