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Edna always tried to make sure she would fulfill every role. The mom, the father, the grandmother. She was her only family. But you can’t take off that need for a girl to have a male validation in any way possible.

For my best friend it’s romantic.

I think about it like this, half angry, half wanting to hug her till she stops. Because that’s how it was taught to her. Reading attention as proof she’s not alone.

I want to tell her she deserves someone who does the small, boring things, someone who fixes the heater, shows up at three a.m if she doesn’t feel well, someone who would remember things about her that most people would forget.

But I also know how easy it is to mistake a sweet word for safety. So I sit with the ache and the impatience, whispering “roots, not fireworks” under my breath, and hoping she learns the difference before the bandage wears thin.

“How about you, Reya? Are you not interested in finding someone?” She asks, turning her head to me.

Someone?

"I want a soul, Hayzel"

"What do you mean?"

"I don’t want a body or a mind, I want a soul.”

I’m so drunk, it’s not even funny. It’s scary. I know what happens when I feel like this. Alcohol has a weird twist on me. I don’t feel happier or sadder, I just feel in the worst way possible. I feel loneliness the most, like I’m the only soul out here searching for its soulmate.

It’s so stupid. It’s really stupid. Because I am fucked. I don’t even know how to be myself most of the time because I was never enough for the people I always had to impress.

But I do want a soul.

Having a body is easy.

I spent years believing that was all anyone wanted from me. Bodies are simple, you just have to let someone come close enough, convince yourself that being touched is the same thing as being chosen, and for a few minutes you feel less alone. Then they leave and you’re left with your own skin again.

Growing up, I collected strangers and mistook intimacy with love so many times that I spent years confusing the two. I wanted the five minutes of attention and care it gave me. The shame always came after. Having a soul is the impossible part.

I want someone who’s interested in who I am, without judging my choices. I’ve done horrible things for love. I swallowed myself quietly, letting people use me because rocking the boat meant scaring the ones I love.

I let them act like I didn’t deserve empathy.

That was my trade, my voice for their calm.

I feel dumb, I do.

“You want a soul?”

“I do, but I’m not worth it.”

I hate saying how I feel. I wish I could be free of feeling, I mean. When feeling gets stolen from you before you even learn how, you never get the manual. I learned it when I was crying over Mom’s death, and Dad shrugged, saying, “Stop being dramatic.”

That’s how you learn doubt instead of emotion.

Liking things, wanting things… It's so hard when you can’t have them.

I do like Mister Caldwell in a weird way. He’s simple and cold, he folds his hands, he waits for me to give my opinion, and doesn't finish my sentences. He feels like an escape most of the time.

Gosh I’m spiraling.

Sometimes I wonder if I’d be different growing up somewhere else.

Would I be normal?

Being drunk helps though. It blunts the edges. As sad and devastating as that sounds, it does help thinking about how I feel. I just want to feel and find a soul.