Freefall | Eren x OC

Chapter 07: It's Your Birthday

The next day you wake up abruptly at 7 o'clock. It's official, you're 30. You raise your hand and gaze at it through sleepy eyes, half expecting wrinkles to have formed overnight. Of course, they haven't, and you sluggishly pull yourself out of bed.

You walk through your walk-in closet to the bathroom with frosted windows overlooking the street. You stare at yourself in the mirror, you don't look any different, but you feel completely different. You feel like you've moved away from yourself, like you're staring at your life through a camera screen. Like there's a veil between you and the life you lead.

You groan in sad resignation. You really took what LaMarcus said to heart, truth be told, it kept you awake till well into the morning hours. You know he's right but there's a part of you that can't believe that holding on to the past reads as a sort of flaw in you, a way for you to avoid your own future happiness. You leave the bathroom through its second door and walk through the narrow hallway of the second floor till you reach the door of your room. You look at the memorabilia taking up space on your second-floor mezzanine and purse your lips. You look at the photos lining the wall of your hallway. Pictures of your father's family, black and white photos of members long dead before you moved in, hell before you were even born.

You've always felt a sense of sadness and disconnection with these pictures. Even though they're your family, you have always felt like an outsider encroaching upon their space. You felt that way during church sermons, the few you went to with your aunties, you felt that way during cookouts, the illegitimate daughter who effectively broke down your father's marriage and drove him to drink himself into an early grave.

Your father's funeral felt like the last straw before the family retreated and you retreated into yourself. Now many of those members are either dead or have moved far away, as if Alfred's death was the parting blow for the whole unit. Auntie May moved to Trost and died three years later, Auntie Theo moved to the mainland to be closer to her children and Auntie Grace now lives in in a care centre in Stohess, not far from your brother but far away from you. No wonder you bonded so intensely with Porco; he was all you had from the time you were 16.

You shake the feelings of ever creeping loneliness from your mind and get back to what you were doing. You had decided days ago that you intended to spend your 30th birthday looking hot and feeling fine. You had called up Rochelle and Frida, told them to get their nicest clothes together so you could go to EXXCHANGE tonight to dance to your 30s. And you intended to look just as nice for your job, with or without Tengen's wear something flashy suggestion. Today, you were a new woman after all.

You head back to the bathroom to shower and exfoliate. You frantically brushed your teeth as you styled your hair. You put on a light makeup look; you'd leave the smokey eye for tonight. You go to your closet and grab a white silk camisole, black pants, a black blazer, and bright red high heels to top the look off. You walk downstairs and grab your car keys; you intend to go to your building's nearby tea shop for your breakfast today. You close the door, knowing full well that the house would fall into that silence, that same dreaded deafening silence that will greet you like a lover when you walk through the door tonight.

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"Ahhh there's my birthday girl," Lord Tengen exclaims as he walks outside of his office to stare at your desk. "How does it feel to be this side of 30? Felt some lower back pain when you got up?" He laughs smugly as he leans on the door frame with his newspaper.

You roll your eyes mockingly. "Oh, ha ha, very funny Lord Tengen. I'm feeling so incredibly different. My bones all creaked in rhythm this morning."

He smiles at that before playfully tapping your shoulder with his newspaper. "Come on, you know I'm kidding." With that he comes over and kisses your cheek and rubs your shoulder as you stiffen slightly. "Come on, you know I am Kitten," he murmurs into your cheek.