Confessions of a Wanton

21 Lilacs

🎶 Older than I am : Lennon Stella 🎶

Charlotte:

The sun warms my exposed skin as I walk to the office, it's abundant heat a barrage of effulgence to my ice filled core. Rays of warmth sweep over me, kissing my nose and cheeks with its utter brilliance. The strong rays of light warring with the cold I feel inside. Unable to penetrate the barrier that has arisen, between me and emotion. I shiver wrapping my arms around myself and rubbing them to get feeling, any sense of me, back.

It is as if I have been carved, eviscerated of all sentiment. My insides taken out and replaced with a large amount of nothingness. Filling me to the brink with an emptiness made of concrete, the clay isn't hard yet, but I can feel it cooling, about to make me immobile. Had I ever really ever been able to feel?

This walk is not a long one. My condo is only 10 minutes away on foot from the office, yet I am taking my time. Killian had not answered my questions. He got angry. Another emotion I'd never seen in him, that I can remember. He'd been so livid, I thought he would hit me in anger.

Something is missing, besides my obvious emotions. I can feel it in my bones that there is something more, someone else who I need to see. But I have no idea who.

If I'm honest with myself this isn't the first time I've felt this confusion. It's only happened a few times before, waking up disoriented losing a couple days. When I'd first started working for Killian there were a lot of days like that. Killian had always been there to help me put back the pieces. Not so this time.

He'd left my condo earlier, leaving me feeling even more bereft and confused than ever. Saying all would be revealed in time. He'd been angry, incensed, but I'd felt numb, my usual fire sputtered out because I couldn't bring myself to care. Which only made him more furious.

I'd never had this bad of a migraine before either. It comes and goes, sometimes I think I hear a voice calling to me, sometimes I see impossible visions through another persons eyes. I don't even know what it means, or what is happening to me. The sun shines around me but I feel lost, in the dark. The warmth is only skin deep.

I'm wandering aimlessly at this point. Killian had said to come to the office when I could. To take my time, like he actually cared about my well being, not being the stubborn prick I've always known him to be. Demanding I do this or that, now he's practically asking me. I wonder what changed in him so drastically that he's being this way.

He'd had business to take care of, being the boss. He'd already missed half a days meetings. He'd been angry to be sure, but I could tell he hadn't wanted to leave. I had been suffocating on his emotions, and had felt a sense of happiness when he left. Even if the cold and confusion had set in the moment he left. I don't think I want to see him right now. I'll just  keep walking. He didn't give me a time. Didn't give me the usual demands.

I'm reaching the end of the busy city, about to walk into the more quiet neighborhoods aligning the inner city. The houses on each side look like some of the ones I'd seen growing up. Suburban dream come true, front lawns green with splashes of different kinds of flowers, lilac trees littered the edges of the sidewalks, branches spilling over leaving spaces of shade. Wooden Benches were spaced at least a football field apart. All it needed is a gated fence with a sign stating "Welcome to suburbia". Its a long road littered with houses and plant life. Soothing. I hear dogs barking and children laughing in the distance. I feel my feet wandering forward, into the land of happy seeming homes I barely knew anything about.

The smell of lilacs is comforting, I find myself stopping next to one of the trees, or are they bushes? I don't know for certain. I'm far enough down the road that the skyscrapers in the distance don't look as big. They're still massive, but I don't get the vertigo I usually do when I look up at them. I feel a little better, more encased in the warmth of the sun the farther from the city I get.