Moments In Between

Chapter 1

Songs For This Chapter: "LEECHES by Melanie Martinez" & "Nobody by Mitski"

 Billows of cellophane like clouds rolled past the madness of the stilling background. The warm rays that pierced through the thin shades of the cafe made her now broiling skin become slick with sweat. Her head was pulling the muscles in her shoulders and neck taut. It felt as if her forehead was moments from popping open from the pressure.

A hand on her shoulder sharpened and opened the floodgates of sound.

"Leanna. You ready to hand off? It's 1 o'clock."

A quick breath, swallow, and nod was the anchor now keeping her from drifting into thoughts too deep to tread while at work. She stretched her lips up and across her face into a pleasurable smile before she carried on with the list of tasks that had been completed. One of her fellow managers now stood across from her, indifference cooling his features. She had admired this coworker for his ability to remain calm despite all the hecticness that came with running a cafe. No drama had ever left a chip on his shoulder, no customer had ever made him itch into a fury. She wished she were like a lot of people in her life but also hoped that she was like none of them.

She had many faults. Those flaws had turned to coal staining guilt. She kept what deemed her a bad person in her world tied up so that no one had to deal with it.

As she gathered her bag and prepared for the headphones that were about to smother out the sound, she said her cheery goodbyes to her coworkers. Stepping through the doorway and out into the tolerable heat she dropped the heavy facade of happiness from her face and made way toward her house.

She had always been unsatisfied with her life but recently she had found it to be a sad repetition of actions.

Wake up.

Get ready.

Go to work.

Get food.

Go home.

Go to sleep.

Repeat.

She filled her time with books and music and art and video games and the occasional friend. None of this had ever filled the void that laid leaden in her chest every breathing moment of her day. No friend had ever truly seemed like a friend to her. They could have checked every box in the qualifications for being one, but she always found herself in this unbreakable bubble. A thick wall of glass between her and those that she called friends or family. As if one of the many masks she had made for herself had morphed into a mirror and casted what the people around her wanted to see.

When she was alone, she was truly herself, not happy, but content with the comfort solitude often brought her. That solitude always evolved into a loneliness that yearned for a cure. She desperately waited for someone she could peel her skin, move muscle for, to show the gory picture that was her. She wanted to be able to trust someone without the faint burning scratch of a knife teasing its way along her spine. She wanted to discover and be herself without judgment, but this was a dream she was starting to give up on. These past few years the insidious feeling of anger and resentment had been eating away at her will.

All the friends and acquaintances she'd had over her short lifetime, at some point or another, felt as though they were a leech. Although she had little to offer but the comfort and wise words that often fell flat on her own deaf ears. She acknowledged how she avoided her own emotions and reflection. How she nurtured and stayed in outgrown relationships in order to make her feel as though she had purpose. Besides her ability to make others feel better, she had found little that she could contribute to the world. She had no purpose but to be a therapeutic punching bag for those that she cared for. There had been no breath of relief, no sympathy thrown her way. Her entire life she had sat across from those who claimed to care for her and listened. Listened to their thoughts and feelings while hers were always forgotten or brushed off, the negativity suddenly too much for such a nice day. She rarely ever offered up her emotions, thoughts, or stories of the past anyways. Her father had taught her that crying, whining about hardships was for the weak. Emotions were never spoken about as they were bleak, and as long as you didn't think about it, it would probably go away. As a woman there were already too many weaknesses that she wore on her sleeve for someone to take advantage of. So, there was no time, no room for tears or talks about fear.