ephemeral [ Conrad Fisher ]

34

Conrad

THE night felt heavy as I lay in bed, my mind restless, as I continued tossing and turning in the darkness. Sleep eluded me, slipping through my fingers just like my life had been the past few months. Frustration knotted my muscles, and my thoughts circled back to today, to my dad, to Jeremiah and most of all, my mom.

Unable to find solace in sleep, my mind turned to Lennox. She was my anchor, the one who could soothe the storm in my head with a simple touch. I frowned, realizing that I needed her now more than ever. Quietly, I slipped out of bed and padded across the hall to her room.

Her door, usually open, was closed. It struck me as odd, but my weariness overshadowed any curiosity. I knocked softly, expecting her to welcome me in with a comforting smile. Silence met me instead. My brow furrowed as I tried the door handle. Locked.

Why would she lock her door now? What had shifted in the delicate balance of us? I hesitated, my hand still on the doorknob, A sense of unease settled in my chest, that same tightness that had lingered and consumed me the night I had followed Belly instead of her. But this was different, I knew it was different as I turned the door handle once more. This couldn't be happening. She had never locked her door on me, never turned her back on me, never locked me out. She had always been there, always been my person, even if I didn't tell her what thoughts were plaguing my mind. She had never left me to fend for myself.

Why would she lock me out? Shut me out?

Maybe it was what Jeremiah had seen earlier. The closeness with Belly. The almost kiss. I was trying to let Belly down gently, explain to her that Lennox was all I wanted, that she was my person but I hadn't had the chance before the situation literally blew up in my face.

I stood there for a moment, feeling that familiar ache in my chest. I had messed up tonight, made a mess of everything, and now the one constant I could rely on seemed just out of reach. Lennox had always been the one to ground me, to pull me back from the edge of whatever self-destructive tendencies were gnawing at me. And now, when I needed that anchor, it felt like the door was firmly closed. The comfort I usually found in her presence was replaced by a cold realization – I might have hurt her, and in doing so, I was losing the haven I had come to rely on. It was an unfamiliar sensation, like standing at the edge of a precipice, uncertain of what lay beyond.

I lingered outside her door, a heavy sigh escaping my lips. The vulnerability of the moment pressed down on me. I considered knocking, but the words caught in my throat. Instead, I retreated, retracing my steps to my room. The emptiness of the night pressed in on me, and for the first time, I felt a true sense of profound loneliness. The walls seemed to close in, and the quiet echoed with the absence of the one person who had always been there for me.

I sank onto the edge of my bed as the walls seemed to close in around me. The quiet was oppressive, broken only by the erratic cadence of my breath. Panic was a familiar companion, but tonight, its grip was particularly tight.

The thoughts that usually lurked in the shadows of my mind crept forward, becoming a relentless onslaught. My mother's illness, my father's infidelity — these were the demons that clawed at the edges of my consciousness, threatening to consume me whole.

The weight of my responsibilities pressed down on me like a boulder. Protecting Jeremiah had become a ceaseless battle, and each day seemed to add another layer of complexity. The burden of shielding him from the truth about our father's betrayal and my mothers sickness — were both secrets I bore alone — and they were eating at the edges of my sanity.

But it wasn't just these worries that had me in a choke hold, there was another, newer layer of torment, more immediate and raw. The weight of Lennox's absence bore down on me like an anchor dragging me into the depths. She, who had been my solace, my refuge, now felt like a distant star slipping from my grasp. My mind conjured Lennox's face, a flicker of her eyes filled with disappointment and hurt. The thought of having lost her after finally, finally having her, pierced through me like a blade. The vulnerability of the moment swirled with my deepest fears, creating a darkness that threatened to swallow me whole. The realization that I might have lost her, just as I had come to understand the depth of my feelings for her, was an ache that reverberated through every fiber of my being.

My heart pounded, each beat a painful reminder of the fragility of the connections we cherished. The fear of losing Lennox clawed at me, a visceral, overwhelming terror that eclipsed everything else. In that moment, the walls of my room seemed to finally close in, trapping me in a suffocating darkness.

Gasping for air, I clutched at my chest, a desperate attempt to calm the storm within. The panic attack surged, a torrent of emotions threatening to drown me. The room blurred as tears welled in my eyes, a silent acknowledgment of the anguish that gripped me.

The questions echoed in my mind, accusations and self-recriminations intertwining in a dissonant symphony. Was I losing everything that mattered? Had the fractures in my carefully constructed facade become irreparable fault lines?

I clutched at the sheets, trying to ground myself. But the threads that held me together were unraveling. The vulnerability, the sense of loss, the sheer helplessness — they converged into a darkness that began to engulf me.

Images of Lennox slipping away, of Jeremiah discovering the painful truths I'd shielded him from, of my mom succumbing to the insidious grasp of cancer — they flashed before my eyes in a dizzying montage.

I gasped for air, a desperate attempt to break free from the vice around my chest. In the solitude of my room, the battle within me raged on, a war zone of fears and regrets.

The night wore on, and I fought against the shadows that threatened to consume me. In the quiet hours before dawn, I grappled with the fears that held such a tight grasp on me— the fractures in my family, the fear of losing those I held dear, and the haunting absence of Lennox, the girl who had alway been my person.

As the first light of morning tiptoed across the horizon, I lay there, battered and exhausted, the remnants of the panic attack clinging to me like a shadow, waiting for the dawn that seemed too reluctant to arrive.

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Sorry for the delay finals kinda killed me, also extremely sorry for such a sad chapter. I hope you're all doing well :)