I am so tired.
I feel like I never get enough rest from anything. I live in constant fear of sleeping my day off away.
I want to be loved the way I love. I want to have a best friend to hold me when I'm sad. I want to be swept off my feet in some bookish romance.
I want to feel alive. It's been so fucking long since I've felt alive.
I don't want to cry anymore. I want to smile and I want to laugh.
I don't want to be sensitive and dramatic. I don't want to be overbearing. I want someone to love me as I am, my good and my bad.
I want the planet to live and I want my friends to be able to live comfortably. I want them to feel safe.
But we're not living in a book. I am not an Aelin, no matter how much I lay in bed wishing I was.
There isn't a Casteel to love me blindly despite everything.
Reading and writing has always been my safety net.
But you plague me here now too. You haunt me. You grow beautiful roses that distract me while your thorns stab me in the neck.
I have no safety.
Nowhere is safe from you.
