What's Said in Silence

Vessel-XXXXVII

The blinding light poured through the slits of my mask, making my pounding headache so much worse than it already was. I turned my head away from it, only to have my mask dig into the side of my face. I enjoyed sleeping with Sera, but sleeping with my mask on was getting tiresome. 

I stretched an arm across the bed, only to find it was empty. I pried my eyes open and lifted my head, examining the emptiness. What time was it? I peered over at her bedside alarm clock. it was almost noon. A curse fell from my lips as I lifted myself out of the bed. I needed water and an asprin, but all I wanted was a cup of tea. 

I made my way into the kitchen and pulled the kettle from the cabinet. I looked around, realizing that she wasn't in the living room either. I went to check the rest of the house while I waited for my tea. After a quick walk-through I still caught no sight of her. If she wasn't here where was she? 

The thought of her going out into town by herself tore through me like a dagger. My headache became the least of my worries as I checked through the house once more, as if I might have overlooked her the first time. 

I walked back through the kitchen and headed towards the back of the house where the laundry room was. She wasn't there either. Dammit. I turned on my heel and was just about to call Jessie to see if he knew where she was, when a flash of strawberry-blonde caught my attention from outside the back patio. My nerves calmed almost instantaneously, although it took my heart rate a little time to catch up. What was she doing out there?  

I peeked through the window and found her scrapping dirt out from the grout. It's absolutely fucking freezing and she was outside cleaning literal dirt out of the stone tiles. Had she gone mental? 

I thought back to the time I walked in on her deep cleaning the fridge, it was just after I had blown past her after our first kiss. She found a task and hyper fixated to take her mind off me. It was a stress response, to throw herself into her work, even if it meant cleaning grout.

I gently pushed the door open, wincing at the obnoxiously loud creek it made. Sera paused what she was doing and turned to look up at me. The cold nipped at my skin. I wasn't sure how long she had been out here, but the thin long sleeved shirt and jeans she wore couldn't be keeping her warm enough.

"You shouldn't be out here in this weather." I said, earning no reaction from her. "Come inside and save that for spring." It was more of a demand than a request. She stared at me for a moment before going back to cleaning the grout, effectively ignoring me. What has gotten into her?

Yesterdays events filtered through my mind, though everything past the cab ride home was a complete blur. Although, yesterday afternoon struck clear as a bell. After what we had done in the living room, I had let the memories of what my deity had told me get the better of me. I had been dismissive, yet again. It was the only thing I could come up with that would cause her to go into a cleaning frenzy, similar to how she had after our first kiss. 

The relationship- no, dynamic- that we had been cultivating was not that of roses and romance. It was a frenzied need accompanied by bad habits neither one of us seemed to be able to unlearn. It wasn't healthy for either of us, that much I could recognize, but dammit I couldn't let it go. Quite frankly, I had endured too much pain for it to be for nothing. 

It made sense why she was outside, and presently pretending as if I weren't standing here. Some- if not all- of her trust had disintegrated yesterday. She'd rather face the cold than sit across from me, wondering what it was that kept me pulling away from her. If only she understood just how iron clad her grip was on me. If only I could shed the compulsive actions learned over time by the actions of another.  

"I've got a session with II." I didn't. "We're going to go over some of the songs I've been working on and put the drums to it." We weren't. I stepped back into the house, allowing the door to softly close behind me. 

She wouldn't come in as long as I was here, her stubbornness wouldn't allow for that even if she wanted to. If I didn't want her frostbitten, then my best option was to call a driver and make myself scarce for a few hours. With any hope- slim hope- she'd be more apt to occupy the same space as me by the time I returned. Although, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was forgetting something.