Other Worlds - The Wilds

Chapter 43

Hi all! Long little chapter for you today! Sorry for the delay. Things should return to normal timings next week. Lots of love!!

————

  Toni's feet dragged along the pavement on the walk home. A thick, sick feeling in her chest. Similar to what she felt chasing after Shelby but less hopeful. It dragged her down, the heaviness in the chest. It took everything in her to stop it from dragging her to the cold ground.

    They where back where they started. A year or so later. It struck Toni how disappointing it was that she didn't really even have a starting date for their relationship. It has been so fucked up from the start — whenever that was — they were doomed, they just didn't know it.

  Well they knew it, they just chose to ignore it.

  Toni contemplated whether it was worth it. It took her a shameful few seconds to land on 'yes'. It would always be worth it.

  Maybe to you, Shelby's voice whispered, Toni spun around rapidly, but now one was there.

  "Get out of my fucking head." Toni muttered to herself angrily, swiping away the rogue tears that she had tried so hard to stop from falling.

  She wondered why she even bothered, Martha was going to see right through her when she got back home, tears or no tears.

  Home. She still had that. There was a time where Shelby was all she had. The reversal felt foreign. As though a part of her identity had shifted and she was still trying to understand how it fit. She wasn't the foster kid without a permanent home who found solace in kindred spirits anymore, but the orphan with a new family and her own bedroom. She was inching closer to normality, normal problems and a normal life. But it all felt so far from that, as if normality was not something that she was made for.

   The wind whistled wildly around the trees which failed to resist bending at the wind's will, dark clouds and atmosphere gathered above and around her, emulating the way she felt. A selfish thought, in her opinion; but it didn't stop her from having it.

   Toni walked slowly, stepping over each crack in the pavement. Her mind focussed on nothing except avoiding those cracks, it was easier to distract her mind than recover from her thoughts.

  "Toni." Her head whipped to the side. Martha. She hadn't wanted to see her but now it was all she would do to not run into her arms.

  The world seemed darker, but Martha was like a beacon on a remote island, sitting on her porch steps with thinly veiled concern clouding her relieved expression at seeing Toni.

  She got up off of the step and made her way to Toni, each step towards her making Toni feel less and less lonely. "What happened? Where did you go?"

  "It's, uh-" she cleared her throat in an attempt to hide the break in her voice. "Well, Shel-" She shouldn't have tried; Shelby's name falling apart on her tongue. A name that first brought her feelings of loathing, then love, now grief. Total heart-wrenching loss.

  The porch light flickered, Martha's silhouette finally closing the gap between them. There was a comfort that only being in Martha's arms could bring her. Her sister.

  Toni didn't hear what Martha said. Instead just simply basking in the physical comfort that she could provide, something that verbal affirmation and reassurance couldn't reach.