Introspective Strangers [h.s.]

Chapter 28

** Songs for this chapter: **

Feel Good - Matt Maeson
Too Much - Tora
Cruel World - Active Child
I Met Sarah in the Bathroom - awfultune

TW // Mention of Eating Disorders
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Chapter 28

Sadness and confusion were funny emotions.

The two seemed to mull together when you least expected it, sitting in the back of your brain making you question every part of your life or every choice that you had ever made until it drove you positively insane.

For me, there was no definitive line between the two. Ever since I was young, I had been scorned for talking too much about my emotions or being overly dramatic. I had been taught very early on that, in my household, the proper way to deal with overwhelming feelings of grief or pain were to bury them until they no longer came up in conversation.

I was taught that things were better left unsaid, even if they hurt, because no one wanted someone running their mouth and dripping that pain onto other people. What better way to overcome something than to just never speak of it at all? What better way to realize your strength than to utilize every last shred of it to bury your emotions so deeply that you weren't even really sure anymore what you felt?

That, my friends, is why I cannot tell the difference between sadness and confusion.

When I was sad, I buried it as I had been taught my whole life. And then when that sadness threatened to creep back up, I didn't understand why because I thought that I had dealt with it. It confused me as to why I felt worthy enough to feel this distraught over something that should mean nothing to me.

In other words, Harry had me at my wits end. He had me confused to an outstanding limit – a type of confusion that I was sure would actually be sadness should I choose to delve so deep and find out.

This confusion/sadness combo was precisely another reason why I tried so hard to keep certain people out of my life, so as to avoid it. With the handful of friends and family that I had grown up with, there didn't tend to be more than the regular amount of confusing sadness, something that I could no doubt deal with should I be forced to.

When another person was thrown into the mix, such as Mr. Honeybee Harry himself, those feelings catapulted. All of the grief and despair that I had tried so hard my whole life to shove down seemed to squish themselves into a bomb of emotion that threatened to detonate at any given moment.

This undetonated bomb had me nervous; it had me on edge and unable to sit still. I couldn't focus, I couldn't breathe, and it really messed with the already manic combination of feelings that seemed to be circulating around my head at all times.

This confusing sadness was something that nothing could help, not even medication. It was something that I knew deep down I had to face head on, whether I wanted to or not.

But how was I supposed to do that when I had been taught my whole life to run in the opposite direction? When I had been taught to bury not explore?

The notion alone terrified me.

"Eat, May." Isaac muttered and held out a bowl of food toward me. He watched with cautious eyes from where he stood as I busied myself around the living room, vacuuming and folding blankets.

"Not hungry," I said with a shrug and bent down to align the décor on the coffee table.

"She's been saying that all week," Amelia groaned from the kitchen. She had her elbows rested on the counter and stood beside the kettle, waiting for it to boil. Isaac glanced back at her and bristled. "Something's up about her. All she's done is go to class, work and then come home to lay in bed or excessively clean."