“I Don’t Blame You.”

“I don’t blame you!” the text read. My eyes traversed it over and over, seeming to lose focus with each pass. My chest felt strangely tight.

’I don’t blame you!’ What does that even mean? I thought to myself. Is she angry? Distraught? Confused? Upset? If not me, then who does she blame?

The typing animation popped up again, and my breath seized in my throat. It flickered on and off a few more times before the next message came through.

“Besides, you know you had to do it. It was the right thing.”

Oh, god. She used proper punctuation. She’s pissed. And why did it take her so long to send such a short message? Was she rage-dumping a paragraph and decided it wasn’t worth the energy, or was it a connection thing?

I couldn’t think of what to answer; my thoughts were too loud, and the words wouldn’t form.

I did nothing wrong! All I did was speak my mind. I kept fairly calm, stood up for myself, and made my argument plainly…I think.

So why am I so terrified?!

“You there?”

I suddenly snapped to. Shit! Answer! Say something!

“Yeah,” I replied. “Sry, just sort of trying to process everything”

“Thats fine,” she said. “Just let me kno if u need to talk abt this.”

WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO TALK ABOUT, I screamed, internally. Hadn’t everything been said that needed to be said?

My impulsiveness got the better of me as the day’s events suddenly flooded my brain. Terror began mixing with rage and the ensuing chemical reaction threatened to turn me into a ten-mile crater.

“You know what? I’m kinda done talking,” I typed, read once, and sent. And immediately regretted it.

I waited, staring at the screen, hating myself.

The typing animation danced ominously once more.

“ok,” was all that was sent.

My heart dropped. I had fucked up so many times that day, and this was the icing on the cake. All Kiera was trying to do was help, but I was too dysregulated to realize before snapping at her. I thought about apologizing right away, but the fatigue had already begun to slither its way into my bones. Couldn’t I just—sleep, instead?

The terror-and-rage cocktail still swirled in my head, but now they were wrapping me up in the familiar fog they brought with them—every time.

I leaned back on the bench, turning my face to the sun to try and distract myself. Failing this, I decided I had better get home, or find a rock to crawl under—pretty much anything to get me out of everyone’s field of view. The strangers surrounding me had no idea the kind of day I was having, and I could tell I was just more background noise to them. But do you think the terror-and-rage-and-now-fatigue cocktail cared about that? Of course it didn’t. It siphoned its ingredients from every strange, silent, unknown face all the same.

By the time I returned home my body ached, and my eyes felt dry and heavy. Bag, coat, shoes, phone, hat, all left a trail behind me as I shuffled through the hall to the carpeted section of the living room, where I would fall, crawl, and finally lie staring at the ceiling.

The cocktail swirled, bubbled, and boiled within me. I let myself marinate in it for a while, thought about getting up, and ended up falling asleep instead.

When I woke up, the sunlight stained the walls a deep bronze, and shadows draped everything else in various purples and blues. I rolled over onto my side, the details of the day sloshing around in my head.

So fucking stupid, I thought.

At least the adrenaline had worn off. But I was still limp with fatigue and could tell a headache was on the way.

Grabbing my phone from the floor on my way to the kitchen, I noticed there weren’t any messages from Kiera. I opened up a new text window, hovered my thumbs over the keyboard, and closed the app.

=====

Bronze light became pale yellow, and purples and blues slowly melded together into black. The air was growing cooler, and crickets chirped through the open windows. A stray cloud painted pink and gold by the sunset wandered across the neighborhood on its way to become one with the surrounding atmosphere—whether as a storm or turbulence to some passing airplane, I could only guess.

I hope it becomes a storm, I thought. Seems like a more interesting fate.

…Wish I could become a storm…

All of my shed belongings still lay strewn before the threshold of my door, a barricade from the impending world. I stared at them from the sofa until little trails of their after images began creating strange auras of light.

Leave them for now, I thought. Makes me feel kind of safe, anyway.

=====

The next morning, I dismantled my barricade of things and checked my phone again. Kiera still hadn’t sent any messages, but I felt a bit more clear-headed and decided I could hazard reaching out.

I unlocked the screen, opened the app, and my thumbs hovered over the keyboard once again.

“hey,” I wrote, “sry abt yesterday. I felt like I was going insane. Just…that guy really got to me, saying all that shit like he thought he knew me. I guess I handled it ok, but I’m tired of having to justify and explain myself all the time and my mask just slipped. Sucks u had to see me like that, but there you have it. I hope u dont think I’m mad at you or anything, bc I’m not! I’ll try to tell u next time if I feel like I’m falling off the deep end”

Sent.

“Thats alright!” she responded. “I dont blame u <3”