Her Toxin

- I'm Not Calm -

VOTE.COMMENT.THEWORKS

Shannon should be the one I share my secrets and deepest desires with. She's better than anybody else at talking to me.

January has already flooded into February. I spent January with parts of me wondering if I  overwhelm myself with my interactions with Shannon. Never noticing that I always get myself light-headed, sucking in air through my nose whilst I listen to the whatever words she has to say. I've had more thoughts about the girl too. Wanting to see every single type of facial expression on her face.

I want to keep her around, I know she makes me feel safe and secure. I'm beginning to feel like I  can breathe without worries twisting my words, or causing shakey exhales.

Really, I'm starting to want to write songs about the wonderful girl that I've met but, I'm still trying to find it in me to write a couple of songs about the situations that Rachel had got me into. It's hard. It feels like Rachel has still got her hands on me, despite all of the miles between us. Rachel used to always call me her 'baby' and I feel like that's what I am now. I'm her baby, vulnerable and unknowing to what she's doing and where she is. Therapy is supposed to be easing the pain that Rachel caused, but none of my therapist's words soothe the spot anymore. The words 'Take more chances, Cari. You'll never know unless you try.' being a lot less inspiring.

What I felt Shannon has to give possesses more of an impact on me than whatever my therapist's waterfall of words can produce. We'd developed this little ritual (if you want to call it that)  which meant that I'd be in her office with her every single Friday afternoon. It was a somewhat 'secret' operation, but we were both more than content with it.

It's a deal we made. I sit still on the leather sofa adjacent to the wall whilst she sits pretty and perfect at her desk, writing articles for the magazine company she works for. Friday afternoon is our 'together day'. 'Free Therapy'- as I'd consider it. 'Just me and You' as she always refers to it as when we talk through text. Mostly, we vent, talk about things that piss us off and drink coffee. 

It's time that we cherish. Even if her desk is what is separating me from being as close to her as possible.

'I wonder if love has to be something that you feel instinctively.' Shannon had said one time whilst peeking up at me from her laptop. Stopping her typing for a good couple of moments. 'It seems insane...like the concept of meeting someone and just knowing.'

This was the exact thing that I loved about her. How she was sceptical about the same things as me. How we could talk about how the system is wrong, how what people believe is wrong. She'd paint all of these thoughts in my mind that took time to interpret. She'd make my brain ache in a good way.

'Hmm.' When she heard my voice, she puts the laptop down completely. I'm met by her eyes and lips that were now tucking themselves inside of her mouth before her eyes flickered to the window. 'Maybe it's got something to do with overwhelming lust or if someone has certain pheromones that just...click. But with pheromones, they're dependent on the hormone cycle, so I wouldn't know.'

We were building this fr...situations...no...friendship that was reassuring us that the L-word is something that we need to shield each other from. It was a friendship based on being almost the same, but at the same time so different. Driven to each other simply by nationality and by the way that I thought that she was cute and certainly wouldn't mind seeing her between my sheets.

This time, things feel different the second that I step through the door and into her office. Taking my shoes off to feel the rough fabric of the beige carpet. She won't look up at me and for some unexplained reason, my heart is thumping out of control silently screaming at me. Wondering when my feet are going to move and take a few steps closer. Wondering if she knows that I'm even here.

I want her to look up and smile at me the way she always does. Maybe she's forgotten about me. My lips part by themselves. I try to steady my breath as if I've been running. I can feel Shannon's energy is off, or that it's shifted at least whilst my thoughts pause on the worst possible reasons why she may not have looked up and given me her smile yet.

'Cari.' I look at Shannon. The structure of her face, the way her lips are. For god sake...she still hasn't given me her smile, nor glanced up yet. Her long eyelashes creating a shadow on the slight bags underneath her eyes. 'I disagree with you now on the whole not wanting to ever fall in love with someone idea.'

Oh god. She's going to have found someone. I feel like I'm about to have a heart attack. 

'There's someone who I'd sit on the fence of the idea now and...Cari, I wish...I fucking wish that you'd allow yourself to do the same!' She's raising her voice, getting passionate about it whilst she rushes to break my heart that was already aching in the first place. As much as spending time with Shannon has been like therapy, I don't like the way that her words are hitting me way, way, way harder then they are supposed to. 'Look at me!'

And there's no fucking smile on her face. She looks as if she's about to cry. Her cheeks are all puffy and her eyes all bloodshot. Her beautiful lips are quivering. All I can do is let my eyebrows move closer together whilst I try to sustain my composure. Wanting to shout back at her to be fucking nice and pay me some bloody respect.

'I'm not even sure...how I actually feel about...them, but I...this whole last month I've spent almost every spare minute I get to try and reach out to them! And I think that I really want them and that if you really want someone, you fucking figure out if you love them or whatever later on!' She's making me feel bad. She's making me feel really, really bad about myself. Standing up just to walk over till she's a few centimetres away from my body.

'Shan-'

'Don't talk to me. Just hug me...please.' She almost whispers, her eyes welling up with tears. And it's probably all my fault because I've been so down and depressed on the topic of love. Comparing it to poison and snakes and all the rest, but I'm right and I'm only trying to protect Shannon. 'Please.'

So I let her because if I don't, I'm afraid I might break her and I hold her for way longer because I could never be sorrier and because I know that I really, really like her and want her to feel the same way. 

Her hot breath on my neck surprises me for a second whilst I rub circles on her back.

'I'm willing to fucking risk anything for you.' She whispers.

'Shan, I don't understand what this is about.' I whisper back.

'Cari.' Her grip on the back of my hoodie tightens. 'I...I...our 'together days' all they show me is that I'm so willing to sit on the fence with or without you because I know that really...you want the same things.'

'I still don't understand.' I say. Raising my voice a little. She lets go of me.

'together days...we need to stick together more! It's what I mean because I kinda, maybe...I think that we can both sit on the fence together and figure things out.'

'So you have a crush on me?'

BIG SHOUT OUT TO RACHEL ON THE EDITING OF THIS ONE! THANNNKKKSS GURRRLLL