Returning Red

#3: Changed.

and things, as things do, changed

Isabella

The walk from my car to my door made me realize how severely drained I was. What I wouldn't kill for a hot cup of coffee, I thought as I unlocked my door. I wouldn't care what Dr. Katherine Carlyle would say about caffeine against H2O though, but I know she would advise me to take a holiday too. 

It's absurd when sometimes in life, you know exactly what you are supposed to do. You even know which choice of the two is right but yet, you rebel against the right one because you think choosing the wrong one will open new doors. The truth about me is I know I overwork and overtrain myself because if my mind is idle, I fuck things up. I don't want to give it even a single second to heed the possibility of overthinking. So, I always choose the difficult over the easy, even if I know the easy is the right option most of the time. 

I entered the house and I turned around to lock it shut. "Ryder can you check if the-- Oh--" I stopped in my tracks when I turned around. My hand went over my chest, in an attempt to calm myself down. 

For a brief second, I thought I was seeing people again. Until my mind registered he was actually here this time. He frowned looking at me and I brushed the shock away, biting my lip and hesitating to look him in the eye. 

There, that's my weakness, Dr. Katherine. Anything that you cannot look straight in the eye and hold eye contact is considered a weakness. He is my absolute weakness. 

"Is Ryder home?" I locked the door and I walked ahead, conveniently ignoring to look at him. 

"I'm not your assistant. I don't keep tabloids on your life or your people." 

I expected this tone in the morning. So a part of me was already prepared for this well before. 

Curt, I thought. A simple 'I don't know' would have worked but I let it go. The more I poke him on petty things, the more I will be digging something messier and bigger. I ignored him seated on my dining table with his laptop, typing something ferociously fast. He only lifted up his gaze to watch where I'm going and then a second later, buried them behind his laptop again. 

Four years ago, I would've done anything to preserve a sight like this. Austin Cooper was in my house, casually working on his computer, wearing a dark grey suit minus the tie and for once, this was real. 

A fact about hallucinations is we often consider it a mental issue when people are seeing people who are not really present in reality. But it actually means that one's mind wants something so bad and without that, the hurting is so strong that the mind reaches a stage where it paints an illusion of its own, just to ease the pain for a while by showing an alternative, preferred reality and stop the hurting. With due course of time, the person often forgets the thin line between the two realities, and every one term that person as mentally dysfunctional. Or in other words, crazy. 

I don't believe that is true. The person always has it in his/her hands to decide when to switch back and accept the truth. Honestly, it's a humanity switch that an individual is completely conscious and in control of. If the hallucinations are continuing, it simply means that the person still wants to enjoy the made-up alternate reality. 

As I hear noises from upstairs, I figure everyone is huddled over there. I choose to be with them over choosing to be alone with him. I know my choices when we were in school would have been the complete opposite of this. I am not surprised at all. 

I begin to make my way upstairs. "Oh, Izz," he called me like he remembered something, and my whole world paused. My heart took the longest jumps and I shivered, glued to the floor. My throat felt constricted and my hands were slipping from the railing of the stairs because of all the profuse sweating. "--abella" He added in the next very second, but my trigger had already been pressed. Clearing his throat, "Uh, Isabella." He called and I let my shoulders slump down.