Solitude

Chapter Twenty- Twigs and Mistletoe

My breathing evened out eventually, and when it did, I stayed attached to Veronica until my eyelids wavered with drowsy inebriation. Warm and comfortable and safe. Soothing movements on my back and the natural ambient noises around us made it all that much harder to stay awake. I couldn't stop it from overcoming me, eventually welcoming the helplessness.

I didn't completely fall asleep, just laid there in a state of half-consciousness. Veronica didn't relent her consoling petting, even when I adjusted myself on the bench to curl my knees up to my chest.

Would I meet anyone and not latch myself onto them like some emotion sucking leech? Could I face something on my own and resolve it without help? How many more times of my breaking down would it take Veronica to leave me? It took one too many for Carver, my confession his last straw it seemed. I'm annoying everyone, burdening and weighing them down. No one wants to be constantly on Winnie Watch. I don't blame them, I wouldn't want to watch me for long periods of time either.

I'm a job for Carver. That's why he freaked out. I didn't loose my best friend, I lost my Watcher.

"I'm sorry." I said, sitting up reluctantly. Veronica looked at me with confusion, shaking her head.

"About what?" She wrote, tilting her head and holding my eye until I looked away first.

"For making you listen to me, for falling asleep on you, for distracting you from gardening. I've not....been myself lately. It isn't your job to look after me, not when you've got everyone else depending on you." Still facing Veronica, I rose to my feet, tucking stray hairs behind my burning ears. My lower lip burning with the unyielding intensity of my teeth, stripping away the peeling chapped skin.

"It's not a job." She continued writing furiously, the pad of paper gradually getting closer and closer to her face as she got more and more into writing whatever she was writing. When she finished she showed me the story she had written.

"A little while after Oswyn and I had first met, I got depressed. It was pretty bad, but I didn't recognize it until I completely broke down. I didn't think I had anyone left, I thought I had pushed them all away or they just left me because they hated me. Either way I felt like a horrible person, alone, and resentful, and just full of self hate." I paused reading, slowly examining her.

Tanned clear skin that I envied, constellated with randomly placed freckles and baby fine golden peach fuzz. Beautiful flowing waist length hair that had every variation, every shade of brown and gold in it, changing color within one inch of movement. Damascene eyes that crinkled at the corners, their unending depths of honeyed content surging energy into me with more to spare. And her smile, unyieldingly optimistic and affable, so bright it could lift any dark curse clouding over a mind.

How could this bubbly ball of happiness and joy possibly get depressed?

I kept reading when she pushed the pad with the tips of her fingers, urging me to continue.

"When Oswyn heard me, he found me sitting on the shower floor. I'd been sitting in there for two days and a night under cold water without realizing it. I thought it'd been an hour or two at most. Oswyn had been....occupied during the time I had been in there, or he would've found me sooner. He blamed himself for letting me get so bad.

"It's a much longer story, with several contributing factors other than the two of us, so here's the summary: I was pissed off at Oswyn because he had rejected me a little while before my breakdown, somewhat similar to your situation now. I got myself a boyfriend who didn't care about me as much as I thought he did. Oswyn tried telling me, but he went about it the wrong way. He yelled at me, saying I couldn't switch my feelings that easily. Said Finley would never care about me because of the way I felt about Oswyn. He told me Finley would think me repulsive if he found out I was in love with a Creature, said Finley would report me to The Council and get me punished.