Never Have I Ever

Chapter 11

I stand there, shocked at his audacity, but also at the truth behind the statement. I don’t want to have to admit it, but I have to choose. But how am I to choose when I don’t know every side of the coin? When I don’t know where people’s allegiances are? The fear of death changes people, and I would know. I’ve had enough people turn on me once faced with the fear of losing their lives.

He walks away, and what he says hurts more than any knife.

“I’m guessing by the silence, you’re not choosing me.”

I want to run after him, to tell him I don’t want to choose between them, but I can’t. There’s something in the back of my mind telling me that wearing my heart on my cheek is never gonna be a good idea, and that’s the voice that control my brain. I have four walls. These four walls control everything I do. I have five circles, and they control how I relate to people, and how I see them.

The first wall is my private life. The side of me nobody ever sees. If under siege, it’s the last to fall. The inner bastion. If that’s breached, I’m broken. I don’t open up, not even under immense threat because I’m too much of a coward to give people something close to my heart to nitpick over. I have standards for myself, and I’m not happy to drop below that.

The second set of walls is my personal life. The one I’m willing to share with those in the inner circles. That’s everything I will ever tell anyone else unless they were directly involved, because I’m not too attached to it and there’s nothing that’s putting weapons into people’s hands.

The third set of walls is the ones broken by people with their tanks and guns. If I ever break down in front of people, this is as far as my subconscious will allow them to reach before I go homicidal in my own protection.

The outer set of walls is the one everyone sees. Cold, hard, emotionless Seraph Daelynne who is alone, trusts nobody and should probably be in hospital. But I don’t care. I’ve used the persona because it leaves people reeling away from everything I’ve battled so hard to keep under wraps. And I’ve got a lot to keep.

But this game is determined to make me drop everything I have. Break down the walls, relinquish the circles, and leave the fort.

My inner circle contains one person, and one person only. That’s myself. I don’t willingly give the key to my heart because it’ll be squandered on someone who will manipulate it to their own ends. Human nature. I’m not willing for them to give away whatever information they’ve learned without my knowledge because it would destroy me. If I lose my castle of secrets, I lose my humanity, my self-awareness, my hope.

My second circle contains people such as Celia, Thomas, Ember and Jack. or at least it did. People who can have access to the second set of walls, the personal ones, because I’ve seen all their flaws and the innermost desires and secrets, before I allow access to any of mine. My mind is a labyrinth of others’ information, the things they’ve shared against their better judgement, the things they should have kept locked away. Things that can and will be used against them, eventually.

My third circle is my friends, and this is almost nonexistent. I don’t relate to people, so finding anyone who’s a casual friend is difficult. If I relate to them, they’re usually pretty far in already. I didn’t relate to Chelsea, or Sam. I don’t relate to my sister, or any of the imbeciles that go to my school. I just can’t get my head around how they think, how they function, how they process everything day-to-day. The only person I know who I would consider a casual friend is probably Mason. They’ve maybe got access to the third set, the ones where the facade has broken to an extent and I appear to work as a human being, functioning with emotions, love and hatred. But everyone can see the hate that radiates from my core. I don’t try to hide it.