Chapter 31: "The Flicker I Didn't Ask For"
Zariah didn't want to admit it, but Jasmine's words had cracked something open.
Not fixed.
Not healed.
Just… cracked.
And cracks let light in.
It annoyed her, honestly. Because she wasn't ready to be saved. Not yet. Not when she still hated the reflection in the mirror. Not when her chest still felt like it was collapsing under invisible weight.
But now Jasmine was watching her closer than ever.
She'd text her at night: Still breathing?
Leave notes in her locker: You're not invisible. I see you.
Sit closer. Speak softer. Listen harder.
And Zariah hated that it helped.
She still wasn't eating. She still flinched at loud sounds. She still pressed blades too close to skin just to feel the sting.
But now… sometimes she paused.
Sometimes she thought of Jasmine.
And paused.
That was the flicker.
It didn't stop the spiral—but it slowed it.
Barely.
One afternoon, after school, Zariah sat on her bed with a blade in one hand and her phone in the other. Her mind screamed. Her chest burned. Her eyes stayed dry.
She hovered for a long time—between pain and silence. Between habit and hesitation.
Then the screen lit up.
Jasmine: If it's a bad day, tell me. You don't have to talk. Just say it's bad. I'll stay on the phone with you. Even if we don't speak.
Zariah didn't respond.
But she didn't cut, either.
Instead, she sat there, staring at the message.
And for the first time in a long time, she whispered, "Maybe I don't want to die. Maybe I just want this feeling to die."
Her voice cracked on the word feeling.
Jasmine never heard it.
But Zariah did.
And that was enough to hold her for one more night.
Just one.