hiraeth / andreya & constantin
@andreya-roche
[Constantin has given up trying to explain it to himself. Maybe it’s because the clouds have parted and he can see, once more, just how vast this tiny world is. Maybe it’s because he’d had a dream, last night, about asteroids and the freezing vacuum of space, and Ana hadn’t been with him. Maybe it’s just because he’s got a lot of issues to work through. He really has given up trying to pinpoint any one cause: all he knows is that some mornings, he wakes up and he simply feels like everything is wrong.
He wishes he could join the others in training, but Dr. Fitrei says he’s still not well enough. That’s part of the problem: he’s trapped in his mind, and he can’t share that with anyone because he struggles to communicate in English, and there’s hardly a whole host of people that speak Romanian waiting to connect with him. He had watched his roommates head out to training, sitting blankly on the edge of his bed. Tried to do some of his rehabilitation exercises. Fought against his shaking muscles. Failed. Cried, angry tears of frustration. Beat his fists against his useless legs. He feels so trapped, and he can’t go to Anaya. He can’t burden her with this, because he needs to be strong for her. He rarely lets her see him when he gets like this.
So he goes to CISM instead, hoping that perhaps someone there will have time for him. He doesn’t know what he needs, or wants. Just someone to hear him, he thinks. Every time he’s alone, black thoughts cloud his mind and he can’t fight them. They’re too loud, too demanding. When he opens the door, he sees only one person in the room. He’s not sure of her name, but he’s seen her around a few times as he passes through to therapy sessions. She seems young to be a therapist, but she does carry herself with the ease and confidence of someone older. The way she moves is so fluid and assured; she reminds Constantin of a dancer, somehow, and he feels ashamed of his own awkward, clumsy gait as he approaches her. He moves like the world is a heavy weight upon him, because it is, and he knows his face still bears the marks of his earlier tears: red eyes lined with dark, clumped together lashes, cheeks sticky, hair a mess from where he had raked his fingers through it over and over. He feels particularly pitiful next to Andee: a natural beauty, at ease with life around her, face holding a sort of kindness even when there is no smile on it.]
I have no appointment, but I can ask if there is anyone I can speak vith? Today is being difficult for me. [His voice is hoarse, but his words are blunt and to the point, spoken without hesitation. He’s long past worrying that people might think he’s weak if he admits that he is struggling. Everyone is struggling: he’s no less a man for admitting it.]
