Looking For Trouble

Chapter 3: Respectful indifference

CHAPTER 3

Arya Crawford

'The world is split between those who feel too much and those who barely feel at all.

And something tells me, the latter went numb being the former for too long.' - Rumi

But is there a way back? Back to feeling too much, hurting too much, loving too much?

What happens to all those feelings? All those emotions?

Does numbness mean the emotions disappear? Scattered to the wind, their ashes laid to rest?

Maybe not.

In the days that had followed my exit from the New York State Penitentiary, I had felt too much. I had hurt too much. I had broke too much. I had felt emotions I couldn't name. All, too much.

So, I had buried it. All of it. The pain, the hurt, the sorrow, the hopelessness. Buried it so deep that the rest of me felt muted. Muted and numb.

For the last five months, I had accepted the numbness as my new normal. And as the months had gone by, I had convinced myself that I truly did feel nothing at all when it came to the prison and the grey-eyed man it housed. I had convinced myself that the reason I felt nothing was not because I had buried all of my emotions but rather because I had moved on from the whole experience. That I was respectfully indifferent now.

Which is why I couldn't understand why I felt like a ball of confetti kept erupting inside my chest since yesterday. The anxiety creeping into every crevice of my mind, making me physically sick. The buried emotions finally surfacing.

A sense of foreboding and dread had enveloped me after seeing Carter yesterday. And even though the buried emotions were finally coming up for air again, I wanted the reasons for those emotions to stay deep underground.

So, I was trying desperately to subdue the barrage of emotions that had ambushed me. I was feeling too much again, when for so many months I had barely felt at all. Trying to contain them all felt like an exercise in futility, however.

My phone started ringing in my hand, breaking my trance. I refocused my eyes on the screen displaying a FaceTime video call from Jackson. I exhaled a low breath before answering the call, sidestepping the pigeons on the sidewalk as I made my way after class to the bridal boutique for the final dress fitting for the wedding.

"Hey, everything okay?" I said accepting the call.

"Yeah, it was just someone from the concierge asking about when I want to leave for the airport tomorrow. What were you saying before we got interrupted?"

"I was saying that I ran away.."

Jackson stared at me blankly through the phone. "You hugged him. And then you ran away?.."

"Well, I didn't run away. I ran into class."

"Right. And you just left him standing there. Without saying anything.."

I raked a hand through my hair, irritably, waiting for the traffic to slow down before crossing the road. "Well, yeah. I had no idea what was going on. I was caught so off guard. I didn't want to do anything stupid."

"Stupider than running off without a word after giving him a hug. Yeah, that makes perfect sense."

I gripped my phone tighter and glared at the man on my phone screen, hoping the intensity could be conveyed to him through technology.

"The sarcasm is not appreciated!"

"Okay, let me get this straight. Carter Reynolds. Your inmate-"