Swirl

10.3. To Be: Lerry.

Do you know what it feels like to be stuck between a rock and a hard place?

I never did until today. After I chased my mother out of my room with my unwillingness to open up, she went to the main house in pursuit of her chores, whilst I remained in my room to mope,-  but her demeanor promised a conversation in the future that we would have to have regardless of whether I felt like it or not.

Settling into my bed after closing my curtains and shutting my door, I tossed and turned as I thought about everything that had transpired in the last few days and it honestly felt like an avalanche. It was only mid afternoon but I was exhausted.

I was too conflicted. I felt like I was being pulled in two very different directions.

On the one hand, I felt an inexplicable pull towards Achim, the friend of my youth and the start to my memories. On the other hand, Thato seemed like he was built for me, plucked from the very depths of my mind,-  a true memoir about the type of man I always envisioned myself with.

To make matters worse, I was wearing Achim's clothes that carried his scent, whereas my bed and sheets smelled like Thato, - spicy cinnamon. Perfect.

What do you do when wants and needs clash? I wanted Achim but I needed Thato.

Perhaps I only wanted Achim to have a taste of forbidden fruit. Society said no, but I felt like it just didn't want me to reap the rewards of indulgence.

What even is 'society'? Is it not only an aggregation of people, like you and I, who collectively sit down and discuss which views to uphold as sacred and which to nullify as irrelevant? If that's the case, I really wish I had been present at the very first meeting of 'society' so that I could hit the shitheads who felt it okay to divide people according to class, culture, creed and color.

That's the thing though, isn't it? Society and it's views are essentially engrained into each and everyone of us. As long as you have been raised by someone who had been held subject to the laws of society, you have a part of it instilled in you. Some things, you will unequivocally perceive as black or blue; why? Because society says so.

But I digress.

Achim seemed so ready to fight me. He saw the wall of society for what it truly was,- a confinement! And he was willing to break it... for me.

Me, the daughter of a servant.

And what did I do? I doubted it, and it scared him away. I wasn't ready to give him the hammer.

Gosh. His face when he saw me contemplate Thato's offer. He looked like a wounded dear caught in the headlights. But you must understand... This 'society' thing had really fucked me up.

Achim was too good of a person for me. He couldn't be the man I needed him to be. Do you know what it feels like to have a father, who had done nothing but love and care for everyone around him so much and so genuinely that he might as well have been a bleeding heart, get plucked away from your life?

Achim doesn't, but Thato does.

That's why, and where, I vibed with Thato. He knew my pain, it swirls around in the honey pools of his eyes like a leaf on a lake, without direction but with so much energy. I knew his pain; I felt his pain every single day. Maybe,... just maybe we could be each other's healing salves?

Or each other's consequential triggers. There was always that possibility, too.

He was a walking time bomb; everything he did seemed so... calculated. I knew from the moment he met me in the alley,-  that there was something off about his story. One does not simply creep up on a crying damsel and offer them emotional support the way he did, at least not where I'm from.