TW / Blood , (implied) self-harm
It didn’t occur to me before that Nina’s hands, if not always then, most time are cold. Unlike me, Nina doesn’t show love much through her body. She speaks love. Through her letters that I found in my notebook, or reminders on the end table when I woke up. Through countless names (all means ‘i like you’) she calls me.
There’s some kind of longing that my body whispered to me every time because of this. I’ve been waiting for her physical existence to answer the love I am ready to give from head to toe. Through much more than just a head rub, or quick hug. I am burning with warmth I want to share, especially to her cold hands. Yet, I have no proper words to tell her this, thus only left me waiting, staring at her until she wanted to hold my hands. The joke apparently doesn’t work that way, that fast. So I push myself, a little bit, almost literally.
It was during night screening, I saw her finally let her arm rest openly after propping her chin (it helped her to think better.) It was dark and her eyes glued to the screen, I wasn’t sure what was that expression meant but one thing that was certain, she was focused. Her fingers, stubby heh adorable, lied open as if she held an invisible wine glass and forgot to stir. My opportunity to fill that gap served to me on silver plate so I took it.
Rather than flustered, I was deep in my thought to first realize how small her hands are, almost twice smaller, and how cold (freezing) they are. It almost stung down through my skin.
“Isn’t your hands too cold?”
“It’s always like that”
It kinds of baffled me that those fingers which translates the warmth of summer through my chest was written through hands this stiff and cold.
Perhaps the aircon was blowing hard, I excused myself. I tried to find more answers when she washed the dishes. I watched as her hands scrubbing foam clean and water dripped from her nails. She flashed me a slight grin, intrigued that I am curious about her.
“I used to live in a city where it is winter all the time”
“So you are Elsa?”
Her laugh combusted, and I laughed with her. She wiped her hands through the hand towel, and I stopped her by her hand to see one more time.
Cold, it is cold.
“It’s the water, Ibby”
If Mona (her cat) could speak, she would agree with me. She finds her warm, everywhere else but her hands. Once Nina coos her to come, she will walk swiftly, rub her head to her knees, but every time Nina offers her hands, Mona dodges like a bullet comes to her direction. When she’s up to refill the juice, I invited Mona for a talk on my lap.
“So you agree with me that her hands are way often cold, isn’t it? You don’t want to get cold, right?”
Mona purred and wagged her tail, blinked at me with the big yellow eyes, curiosity of trying to understand me. Or perhaps she was staring at me because I was talking gibberish to her hearing.
The time I figured to break the ice wasn’t easy.
I was stacking the eggs in the fridge when I heard the sound of glass hitting the floor and then shattered. I called Nina to make sure she heard it too but there was no answer. Mona, instead, responding, awoke from her slumber with her ears twitched, broke the allegation that it wasn’t her doing. To this, I sped up to the main room to find Nina’s crouching, the daisies from yesterday scattered to the floor and there’s water wetting the carpet and Nina’s sweatpants.
I processed this view for awhile but no proper question seemed fit to throw, so I just called her name again.
There was no answer, her hands hanged in the air awkwardly as to think what she was about to do and I saw her talking to herself, in whisper that I couldn’t hear. My hand on her shoulder and she turned finally, offering me her vexed smile.
“I am sorry, I wasn’t looking, my mind-” her words interrupted by how she kneeled and started to pick up the vase, remnants of it. I watched before coming back to my senses. Stopping her arm to reach smaller pieces of the glass.
“You don’t pick up glasses with your hands. I’ll be back”
The dustpan and plastic bag was in my mind at that time but it vanished from my head because I saw Nina kept on trying to collect the broken pieces on the floor. Desperately tried to stitch it back.
“Nina”
“It’s my dad’s”
“It’s broken now, and you’ll hurt your hand”
“Do you think it could be fixed?”
“Stop,” I raised my voice to almost a yell (I was surprised myself), tried to entangle what she had on her hand but her reflex instead told her to crush the glass on her fist and a second late by response, she yelped.
I saw her hand bleed. And none of us moved to stop it. She stared at red liquid oozed from the scratch the glass made and I was stunned that she only stared at it. Like watching a butterfly comes out of its cocoon. It didn’t scare her.
Maybe it was too unsettling for me that my mind was elsewhere too. Later on, I assisted her to stand and sit by the dining table. I would’ve had went on and on with ‘what were you thinking?’ and stuffs and she would laughed at me with ‘okay, dad’, but we were sitting in silence as I dipped cotton balls on her palm. It wasn’t as easy as I watched on the movie, but I tried to hold it in. She gave in for my trembling hands, dabbed hers clean. I stroked her hands while I was at it, trying to give them a little life. By this distance, I noticed what I missed before: the lines of the texture of her skin and how she had scars by the back of her hand. Straight lines, slightly darker with another line lighter inside disarray. I traced them with my fingers, and I felts she was trying some force to pull herself out of my grip but I held her to stay still.
“I broke my dad’s heart like I broke that vase”
“We all have some broken parts”
“Are you?”
“Of course”
I can see her eyes questioned me and I answered with a thin smile, hoping to tell her that I understand. And I knew she waited for a story but that day wasn’t about me. She winced when the Betadine sinked in and I blowed her wound to ease the pain, remembered how my mother used to do it for me. When the bandage hugging her palm tight, I rubbed her fingertips before bringing them to my clasp. This time the warmth I tried to send also there on her cheeks.
“I like cold and I easily absorb it, my body tries to preserve the heat but it is struggling because I start to be cold inside out. I think my feet are always colder than my hands though”
My lips tight shut, wanting her to continue.
“I look like a thin ice isn’t it? Cold and fragile”
She giggled but I only stared at her. She caught me not smiling so she sighed. Patting my hands back to assure me but I didn’t hear anything because my mind was blurred and I ended up hugged her head to my chest. She just sat there stiff. As if it was the first hug she ever received.
I could feel words in her mind jumbled and struggled to go to my head without power to be spoken. I could feel her arms around me, gripping hard so she wouldn’t crumble. An excruciating and good minute of feelings untold we had exchanged in that hug.
“You could be a thin ice and I still would walk over to hold you”
“You could’ve drowned”
“I am a swimmer”
“But it was a very cold water”
“I will jump right over, into cold, cold water with you”
She got tears in her eyes as she looked up to me, but laughter was the one that echoed in the room.
“Justin Bieber? Really?”
“I am sorry, honey, I know no Jane Austen to quote right now”
“It is better”
So I hummed some more,
And although time may take us into different places
I will still be patient with you
And I hope you know
Her shoulder no longer stiff on my embrace and I could feel a pool of my shirt got wet (so did my eyes, slightly), but there’s warmth creeping to my chest.
I won’t let go
Later that evening when I found out she fell asleep with thumb and forefinger as a bookmark on the book splayed open on the couch, I removed the book quietly, replaced it with my hand.
I didn’t even realize that as if on cue, my lips stretched for a smile.
Her hand was warm.
I got caught
‘Could I possibly get a reason of why you want to hold hands so bad?’
‘I like holding hands. How about you?’
‘Well…that was nice’
‘Nice? I am sad’
‘Okay, I admit that feels good’
‘Don’t let go then’
‘I won’t for now’
‘For now?’
‘In next hour or minutes I will be going to the bathroom or holding something else’
‘I’ll come with you then’
‘Ibby!’
Cause we all get lost sometimes, you know?
It’s how we learn and how we grow
And I wanna lay with you ’til I’m old
You shouldn’t be fighting on your own
