In Between | Eren Jaeger

chapter 4 | pizza party

I hated talking about my feelings.

I was the type to bottle it all up and dispose of the jar so that I didn't have to deal with the aftermath of an emotional outburst. Maven had always joked that I was really emotionally in-tune with my surroundings and it didn't make sense to me, because he was the emotional one, not me. I felt with my fists instead of talking out my feelings and back then, it provided a sufficient solution to half my problems.

On the other hand, Maven cried when he felt anything, happiness, sadness, anger, it all result in a plethora of tears and angst and I hated it, not because of the way he expressed himself but at times, I felt completely helpless. I wanted to be the one to take his pain away but the only way I knew how to do that was to run away, metaphorically I mean. But one could argue that, in a way, I did physically run away from my problems by moving to another country. However, that decision wasn't mine to make, but my mother's. And for the longest time, I resented her for it. I was only twelve and suddenly, I was leaving my entire life behind all because she decided that it was better to ignore reality by replacing it with her own, make-believe fantasy.

My anger had fizzled out over time. I no longer resented her for the decision that she made, but no matter how much self-reflection I did, I could never understand why she did what she did, why she said what she said, what had happened to make everything fall apart so easily as if our family was made out of glass. I missed the way things were before and this house was a reminder of it.

The picture frames hanging on the walls, the very first time I won a taekwondo tournament, the silver medal Maven won for his piano recital at a cross-school competition, the many times where I tried out different sports for fun but never stuck with one, the certificates Maven won at spelling bees, and the list was endless. Some of the frames were taken down and judging by the nails hanging out of the walls, I had broken some of the pictures in a fit of rage but back then, not even pictures could fill in the hole that was drilled into my brain and left me feeling so empty inside. I wanted answers, but all I was left with were more and more questions.

"Hey, Jugular." Ant glanced at me while prepping the pizza dough on the table. "What's with the frown on your face?"

"I don't frown." I frowned. "And stop calling me weird names."

"What ever do you mean, July?"

I rolled my eyes.

"Are you sure nothing's wrong?" He looked unconvinced. "My cockles sense a... disturbance in the atmosphere."

My nose scrunched. "Your what?"

"My cockles."

"And what are... your cockles?"

He looked at me as if I was the one who invented random terminology out of thin air. "You know, the thing in your throat."

"Right," I nodded, "and how does that connect with your intuition?"

"Because it's more than just the thing in my throat." He locked his fingers together seriously. "It's who you are, your personality, everything to do with your identity and your soul."

"Ah, understood." I said absentmindedly. "Well, I think your cockles are malfunctioning."

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh."

We stared at each other.

"Well, then." Ant cleared his throat and continued distributing the items on the table. "If you ever wanna talk, I'm all ears. Or not, you don't have to talk if you don't want to. You can telepathically emit brainwaves towards me and I'll try and decipher the code- or something like that."