Being Blinded

Chapter Twenty

Having twenty-four hours in a day is a scam, how on earth are we supposed to get everything done when that's all the time that we have. It feels like every minute is overtime, deciphering between real life and the chaos in my mind takes the ounces of effort that I don't have.

Like I'm being torn between feeling late for everything while arriving so unbearably early for it all in my mind, the guilt only makes me drown further. It's not the need to apologise that makes this hard, it's that I still don't know what to say that'll fix it all.

How can someone spend so long desperate to constantly give out the right answers, only to be so excruciatingly bad at accepting that it doesn't all happen like that. I have a collection of people that I love dearly trying to convince me that I don't need to have a twelve-step plan in place to make it okay to do what I want too.

"I'm trying not to be mad at you Rosie" Alfie sighs, his hands are curled around the steaming mug in front of him. "But if I let go of how I am feeling because you didn't mean it, then it... it's like I am being dishonest again"

"You can be mad at me!" I try, "You deserve to be mad at me, I kept secrets and lied about the plans I had, maybe it wasn't intentional, but I get it. I can't tell you that I love you while fielding plans that meant leaving you, and not saying anything"

"What sucks is that I knew that when you did start thinking about where you wanted to be after graduation, it could mean moving away. Phoenix has always been my plan, but I would have adjusted it for long distance"

"But now you're avoiding me, I thought we could talk all of this out and I could truly explain what my thought process was" I can't help the sigh, can't help the way my guilt doesn't make me impervious to the way he's shut himself off from me. "What do we do if you don't want that explanation? I don't want you to push your emotions down, but you have to let them change. I want to earn your forgiveness and that takes time, but at what point do I stop ignoring the feeling that this is the out you've been looking for?"

The fire of our disagreement cools in the light of his eyes, "I think you're exhausted; you have lunch with all of your family for the first time since they've come around. You should focus on that"

"And the fight I'm in with my boyfriend?"

It's the first glimpse of a grin that I've seen in a week, it's the reminder that pain doesn't erase all of the happiness, it just shadows it slightly. "Not over"

It's the strangest thing to have ever given me peace, but the reminder of where I am headed means that I am not totally surprised. Backing out of the room without a true goodbye squashes down that small flicker of hope, how can someone become so accustomed to the feel of another person and then just have to adjust to them being gone?

There's a million things more painful than causing a fight with your boyfriend, it takes three deep breaths to be able to turn the car back on and drive into town.

You know what doesn't help the situation? Having a public lunch with your parents and sister after spending years in the constant push and pull of their disapproval and cruelty, while also being encouraged to stay.

There's a line that you can't cross in situations like this, the one where you make a situation that isn't about you, centre around what you feel. It's the line that you know exists, that you tread with so much awareness but even then your brain screams.

For years they treated Phoebe like crap, pushed her out while keeping her close and I kicked, and I fought at them to snap out whatever was going on. I shouldn't have had to be the one to realise that Mum and Dad went beyond normal parental disappointments.