Red Ledgers
[She was watching Jack before bed, trying to finish the Edith Finch series gameplay, but it 5 minutes after midnight and she should really go to bed before she screws up her hard-earned sleep schedule. She went about in her daily ministrations, and settled under the blanket with a soft sigh in the dark. She was really happy today.]
The ledger, you called it? Really? How much more obvious can you get?
[she opened her eyes, brows scrunching confusedly at the ceiling.]
what?
You couldn't admit to Amelia that you were scared. You called it the ledger. Well done for the analogy to Black Widow. Only, Nat puts her targets profiles in there. You put the names of people you hurt, one way or the other.
[she turned sideways, feeling her head began to spin. Slowly, she feels her chest constrict.]
What's this about? People in the past stays in the past for a reason. Amelia calls me out on my shit for justifying myself a lot but there are reasons for certain things to be as they are. She's normally right anyway.
It's because of him, isn't it? The first person you really hurt. Your stone of guilt.
Stop it.
He was your first guy childhood friend, and ultimately, the first person who confessed to you in a romantic way. Your first impression of accepting love.
Yet you played with him. You toyed with his feelings. Your cherished childhood friend, like he hadn't had bigger problems than you back then. You hurt him, yet you dare wanted his friendship. You couldn't blame him when he grew distant and apart, so you accepted the distance as kindness. You accepted the loss of his presence in your life as atonement, but it doesn't ever end like that, does it?
There it is, your first page of the ledger.
It wasn't like that. People grow apart. That happens.
[Her chest is hurting. She keeps her chin upright, feeling the wave of nausea and rolling stomach. She shouldn't have eaten before bed. It's beginning to get hard to breathe.]
Then riddle me this, why does the pages keep filling up? Hm?
The names of the people who were once in your life, but has never settled. The important ones, especially, who you consider to be cut off and well rid of, but for alllll the wrong reasons.
Relationships end. Things don't just work out. Not supposed to stay in unhealthy relationships, can I? When I can't even contain YOU. People move on. WE move on.
Liar.
Oh God.
[She rushed to the toilet and retched. She felt her dinner coming up but thinking of the anxiety pill she had taken after it, she swallowed back the vomit. The taste is disgusting. She wondered briefly if she had let it out, would the pill still work? She retched again.]
You are scared. Always the one who fears. You fear the pain you cause when you reject someone and you fear the sympathy you see when you are rejected. In that childishly ridiculous way, you sought the easy way out. Snip snip snip it all off, clean and clean.
That's why you're weak.
Little weakling who couldn't stand up for the life of you.
Please shut up. God.
It hurts.
[She retched and retched. Nothing but saliva and dry sobs in between. After she waited for the last, sobs echoed the tiles of her bathroom. The retching is over now, so she curled into a ball and cried.]
That's why you never liked "past attachments". You push people clean off. Burn your bridges and dust away the soot. I liked your child self better. She was stronger. Held up the policy of losing before lost. You're just a sad shell of who she was.
Weaker and weaker as you grow.
Incompetent even at breathing.
God please, just shut up. Just, shut the fuck up, for fuck's sake.
[By the time she crawled back to bed, it was 3.14 a.m. So much for hard-earned sleep schedule. Her shoulders tremble at keeping her upright but she knew sleep by will isn't an option after the years. But her hands are twitching and her head is clamoring up images of the little knives roomie has given back to her. So she opened her laptop and began to sign in to the usual chatroom.]
[She functions on autopilot until waking up the next day, having counted the hours from when she last remembered, had slept only 4. She groaned at having to wake, but maybe she doesn't. When the urge intensified as the hours pass, the only thing she wondered about is]
why the throat?
why do you want me to open up my throat down to my sternum? Didn't you always say stab the heart? It's always been the heart, before. For years, you screamed to just stab the heart and now suddenly it's the throat.
Because your heart is now in your voice.
The ledger, you called it? Really? How much more obvious can you get?
[she opened her eyes, brows scrunching confusedly at the ceiling.]
what?
You couldn't admit to Amelia that you were scared. You called it the ledger. Well done for the analogy to Black Widow. Only, Nat puts her targets profiles in there. You put the names of people you hurt, one way or the other.
[she turned sideways, feeling her head began to spin. Slowly, she feels her chest constrict.]
What's this about? People in the past stays in the past for a reason. Amelia calls me out on my shit for justifying myself a lot but there are reasons for certain things to be as they are. She's normally right anyway.
It's because of him, isn't it? The first person you really hurt. Your stone of guilt.
Stop it.
He was your first guy childhood friend, and ultimately, the first person who confessed to you in a romantic way. Your first impression of accepting love.
Yet you played with him. You toyed with his feelings. Your cherished childhood friend, like he hadn't had bigger problems than you back then. You hurt him, yet you dare wanted his friendship. You couldn't blame him when he grew distant and apart, so you accepted the distance as kindness. You accepted the loss of his presence in your life as atonement, but it doesn't ever end like that, does it?
There it is, your first page of the ledger.
It wasn't like that. People grow apart. That happens.
[Her chest is hurting. She keeps her chin upright, feeling the wave of nausea and rolling stomach. She shouldn't have eaten before bed. It's beginning to get hard to breathe.]
Then riddle me this, why does the pages keep filling up? Hm?
The names of the people who were once in your life, but has never settled. The important ones, especially, who you consider to be cut off and well rid of, but for alllll the wrong reasons.
Relationships end. Things don't just work out. Not supposed to stay in unhealthy relationships, can I? When I can't even contain YOU. People move on. WE move on.
Liar.
Oh God.
[She rushed to the toilet and retched. She felt her dinner coming up but thinking of the anxiety pill she had taken after it, she swallowed back the vomit. The taste is disgusting. She wondered briefly if she had let it out, would the pill still work? She retched again.]
You are scared. Always the one who fears. You fear the pain you cause when you reject someone and you fear the sympathy you see when you are rejected. In that childishly ridiculous way, you sought the easy way out. Snip snip snip it all off, clean and clean.
That's why you're weak.
Little weakling who couldn't stand up for the life of you.
Please shut up. God.
It hurts.
[She retched and retched. Nothing but saliva and dry sobs in between. After she waited for the last, sobs echoed the tiles of her bathroom. The retching is over now, so she curled into a ball and cried.]
That's why you never liked "past attachments". You push people clean off. Burn your bridges and dust away the soot. I liked your child self better. She was stronger. Held up the policy of losing before lost. You're just a sad shell of who she was.
Weaker and weaker as you grow.
Incompetent even at breathing.
God please, just shut up. Just, shut the fuck up, for fuck's sake.
[By the time she crawled back to bed, it was 3.14 a.m. So much for hard-earned sleep schedule. Her shoulders tremble at keeping her upright but she knew sleep by will isn't an option after the years. But her hands are twitching and her head is clamoring up images of the little knives roomie has given back to her. So she opened her laptop and began to sign in to the usual chatroom.]
[She functions on autopilot until waking up the next day, having counted the hours from when she last remembered, had slept only 4. She groaned at having to wake, but maybe she doesn't. When the urge intensified as the hours pass, the only thing she wondered about is]
why the throat?
why do you want me to open up my throat down to my sternum? Didn't you always say stab the heart? It's always been the heart, before. For years, you screamed to just stab the heart and now suddenly it's the throat.
Because your heart is now in your voice.
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