Mimeomia

15 | weltschmerz

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

WELTSCHMERZ

( — sorrow that one feels and accepts as one's necessary portion in life; sentimental pessimism. )

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:⠀ *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆

2012

          MICHAELA ISN'T SURE WHEN THEY FIGURED OUT THINGS WEREN'T QUITE ALRIGHT. Sure, she and Lincoln had arguments like countless other couples sometimes had, but she had never thought of those other relationships as toxic, despite knowing they weren't as perfect as everyone else thought they were. They had disagreements and diverging opinions, but they always found a way of fixing things—either that or they swept their problems under the rug instead of properly dealing with them.

          She has never been one to speak up about her issues, preferring to bottle them up and suffer in silence, which has never failed to clash with Lincoln's 'I can fix everything' attitude—he thought he could fix her, as if she was a broken computer you could simply send to be repaired. He thought he could fix all their problems, arguing there was always another way out besides snapping at each other or not saying two words to one another for almost an entire day.

          "Michaela," he sighed, a few days short of their three-year anniversary. She sat in an armchair in his apartment, knowing she had to go back to her dorm if she wanted to get some studying done, as he was working on a novel and the sound of his fingers hitting the keyboard was beginning to get on her nerves. Her knees, which had been pulled close to her chest, felt ice-cold. "What's going on?"

          "I have to study," she murmured, teeth chattering, and watched him close the one open window, "and I'm running out of time, but there's still so much to do. I'm going to fail all my exams."

          "With brains like yours?" She didn't look up. At that point, even his voice was tiresome, and Michaela wanted to blame it all on her usual lack of patience for everything that wasn't her notes or textbooks. "You've got this. It's your senior year—"

          "You don't need to remind me of that. I'm stressed enough as it is, thank you very much."

          Lincoln sighed when she raised her voice and disappeared into the kitchen to finish making dinner. The apartment was so small there was barely any space for two people to move around, but it felt more like home than her parents' mansion or her grandparents' house in the Hamptons. Despite having earned an insane amount of money with his books, Lincoln still stayed at the apartment he had rented when he graduated from college.

          Michaela thought they were getting tired of each other.

          After almost three years together, things didn't feel new and exciting anymore, and, while Lincoln found that comforting, as they knew each other inside out, Michaela missed the rush of learning something fresh—she knew his favorite color, his coffee order, the number of words he wrote per day, be it a good one or a bad one, and how he always buttoned his shirts starting from the bottom.

          He knew how she probably didn't want to have kids, her favorite flowers, how much she hated cartoons, and the way she always made sure to write the dot on her Is as small as possible. There wasn't anything left, and she felt lost in the middle of everything, fearing it might mean the end of them.

          It was the beginning of the end, anyway.

          "Would you like something to eat?" he eventually asked, his head peeking out of the kitchen, when she dared to look up from the stash of handwritten notes she was holding.