Empty Connections

Chapter Eighteen

You can never predict when the thief will come and go, when it leaves there is no stopping your brain from thinking that maybe this time they won't ever return. It's a vicious cycle of hope and then being let down.

Sometimes I think that life won't always feel this way, that getting better is inevitable and I don't need to pop any pills so that I can get through a week without crying. Having to force myself to take a bite of dinner because no one wants to have eight people's eyes watching their every move.

Who would want that? The pressure or to be the reason that things feel like they are constantly falling apart, I try, really, I do and yet it never seems to recede.

Rosie is beaming about Archer, Sophie and Sam are wrapped up in each other on the sofa and listening to Claudia and Hugo tell them about the amazing day they had go-karting. Everyone around me has something to look forward too and yet, I can't even let my boyfriend put his arm around me.

Just because I don't find eating my favourite thing in the world to do, having breakfast with everyone is still one of my favourite things we have ever done. No matter how busy we all have become and will continue to be as we complete our final two years, this is guaranteed time to keep each other involved.

There has been this worried haze cast at me by Cam for the last few days, the guilt in my chest feels suffocating and only gets worse the longer Cam tries to mask the hurt in his eyes. It was only a week ago that we were staring a relationship, and spending hours making tentative touches of each other's bodies.

Mostly I think he hates that he is the one seeking reassurance because all my worries seemed to drain out of my head, when the thief came and hid my happiness. What's hard is looking at him, seeing all the things that make my heart pound, and knowing it is happening but not being able to tell him I do.

There are no classes, or projects looming over my head yet, all my classes are too new, and I have at least three weeks until my first assessment. Everyone knows that, and yet no one fights me when I ditch breakfast before it's made with an excuse about studying at the quad.

The weather is still freezing, but the sun is blazing down on us and melting the frost still clinging to the grass.

Cammie: Do you want me to come keep you company, bring you anything?

Imogen: I think I will get something from Sophie's work on my way back, I just feel icky

Cammie: Call me and I will be there, okay?

Imogen: Okay

Cammie: I am right here, I'm not going anywhere

His words, even though text make emotion sting my eyes and a suffocating feeling cling to my windpipe because I know he isn't lying. Cam has proven he wasn't overexaggerating when he said caring about me isn't a chore, that he won't get sick of me, if I need more than a normal person.

I wish I wasn't sick of me.

I wish that Simon would take every hint given to him and leave me alone, it bothers me that Rosie, Claudie and I all have said something to him... some not so nice- and yet he keeps pushing this friendship.

It makes me feel like the only way to make him hear me, is to shout at the top of my lungs that I don't want him around me, that he makes my skin crawl and that I feel sorry for any patient he gets to treat in the future.

"Imogen! Nice day to study in the sun, isn't it?" Simon calls stopping in front of me and shading me from the sun as it reflects warmly off my pale skin.