𝖒𝖆𝖈𝖆𝖇𝖗𝖊 𝖇𝖆𝖗𝖇𝖎𝖊

There's an unresolved PAIN in her chest, one she's had since she was seventeen and yet over time, had become a part of her she could let faid in the noise. The funny part about pain is the tolerance you could get for it year after year. Suddenly, a pain that felt like it would be indescribable felt like the pinch of a needle, the swift slap of the hand. Anything could be survivable, and that was all in the vein of the world Jennifer had experienced.

Today it seemed to creep its way back into the forefront.

That pain lingered from the scar on her torso to the ache in her heart, the unforgettable night of finally feeling as though she were as small and weak as her mother had always thought her to be. Jennifer believed that with enough fashion and makeup, a girl could be dressed in such a way that it would emulate armor; a beautiful creature was all the more dangerous that the wittiest of prey. It was STUPIDITY that made her think she was invincible, laced with liquid courage that had painstakingly made escaping out of reach.

Why were these all memories now that she had to RELIVE, tucked away in the closet of the first place she had really ever considered home. Even there, it felt like the world she had worked so hard to pull together was beginning to run between her fingertips. It was easier to let her hands shake with every tear fall as though that would give her at least somewhat of an explanation when it would all fall from her grasp.

For so long she had been running from the concept of home and everything that fell under the jurisdiction of love. It was better to never know it and thus, never feel the pain. To never feel what she saw in the eyes of her mother's clients time and time again, the same imagery now racing through her mind's eye as a warning that she had toed the line too close to HAVING IT ALL.

That's where the panic began, in the weakest point of her body; her heart. This was an untrained muscle to the occasion of love or feeling seen. There was something there that made every part of her tingle in regret, sorrow of mourning that would never come. Fear always took the shape of disasters, the idea that she'd never see Aisling again and her own news would be something never shared.

It felt HARSH to mourn something like that before anyone was even gone or buried, but the memory of Eoin left that taste of the unexpected in her mouth. Before, she never thought ANYTHING else bad could happen, the worst had come to her in the shape of ritual and that was her baggage. The skeletons in her closet were agony, misery and regret, nothing more or less. That was until it seemed that grief made its way in, knocking over as much as possible to condemn its arrival.

Still, instead of taking on the battle at hand as the pain in her chest made it harder to breath and her eyes stung with tears, she tucked herself further in the closet. It felt as though the further she was from the outside world, the more likely she'd be able to sink into an unstable abyss of her own feelings. That was never the RIGHT answer, sometime soon she'd have to pull herself back out and attempt to take on the world.

She knew there were people she could call. Before she knew it, Kelly would be tucked in the closet with her. He was too large in size to actually find any bit of comfort there and yet time and time again he found himself hidden with her away from the rest of the world. Why now was there a certain embarrassment to ask for a familiar voice?

It was paralyzing to feel like a problem, to be a cherry on top of a poisonous sundae that would take people down with each spoonful. She didn’t want to show her pain or agony, to let anyone KNOW that beneath the surface, her roots were just as rotten as they had always been. And maybe in that rot was the sole decay of her own selfishness, the need to be heard and cared for when for years she had run the opposite way. It was a delicate balance of self preservation and letting the tides of love and compassion come in.

She was kinder now that she knew love existed in many forms, but how much more fragile it had made her too. Before, she had steel skin and now it faded to a delicate porcelain. At the simple sway of fate, she could be knocked over and shattered so easily. Of course there were people she had grown to trust yet how could she let them pick up those pieces time and time again.

It was better to put her phone on silent, to make herself withstand punishment for her behavior towards Aisling and anyone else that could be caught in a wave of her own self pity. Their conversation still swirled in her head, the way she could believe that ANYTHING she had to say could measure up to the disaster before them. Murder and chaos were on their doorstep and she kept getting swept up in her own reflection. 

The problems in her hands were miniscule compared to the rest of the world they were in now, weren’t they? The magnitude could be studied so easily in a response that it felt BETTER to switch her phone to off. No, on silent meant she could see who continued to care, to beckon themselves in. Now with the black mirror before her, she could put herself into her own glass house of abandonment.

Jennifer’s eyes shut, the only thing she could hear was her panicked breaths that harmonized with the beating of her heart. Each passing moment felt dizzying as the haze of her own anxiety set in.