Messy by Choice

Mess 25 (Ally)

"You already lost yourself, haven't you?"

I get milk out of the fridge.

I've been sleeping a lot. I used to sleep a lot when I lived with my parents. Vee says I slept a lot then because I was doing a lot of emotional labor trying to regulate the family and understand why I was treated the way I was by my mom. I look in the mirror and see her reflected in my face. Same nose and eye color. Recently Aunt Gracie told me how much I was growing to look like her. I want to become nothing like her. I made a promise with myself years ago I would become nothing like her.

"When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back."

So don't stare into it. That would be the solution, right? Avoid the abyss and I'll be fine.

I wouldn't become my mom and lose myself like her to the black abyss of emotions she couldn't control until they exploded sporadically and randomly onto me in words that would have me crying and praying into my pillow that she would love me.

"The abyss stares back."

Nietzsche has always been one of my favorite philosophers. I feel a kindred spirit to him and always felt he must have had a pretty dark past where his eyes were open to too much too young. But I never understood him on that. Even if I faced the abyss and stared into it, the result of nothing is just nothing. No amount of pouring of anything into nothing could ever make it something. But when I've been pouring a lot of myself into steering away from that abyss, when I thought I've been avoiding it, I was feeding into it, warping into it. Lenox was right. I became something someone could pour everything into and get nothing from. Like my dad had done. I watched him completely severe himself of his emotions years before he left. And I choose to mimic him because as a child it was safer to be around that. It at least felt safer. It was just another type of abyss. One that led to bleak loneliness. That's what happened to him. He cut off his emotions and that extends to me and my sister, not just my mom. That's why he could leave us behind as easily as he did and why now whenever I try to contact him it's one word text messages back weeks later. No birthday calls or well wishes.

And then I let Lenox in, knowing he was growing to love me. And I didn't stop him not because the sex was good but because being loved by him felt good. Laughter never felt so light and smiles never came so easily. And yet I still pushed him away. Afraid of the abyss he would force me into. When I was the abyss.

I remember how distressed Lenox was the last time we had sex. With his hand half around my throat as he fucked me. He was forceful and had me completely pinned underneath him and I didn't once for even half a second ever think there would be any chance this man would ever hurt me. Even as pissed as he was with me, which he clearly showed in his eyes, I still knew he wouldn't have. That he'd have cut off his own breathing before I suffered even mild discomfort.

And then I bawl crying. Has anyone ever stifled their emotions to protect mine? How could someone in that much distress still care enough to put me before them, especially when I was the cause of that pain?

Vee catches me with the fridge open and closes it while pulling me into a hug.

"Oh, Ally," she whispers gently into my hair.

Vee had been my rock and friend through my childhood. Beyond a friend. A sister, and my life saver.

She's the only one who knows how bad I was messed up by my parents. I never could really bring myself to talk about it, but Vee was there. We'd have sleepovers where she watched my mom berate me into tears because I forgot to empty the dishwasher. She was the one I stayed with when my mom kicked me out for three months because I didn't do the laundry. I had so many little things I was punished so severely for, that not having emotion or at least not acknowledging them was how I survived the pain in a situation I couldn't escape.

I don't know when, but Aur and Sharon join in. I love them so much. I'm never happier than when I'm with them or feel more loved and seen or safe and somehow, I still want Lenox. I want him in my bed so I can lay in his stupid wide chest. I don't deserve his stupid wide chest. I made him sacrifice his needs for mine. To accept a place in my life as a call girl when he wanted to treat me like one of the greatest things in his life. But that felt like too much pressure. Even when that person was someone I wanted around. I didn't even ever like any guys. I hardly even had a body count, yet I felt that the first logical reaction to anything real was distance. Distance from my own emotions had kept me safe. It had hurt Lenox. And now I think it's hurting me too. I want to tell him this, but an apology would just sound like an excuse because at my core I still haven't changed. He doesn't deserve that. To have me messing with his feelings. To go back to him when I'm not willing to give him what he wants when I don't think I can. Even if I might want to. So, what could I do?

"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you stare into the abyss long enough, the abyss stares back."

"Vee?" I ask. "Will you come with me somewhere?"

She nods first before saying. "Anywhere."