The stag hunt with the scarlet heart

Chapter 3 "My age has never made me wise"

I'm drowning, and that's just a euphemism for saying that sometimes I don't feel the will to live as much as I should.

Who knows how long ago I woke up?

Who knows how long I've been tossing and turning in my nightmares?

Who knows when this feeling will pass?

The shadows hovering over me aren't sleeping, they are shouting my name; they are calling me, greeting me. I wonder if it's okay to ignore them if it's okay to continue my work as these thoughts slowly crescendo, is it okay to ignore them?

Who knows what's right?

The lines are getting thinner and thinner, I would say that my age has made me wise, but it seems that I keep pushing, pushing, and pushing against this implacable wall before me that is growing with the years, so no, my age has never made me wise. But I keep pushing and pushing.

That's something you need to know; my age has never made me wise.

Soon you'll discover things beneath my soul; soon you'll understand the excuses I use as an engine to keep pushing forward, to keep from seeing myself collapsing in the face of pain. If only I could turn it off, but I've come too far to hide it, even if my path is wrong, I'll keep going because I don't know how to turn back anymore.

I've come so far, I'd say to dazzle the end, but I keep falling, keep pushing, keep thinking about giving up like shadows lurking in the front of my brain.

I make my way to my boss's office with all these sensations hovering on my back. I touch the oak door and push it open, revealing my boss looking out at a point in the city through the window with a glass of whiskey in his hand.

"How are you, darling? There's a rumor around the office that you're in a hell of a mood today." Says when he sees me with a smile in his voice.

"I was almost run over, and I just got scared," I defend myself, the half-truth coming out of my mouth so naturally that I'm no longer surprised. "But I'm fine, but you look tired."

"I'm fine... Claudia... she..." He hesitates, and then an air of defeat hangs over us. "She is sick. She got cancer." He finishes his whiskey, which I feel in my stomach like a bullet.

I try not to be stunned at the look on his face, at the two simple sentences full of facts that are definitely shattering everything I believed, I can feel the need emanating from him. He needs me to do something, so I hide everything I feel and basically walk over to him and wrap my arms around him.

I don't feel comfortable, I never have with hugging, but this is the man who has my back when he shouldn't, so yes, I whisper words of relief.

"Everything will be all right, but I have to be with her." I nod at his words, trying to fill myself with the same hope, but I find it impossible, my personality is as fatalistic as it is negative, yet I hide it by squeezing him. "My son will take care of the publishing house in my absence." We break the hug and take a seat.

"Callum?" Jack nods. "It's okay, I'll help in any way I can, don't worry."

"I know, I trust you."

He gives me a smile before his eyes wander again, needing solitude, so I left him because honestly there's not much I can say to help.

Only time can give us the answers. Such a stupid thing, to leave our sorrows or problems in the hands of time.

My chest aches, and images come to me from when I had only been in the company for a few months, and they somehow became protective, to say the least. I tried to distance myself. I couldn't trust them completely. I didn't want to. If I did, I gave them the power to hurt me, but they never gave up —neither Jack nor Claudia.