I’m ashamed, but it’s the only way I know to smooth this shit out.
There are minor victories, but they are hard-won and fleeting. When I see Taurus and Michaela crouched in the backyard, whispering over some secret project, or when I catch Talia’s loud, unrestrained laugh at one of Preston’s ridiculous jokes, I allow myself to hope that it’s all worth it. But even in the good times, there’s a hollow in my stomach that won’t go away.
It’s exhausting; everything is exhausting.
It’s like every aspect of reality is a fresh layer of sticky black goo poured over it. The world is not so much heavy as it is viscous. I’m often trapped in this syrup of effort, every motion a struggle against the drag. There are mornings when I register consciousness with a full-body flinch. I lie still, blinking at the threadbare ceiling, and try to reconstruct an argument for standing up.
The best I ever come up with is ‘because if I don’t, who else will?’ Lily sure as fuck isn’t helping in the slightest, nor is Dona.
I’m so very worn. The exhaustion is a living thing, a constant weight perched on my chest. Sometimes I fool myself into thinking I’m functioning, but most times it’s awake, reminding me that no matter what solution I cobble together, it will never be enough. For every leak I patch, three more cracks spider out underneath. What I wouldn’t give to simply hand this life overto someone else for a day, to slip out of my own body and let the decisions, the consequences, the marathon of care and obligation become someone else’s fever dream.
But I don’t have that luxury.
I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this and not burn out. I say that sometimes, jokingly, but the truth is, I’m serious as fuck. I don’t sleep well; dreams are less a sanctuary than a bloodbath of failure. Waking up tangled in sweat-soaked sheets, my heart racing, unable to remember if the disaster was real or imagined has become commonplace. My job is the one thing helping me stay almost sane, but tiredness is even making that difficult.
I sigh when my phone rings, and the sound is so sharp that it jolts me into an upright posture. For a split second, I imagine just ignoring it, watching it vibrate itself to oblivion. Hearing it makes me want to crawl into my closet and pray for a bloody stroke. But I don’t, because I am Deli, the one person in the Rift who doesn’t get time to heal.
Something has to give, or I’m going to lose my fucking mind.
Already defeated, I dig the phone out of the cushions. The caller ID is a small, sanctimonious icon denoting that this is Constantine. The sight of his name triggers a whole skein of responses—dread, guilt, frustration, and exhaustion. I haven’t heard from him in weeks, maybe longer than that, and I’d talked myself into believing he’d moved on. Maybe he had, but I feel that I’m about to be proven wrong.
Constantine has always been the kind of problem that doesn’t go away when you ignore it. He’s not a saboteur or a gossip, just one of those people who can’t let go. He’ll circle back, suddenlybleeding from a fucking paper cut that he wants you to look at. It’s never important, and to say he doesn’t take rejection well would be an understatement. I’d secretly hoped that, like Shea, he’d figured out that we’re not happening anymore.
That way, I wouldn’t need to have yet another heart-wrenching discussion I do not have the spoons for at this moment.
It’s not that I’m a coward—well, maybe I am. It’s simply hard to see yet another person hurt by my choices. I’d rather take a punch than have to watch a person’s face crumple in real time. If I could space out the traumas, give myself time to recover before the next disaster hits, I could handle it correctly.
But the universe has never once in its history given me time to recover. My traumas stack like books on a shelf that is slowly bending under their collective weight. Every fresh crisis shoves the previous one further back, but the shelf gets no lighter. I know that, and yet every time I face another call, another confrontation, I try to persuade myself that this one will be different.
Maybe this one will be simple. Maybe this one will not leave a bruise.
Honestly, I’m in no shape to handle something like this. I’m emotionally overloaded, and I don’t make good decisions when I’m like this. When I try to power through, I end up making everything worse. Words come out wrong, or I misread the cues, or I say something that can’t be unsaid. I have a whole vault in my mind filled with these moments, each one catalogued in excruciating detail.
Yet, I know I can’t ignore this in the current climate.
The last time I talked to this droid, he spent an hour explaining how my new boundaries are hurting everyone, but he did it in that way that made it clear that I was the culprit. He didn’t want me to solve anything; he wanted to guilt me. And I just sat there, listening, even though I wanted to tell him I wasn’t coerced into anything. I chose what I wanted, and despite what everyone thinks, no one is pushing my buttons in my family.
But I just nodded, absorbing his anger like a punch to the solar plexus, and when it was over, I went home and sat in the dark for three hours. Crying isn’t always possible now, so I have to let my body go limp and my mind races with the problems. It’s painful, but that’s what my reality is right now, and I don’t have a choice in this, unlike what I previously mentioned.
That’s why his name lighting up my phone made me feel the familiar cocktail of dread and duty mixing in my gut. I’m too tired for this, but if I put it off, it will only get worse. Amanda was making noise earlier today, and if I shove him off, she’ll point it out at the next meeting. He doesn’t care about my exhaustion; he cares about my attention. If I deny him that, it will come back around in some other, more toxic form.
I just have to see him and get it over with.
Maybe then I won’t be accused of terrible things. Or at least, I’ll be able to control the narrative, to tell my side before it spirals out of my grasp. Then I can rest for a while.
I stare at the phone; the screen pulsing with his name, and imagine the conversation. Constantine, his voice rising as he works himself into a lather, taking every interruption as a personal slight. I’ll have to be soothing, then firm, then conciliatory, and all the while I’ll be waiting for when he turns, when his face tightens and he lists my crimes.
I’m so tired of being everyone’s villain.
The phone rings until the last possible moment, then jumps to voicemail. I know I have to call him back; if I wait, it will look bad. So I stand up and pace the narrow living room, phone in my hand. I dial Constantine’s number and wait with the phone pressed to my ear, heart thumping out a staccato rhythm. He picks up on the first ring.
“Twinkles,” he says, and the way he says my nickname is grating as fuck.
“I need to see you. It’s urgent. Can you come over?”
I want to say no, but the word won’t form. I nod reflexively, then remember he can’t see me. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” I say, and even my voice sounds tired.
He hangs up without a goodbye.
