Unsuspecting Blessing.

xxix

 xxix

The day after we returned the legal papers to his Father, which felt more of a symbolic gesture than anything because we could have thrown them away and simply given him a call or message or email or even a letter would have sufficed, I had a wealth of dismay gorging all my positive emotions. The realization that I did not have any professional support in a legal battle that would decide my financial future for most likely all my years of college put a darkened well deep inside me that was filled with hair-pulling stress. Like a forming fissure, my mental state felt as if it would spiral into a deadly earthquake any second. More importantly, I wished to keep securing my relationship with Brian, but that unavoidable dread chained me to the ground with horns watching me not far behind; I feared a deep rabbit hole that I knew would eventually consume us both.

Help me, I thought, as I awoke. All my worries had been contained in my dream that night previous, but as my eyes opened they escaped into reality before I could stop them. Class felt long that day, longer than ever. Longer than when I had first returned and the pains in my leg were ceaseless. That feeling that obliquely sent me laterally was far worse than any physical pain. I truly knew how a family struggling with poverty felt at that very moment, and of course, I had to be taking a final exam at the same time. Soon the time to be getting a job for the summer would have been upon me, and the scarcity of my time punctured all the reserved hopefulness that I had stored during my time with Brian. Oh Brian, I thought, I don't want to let you know my troubles so. But then I kicked myself for not paying attention to my exam, and for thinking like an ignorant poet.

After the exam had finished not an ounce of weight felt lifted from my shoulders, or rather my legs, and Brian approached me in the hallway.

"How did it go?" he asked, promptly and positively. "That bad, huh?" he then responded to my doubtless grimace.

"I'm not so worried about the exam," I said, trying to keep the conversation train from going to the financial station, "I know I'll pass."

"Then what's bothering you?" he asked, despite the fact that I knew, that he knew very well what bothered me. His face pushed towards me for a moment as we walked, like he was going to speak on the subject matter, but he inevitably paused before finding the right string of words so as to not upset me further.

I hated the stress, I hated the black acid that constantly ate up my stomach and made me want to vomit, and most of all I hated unintentionally forcing Brian to walk on eggshells around me. He had gotten so used to my mannerisms and my emotions, just as I had for him, but the sharp change in me dominated even his will to spark conversation. Life began to grow just as it was before he and I met; unvaried. He still helped me, and stayed with me, and did all as before, but the depression that I brought to the table did not match his enthusiasm and we fell into a monotonous trend of mundane life; something that I felt, and feel, happened to my foster parents preexisting my arrival as a child.

I longed to be the completion to his happiness, but that felt impossible when I could not find my own. The rest of the day I spent in my room after arriving back at my apartment, and Brian went to his Mom's house to consult her about something which I was unsure of at the time. Somehow, in my bed, the fires in my leg started to rise thicker once again even after all my progress and the world felt as if to crumble around me.