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[littlekemp.insanejournal.com]

WHO: Little Kemp & Thanatos
WHEN: Friday
WHERE: Gravesend, Brooklyn
WHAT: Don't play chicken with cars!
WARNINGS: suicide attempts (but not really)?

Since getting her diagnosis, Little had lost interest in a lot of the things she'd previously done. Where there had once been a quiet schoolgirl who was respectful to her teachers and prefered books to most things, that was being replaced by a slow burning sense of rebellion and recklessness. Because her brother had been a nightmare as a teenager - something but her and their mother admitted to quite often - Little had always been content to be the good girl. She'd be well behaved and not drink and not end up having a baby before she'd even finished high school. And she'd done so well with it, skirting the borders of cool enough to escape the mortifying land of loser but never gaining enough attention to be truly popular. Little had been a good girl but it turned out all that didn't count for a damn thing

Her attempts to pretend that she wasn't actually going to get sick were beginning to break down and although she still had years (she hoped?) before any symptoms would start, she was finding it harder and harder to deny that her body had become a ticking time bomb.

She'd started sometimes skipping school, forging notes to keep calls to her mother at bay, and on those days she just walked around the city. She rode the bus to unfamiliar places and explored without purpose.

But sometimes on these days she felt weighed down by her future and needed to feel something more than just that heaviness. And those were the days when she did something a little more drastic. The first time she hadn't thought anything of it. She had squeezed her eyes shut and even as she took that first step off the pavement and into the zoom of traffic she didn't know whether she was hoping to get hit or hoping to cheat death. Maybe it was both. Horns had blared and people had shouted and cars had swerved and braked, but no one had hit her. She reached the other side of the street and then bolted, catching her breath in an alley a few blocks away while sucking on her inhaler.

Today, somewhere in Brooklyn she didn't know, Little did it again. Standing on the pavement at the side of a busy street, Little closed her eyes and stepped out into the traffic.

Comments

[a-gentle-death.insanejournal.com]

It wasn't for him to judge on that, but he knew such things never really worked out in the end. But he just shrugged and smiled. "Alright, Lil, it's a pleasure to meet you. Then I have a suggestion. Rather then sit here on this curb would you like something to drink? My twin is rather fond of those sugary concoctions they sell, and there's plenty of people there. We can both not know what to say or you can talk and I can listen."

He rose, "or you can go home. Just. No more going into traffic please. You are a very bright light. It would be a shame to see it snuffed out so easily."

Crushing beginning in 3... 2... 1....

[littlekemp.insanejournal.com]

A very bright light. He was saying she was pretty. She blushed and wished she wasn't all cry-faced right now. "I don't usually cry like this," she assured him. "I mean, I'm not someone who spends all their time being all snot-faced. I'm just, uh, things... you know?"

She tucked hair behind her ear and nodded. "I could get a drink."

Ahahaha nooo Toasty has no idea how to deal with that XD

[a-gentle-death.insanejournal.com]

Smiling he rose and waited for her. "Everyone's allowed to cry now and again. It's good for you. And never apologize either. You don't need to explain yourself to anyone but yourself."

Nodding he kept a polite distance, so not to make her feel threatened, as he walked to the nearest coffeeshop and was glad plenty were around. He opened the door for her and followed her inside. "to help you realize that life can be rather nice, I will buy for you. With your permission."

[littlekemp.insanejournal.com]

"Okay," Little said with a small smile at him as they went inside. She was already starting a feel a little better. Well, a little better about today anyway. The larger issues were still looming and weren't going to stop. "I've spent all my pocket money anyway."

"I feel kinda stupid," Little said as they stood in line.

[a-gentle-death.insanejournal.com]

"Well, don't." He gave with a smile, "you're confused, and probably more then a little lonely. You acted in a way that spoke more about desiring communication then anything. And right now, that I can offer."

When they came to the counter he let her order and got some tea for himself. "I can't promise I'm very good conversation however. I can talk about my family if you like? You already know I have a twin. I have three other sisters I'm close to, and a younger sibling who is more cheerful then anyone really has a right to be. And you?"

[littlekemp.insanejournal.com]

After ordering herself a hot chocolate she said, "there's my mom and dad. I live with them." Which sort of gave away how young she was and so she added, "but just until I find my own place." She already didn't want Thane to think of her as really young. "I've got two sisters and a brother but they're all more than ten years older than me so... they're not really like my siblings."

"I've got friends though," she assured him. "I'm not some sort of loner and... I wasn't trying to kill myself." She looked at him seriously. "I know it probably maybe looked like that's what I was doing."

[a-gentle-death.insanejournal.com]

"I believe you," he offered with a smile and went to sit down, removing his coat as he did so. "I have siblings like that, beyond those I've mentioned. My family is very large. There are some who are all but strangers to me. It's funny that way."

"I'm also not on too great of terms with my parents. We don't argue or anything, but I'm just disconnected with them."

[littlekemp.insanejournal.com]

"I wish I was disconnected from mine," Little sighed. "I sort of don't want to be around them much these days. It's kinda complicated now. I've got a nephew but he's my oldest brother's son and he's actually a year older than me, so it's kind of confusing like that and, well, we used to be really close and he was like a proper brother but now... I don't know how to be friends with him anymore. He's not sick. He won't ever get sick. And I kind of hate him for it. Like... proper hate him."

[a-gentle-death.insanejournal.com]

He let her talk, sipping on his tea every now and again. "That's normal. You're allowed to feel anger, but to let it drive you is another question. You'd fill yourself up with just that, and you'd have nothing but that anger." He gave a smile, "this will sound cliche, but you have to allow yourself to go through all of the stages of grief."

"And in your own time. Know that you are grieving though, but don't let it become an excuse. Try something, and if it doesn't work you can come yell at me. Every day, try and find something that makes life good. A gesture, a show of solidarity. You have to personally see it though. Try and find the light in life. We all wonder what we would do in life. So find what you would do."

[littlekemp.insanejournal.com]

"You sure you're not a therapist?" Little asked him. "Cause you really sound like a therapist." She didn't really know what the 'stages of grief' were, although she thought maybe she'd heard of it before. But she did know one thing: "I'm not grieving. I mean, no one has died. Well," she added more quietly. "Yet."

"You're telling me to, like, show up at your house and yell at you?" Little asked, raising an eyebrow at that.

[a-gentle-death.insanejournal.com]

He gave a soft chuckle, "in my line of work you always learn how to talk to people. More importantly, how to listen." He shrugged, "call it what you will. You are facing something big and unavoidable. In the end you can choose to learn how to deal with it."

He nodded, "Absolutely. Just give some heads up so I'm not half asleep." He smirked, "And I understand not wishing to tell your parents and I won't force you, but the more you hide something the more people tend to find it."

[littlekemp.insanejournal.com]

"I don't really want to deal with it at all," Little sighed. "That's how I'm doing it so far. Just, like, pretending it's not even real? And I really don't want to tell my parents. Like... not ever or at all." She rubbed her eyes with the balls of her palms until she saw white spots and then dropped them again. "I think about running away, just somewhere far away so I wouldn't have to tell them."

[a-gentle-death.insanejournal.com]

"but in the end, they will still know. Far away or close enough they'll still find out." He tilted his head, "secrets have a way of coming out whether you want them to or not. Better they know now."