𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝘿𝙀𝙑𝙄𝙇'𝙎 𝘿𝙀𝘼𝙇 - 𝙔𝘼𝙉𝘿𝙀𝙍𝙀 𝘼𝙇𝘼𝙎𝙏𝙊𝙍 𝙓 𝙍𝙀𝘼𝘿𝙀𝙍

17.

━━━

I don't. 

I truly, utterly don't.

I don't want to avoid Alastor.

But I don't want to be a bad person. 

To this non-biological family I've harboured, to this hotel, to everyone. 

Because when I've caved this deep within my feelings, I don't believe I have the willpower to crawl out. 

And the fact that we live within the same premises makes this all the more impossible.

I like Alastor.

Much more than I had initially planned to. And that's what scares me the most.

I knew I shouldn't have grown so naturally comfortable around him; I truly warned myself to my core. 

Yet here I am, carrying feelings so indescribably overwhelming that I mentally implode whenever I catch a glimpse of anything scarlet red. 

Because any trace of red is a glimpse of the man I have fallen for, within an overflowing ocean of infatuation I drown in from the waking hour to the passing night. 

Alastor. 

━━━

Mimzy's attempt at forcibly lowering my work confidence by her empty words and backhanded compliments have ceased against her leave, a leave being one I cannot complain of. 

I knew her feelings towards me, and it wasn't my place to sway such feelings.

I am not one to push, nor pressure what is clearly unneeded. If she doesn't like me, that's fine. 

Even so, I find myself continously reminiscing on the thing's she has stated, called, or judged me for. 

My profession, my appearences, anything and everything she can possibly observe.

As much as I didn't wish it hurt, these factors of judgement are awfully similiar to the way's Valentino has judged me throughout the time he and I have worked together. How he's observed me, created unwanted conclusions for me, the patchy bruises, the scars, all too much to bear.

All to layer my skin, as if I am the canvas of his ridicule.

 As if my body lacks the nerves of pain to feel each mark inflicted, as if I am nothing but a bag of bone and organs. 

To see such marks, permanently deepened against my body, are physical reminders of such words used against me. Similar words from my living years, to my death. To think that the words and actions which hurt me in such a way during my life, even after my death, have never stopped to inflict. 

To suffer, to drown, that sickening, purple tone painting my body by the judgement of my skill. Marked against me towards my failure's, mistakes and accidents. And the human mind can only hold it's wall of protection for so long, it's persistence granted for it's will to 'win'. 

Yet once that wall gains even a single fracture, it shatters.

And am I to let it shatter?

To be weak?

A frail mind with an even more frail body, bruised and battered, aching and tender?

What would become of me?

My afterlife? 

I consider such. Every waking moment. What would become of me if I were to let that wall shatter, to let every word, every ache of pain, every single physical, sensory-blurring reminder of his infliction fracture my wall?