State of Confusion

Chapter 15

- ANA -

Two weeks later...two long and miserable weeks later.

Habits are hard to break. Bad ones are even harder to shake, but how does one rid themselves of something or someone so easily? It's not like one day you go to sleep and the next you wake up completely detached from said habit. It takes time, strength, and more than anything the will to simply let go, and even then one can't do that without the proper state of mind.

Oh, the bittersweet taste of internal struggle. Just the mere thought of her battle within between the past and the present made her feel utterly pathetic.

Ana...Ana..."Earth to Ana," the distance voice became very much loud and clear.

Looking up from her coffee cup, Kate stood on the other side of the kitchen table with a concerned expression upon her flawless, feminine face. She really wished she wouldn't look at her like she was a fragile glass sculpture waiting to crash into a million pieces, even if she felt like it at times. "Are you sure you're okay to go back to work?"

"Yes, Kate." She replied firmly and tried to disguise the hint of annoyance in her tone.

"Don't you think it's a bit too soon for you to be throwing yourself back into work after everything that has happened?"

Was there a bright, red stamp that read fragile written across her forehead?  Quite frankly, she was tired of the notion that labeled her as delicate. If it wasn't her parents who upheld her to such then it was Kate. A constant fight to prove that she was much more than a poorly coordinated human being at times. She was stronger than she appeared. She was more confident and feisty than she led on to be. She knew this version of her existed because she was reminded of that girl every night as she closed her eyes and fell asleep. The dreams, the memories had become a solid theme in her nightly adventures.

Rising from the kitchen table, she poured her coffee cup down the drain and uttered, "I'm fine." Ana sighed. "I need my life back. It's not like I'll be doing rounds anyway. I've been cleared for clerical work. It will help keep me busy. Take my mind off things."

"Or someone..." Kate alluded with a knowing look.

Somehow she always came full circle back to him. It didn't matter her initial thought or her conversation. It always ended with him. Christian had polluted her mind. He had become a permanent smog.

"I really have to get going."

"It will get better." Her half smile of reassurance eased her hostility toward Kate and the topic of conversation. She nodded her head simply. "I just hate seeing you like this."

"Kate..."

"I hear you at night crying in your room. You've been talking in your sleep. I have never seen you so shaken up by a guy before." She admitted.

This was the first time that Kate had confronted her about Christian. He had been off limits from the moment she had walked in the door that day after they had talked on the yacht. She could still feel the cool lake breeze brush through hair. Her skin and lips tingled at the memory of his touch that confessed his undeniable feelings for her, but none of it was enough. She would never be enough for him.

Their conversation replayed in her head if on cue. The threat of tears burned in her eyes at the thought of how defiant she had been to make sure to cut the cord that held them together that day. Up until that point, their relationship had been nothing more than a charade. The feelings were real. The attraction was there, but even she knew that it needed to be all or nothing and so she walked away. Putting the necessary distance between them hurt more than when she woke up in her hospital bed after her accident, but it was for the best...right?