Standing In The Sun

Three

Oliver

Walking back into the rec room is hard... It's hard because it feels as though maybe Wendy and the others are tricking me, and that whoever this Alexei is, that he isn't really here and that they've made him up to get back at me for dampening the mood with my tears... 

Even with both carers holding my hands as they walk me into the brightly lit room filled with chatter and laughter I can feel my knees tremble with each and every step... It feels like they're leading me to my doom... To be laughed at by not only the other residents but also by their families and most of the staff... And the only thing it makes me want to do is turn tail and run back across the hall so I can barricade myself away in my room like I was before... 

I know that realistically, none of them have even noticed that I've been lead back in here by the hand... I doubt any of them even really noticed that I left... They rarely do when I excuse myself... I just don't have that much of a presence in whatever room I find myself in, and it is something that I was forced to come to terms with a very long time ago. 

There had been a moment after letting Wendy help me up from the bed that I wondered if I should change out of the shirt that had become so wrinkled from laying down in it and crying and if I should splash some water across my face to vanish the trails left behind by my tears...But then I had reminded myself of the resolution I had come up with in the middle of the ache that has built up in my chest over my own abandonment and convinced myself that whoever Alexei Yahontov is, that he too will be eager to walk away from me... That if he's an actual person and here to see me that he's likely a lawyer or some kind of court official and that he's come to deliver the news that my family has officially disinherited me and that I've got to find some other way to pay for my own room and board here at Ezalie's, though I'm not sure I would ever be able to apply for a protection grant since technically my family does have the ability to pay to house me here... They just don't think I'm important enough to justify the cost any longer... And while that may have bothered me this morning, it gets nothing more than a wobble of my bottom lip as I am guided to one of the chairs pushed over into one of the corners and told to stay put... I convince myself that I can't really blame them... I wouldn't want to pay for a family member I don't ever think about either... On their end, I must seem like just a drainage of funds... And that's okay...  I'll be okay... I know I will be... 

My family can skip as many birthdays and holidays as they want... They can leave me here to get passed over and over again by everyone who turns their sights here hoping to become a husband... They could leave me here until I age out of Ms.Ezalie's when I hit thirty-five and end up shriveling into a husk that no one remembers ever existed in the first place in one of the state-funded homes that there are so many horror stories about... I'm okay with it because I will shut the part of me that cares so much off... No one can hurt my feelings if I can manage to convince myself that I just don't have any... No one can break your heart if you rip it out yourself and hide it so well that not even you can find it... 

Alexei

"I-I can do this!" The words are said more to himself than anyone else... But they still warm my heart as they roll off of Oliver's tongue, the shy young man having finally been found, though I do not think he has noticed me yet... I had hoped that it had just been a bad case of nerves that had caused him to wander off, the thought a very comforting one since I myself, feel so very nervous... And it seems as though I was right... 

Though I have to say that with my own nerves... My eyes have stayed dry, whereas it seems as though Oliver has spent some time crying before finding himself back where he needs to be, my lateness likely the cause of the sheen still backing his lovely eyes and the shining trails streaking down his flushed cheeks... Had his been the tears I had heard when I had been escorted into the recreation room that we're in now?

I had not meant to pause for so long when I saw him be led in... I had thought that seeing him for the first time I would be overwhelmed and know for sure that he was the one... And on some level... I do... I already feel so curious about his voice and his true likes and dislikes... I want to know what it is to hold him... If he will indeed fit against me just as perfectly as he looks like he will... I had found myself stunned by him in the best possible way, though I do fear that I may have done true damage to flowers I had thought to add to his birthday present... I just hope he doesn't mind if they blooms are slightly squished... 

"Mr.Yahontov?" The blond that appears just to the left of me startles me so much that I nearly drop the present that I had spent so very long choosing, but she offers nothing but a pleasant smile, her arms crossed over her chest while she addresses me, "Oliver is having a bit of a rough day.  I'm afraid that if you wait too long to approach him that he might think you've changed your mind and try to leave again."