It's like the good old days of me barfing feelings into fictional characters, I say, as if I stopped doing that ever.
tw: abuse ment, dissociation, abuse aftermath, and uh ig implied momentary passive suicidal ideation? It's like one sentence you pick your battles and your limits.
Enjoy.

Strawberries are acidic. They have to be, in their youth, to not die prematurely. They're still acidic in adulthood, but cover it up with sugar, to make one eat them by the handful, smiling and unaware they're part of a plan. Then the strawberry, if it's lucky, will have its seeds spread around to make more strawberries.

They're sour until they're coated in sugar. They're best a deep, dark red. Don't eat green or white ones.

But sometimes the red one is not just tart, it's sour. A façade of a strawberry hiding under the promise of sweetness only to be sour, or maybe an old strawberry with invisible rot and mold, waiting to make you oh, so sick.

You were an idiot and ate the sour strawberries. Everyone thought you were happy as you hid the mold from their view.

Never love a sour strawberry, lest you start to fear all strawberries, seeing mold where there isn't, renouncing everything she loved.

It was her favorite fruit. Maybe still is. But you can't even see one before the sour taste crawls up your throat. You choke it down and ignore how strawberry shortcake is her favorite, and you can't look at it anymore without thinking about how her lipstick, despite being dark, tasted like the dessert when you kissed. You can't watch horror movies, especially not the ones you watched together. The monster on the screen holds nothing to the unreal presence of her hugs and her too-tight handholding.

Tucker wants to play DOOM with you, and you don't want to disappoint him, but her username appears in the top scores and you spend an hour with your hand to your chest breathing and pleading for your heart to slow down. You and Tucker sit in the stairways and you feel terrible for dragging him with you like this, but he says it's fine. You long to believe him, but you can't help but wonder if you're a sour strawberry to him, if maybe he'll look at the night sky or vanilla ice cream and feel a pang of hurt because dammit why are you so down she never really hurt you.

You feel blank sometimes, and you walk around some days like you're just holding a Danny-shaped puppet, making him walk around limply and fight and go to class and numb out completely when you feel her glance at you, a blip on her radar now that you two broke it off. Your eyes are open and your hand is moving but it's only when Tucker or a teacher taps your shoulder that you're awake. Your notebook is full of notes you can't remember taking, and you pass tests with questions you don't recognize.

Everyone thinks you dumped her. Maybe because you did, in a way. You like to think she dumped you first when she kept putting things on you as if you should manage her emotions. The time you spent choking down the fruit leaves you unable to talk about your feelings, because then you're like her and she drowned you with her words. You don't want to drown others with yours.

Ghosts are going a little easy on you now, caught on and stopped teasing you about "the Goth girl". Kitty even asked you if you wanted to talk. But ghosts are beings of emotion and if you spilled and poisoned, they might not be able to escape. You always turn her down, but she never stops asking. It makes you feel… visible, tangible.

Tucker pokes and prods sometimes, even when he means not to. Those conversations always end with thick silence as you give up trying to get him to see it was all your fault because if you hadn't… and if you had just kept up the charade she wouldn't have snapped so much, and from helping Jazz study you know anger is a secondary emotion caused by hurt. So by proxy you hurt her, and it was all by your hand. You made her angry, you made her lash out with your… it was always something different, but it was always something you couldn't really change, like your annoying voice and your spineless attitude and your inability to back her up and your neediness and your selfishness and how you like to pretend you're a hero and if she were you she would do so much more to help.

She led you to the water but you didn't have to drink it.

You're looking at the mirror for the first time in a while, tracing your face with your fingers and watching the reflection do the same. He slides his index finger over the bags under his eyes and traces the scratches where you had cried and wanted to just stop crying. They wouldn't scar, not with accelerated healing and the fact they were the scratches that don't even draw blood. They just make it look like you were shedding skin like a snake for a few minutes until they were gone.

You spent a long time in the shower with the lights off, tracing the tiles of the shower wall and mumbling to yourself, just something to make the vocal chords hum and keep you at least somewhat there so you could actually shower instead of stare at nothing.

You sit in your room with your towel over your damp hair and a loose shirt on and trace your tendons and veins with your fingers. You shake your head at the thought of if she would finally be happy if… well, even if she were, Tucker wouldn't. Your family wouldn't. And you care more about them than her, you think. You hope.

Your ghost sense goes off and you transform and float up to the OPS Center. It's Kitty without Johnny or Shadow. She turns to look at you, expecting you to show up. Your feet land on the metal roof and she walks to you. You look at the ground, watching the way the two of you glow. You're dimmer than her, maybe because you're half human, maybe because you're defective somehow.

"I was brighter before," you mumble.

"You're drained," she answers. She floats in silence before sighing. "Do you want to talk about it? Do you want another ghost to talk to? Don't tell anyone, but Johnny is worried too. He's such a sweetheart." She smiles at the thought of her partner, a feeling you don't relate to. "Ember, too, and Desiree, but again, it's a secret."

You nod and sit on the roof to stare at the sky. You can't help but glance at where her house is and realize even if I changed my number she knows were I live she's human she could sneak in if she wanted to I'm not safe anywhere.

"Phantom— Danny, breathe. You're safe."

"No," you feel your vocal cords hum uncomfortably against your throat.

You can't get it. You've fought so much worse but a human girl your age can being you crashing down with what? Affection? Harsh truth? Slaps that didn't really do much but were somehow terrifying in the moment, even as a superpowered being?

Toxic relationship, you hear Jazz say.

Abusive, not your fault, you hear Tucker say.

"You know," Kitty says, perhaps also lost in thought, "I didn't mind that time we spent together back when I overshadowed that girl. You're a sweet kid. So, if you think you deserve what happened, you're wrong."

It's a jarring experience, having an "enemy" say that. You don't need the approval of a person you fight and put into a Thermos a couple of times a month depending on what goes on in her afterlife, but it still has a soothing effect. You don't realize you're leaning on her shoulder until she puts her arm around you and looks at the twenty-first century world around her.

"I could have changed," you say, unable to control your innermost thoughts from spewing out. "She could have changed. Maybe it would have worked out if I had tried harder." Kitty stays silent, looking at the sky. "I…"

"Try this," she says once you seem to lose your thoughts. "Imagine we changed places. Imagine I was in your situation. What would you call that?" You freeze.

"Wrong, clearly," you say, confused. "Love shouldn't mean suffering."

"Okay, so why are you the exception?" She asks. "What about you is so special or so unique that somehow you're the exception to the rule that no one should be treated like that?"

You're at a loss. Your eyes burn and your vision blurs. She squeezes your shoulder.

"I don't know," you admit. "I don't know. Because maybe I still love her and it's just hard," you squeeze your hands into fists, "to know someone you wanted the best for would think so little of you and that everyone thought you were happy like that."

"Sounds painful."

"It is." You can't help but be honest with her. Maybe it's because she doesn't know Sammie— Sam all that well, maybe it's because you don't have to face Kitty every day the same way you would have to look Tucker or Jazz or Mom and Dad in the eyes the day after telling them you still care for Sam, that you still feel it's your fault, that you miss the good moments you two had together, that you wonder what about you was so bad she lashed out at you, if you deserved it. Maybe it's because this feels like a pocket in time and next week she'll pretend you never talked about this as she hugs Johnny and they speed in their motorcycle having fun and making a mess, bringing structure to your fallen apart life.

You tell her this for some reason.

"Strawberries make me nervous," you add in. You're unsure why. "It's her favorite fruit. It's like I can't escape her when I see them." There's no judgement, only raised eyebrows as the statement is processed.

"I can see why you'd feel that way." Kitty's eyes flick towards the stars. "Love is about the little things, and you loved her, maybe still do. The little things will hurt. Maybe they will keep hurting, maybe they won't." You nod along, absorbing that small bit of knowledge to help you the next time her haunting presence lingers over your shoulder when you see a slasher B movie or go to her— one of the nicest bakeries in town. It's not hers, it's a communal space.

"How do you know all of this?" you ask. You feel like the wind steals your question, but she hears it just fine.

"I wanted to work with helping people when I was alive," she answers. It's rare for ghosts to talk about their past lives. You can't help but feel special. "Do you feel better now?"

You look down at your hands. You're not squeezing anything anymore. You look her in the eyes.

"Yeah, I do. Thanks, Kitty."

"No problem. My lair is always open," she says. "Your words are safe with me. Going back to the Zone now. See you around, Ghost Boy."

"Yeah. See you." She's gone, and it's just you and the wind, and the sky, and breathing is just a little easier.

You really do feel safe right now.

One sour strawberry is not a sentence to a lifetime of them. And other fruits exist.

I'm surviving this, you decide. And it feels good.

Sour Strawberries was gonna be a multichapter and then the third time I tried to write it I still wasn't ready and laid on the floor for 7 hours. This is decidedly better and less triggering too, it checks out nicely.
Favorite and review if you'd like, I know this was slightly OOC but uh 1, projecting, 2, Experience, good or bad, changes people.

See y'all around.