My Life My Rules

Chapter 82: Everlasting Effect

Despite the passing of a week and all of her wife's sweet words, Lain hadn't been able to fight off that growing monster inside of her head that was clouding her judgment.

She knew her wife supported her above all else, she knew her girls would always be there for her, but Lain's heart ached knowing there was still a slight chance of her parents affecting her family now.

She didn't want to put them at risk. She didn't want them falling into the same pit of sorrow as well. So for the sake of her family, Lain barely left her room. Encasing her madness within the confines of her bedroom.

Sometimes she'd stay in there for hours.

But, more often than not, she would spend days in there at a time.

If she shut all her problems away from her family and sheltered them into the good life they had, then they could continue to be happy. Regardless of the fact that she was not.

How could she?

Nothing Nina said made her demons go away. Lain was constantly fighting over her own mind trying to keep her sanity from breaking. There was a point in the week when Lain wanted nothing more than to make everything disappear. All her problems. All her fears. And most certainly all her doubt.

She didn't know why there was such a large cloud of judgment tormenting her.

Every day Nina would come into their room to lay besides her wife. She would hold her close as she informed the woman of all the girls activities she'd miss. While Lain managed small laughs and chuckles here and there, she couldn't help but feel that the only reason they were having fun was because of her absence.

And no matter how many times Nina assured her assumption was false, Lain couldn't seem to wrap her head around it.

While being isolated and alone was hard enough on its own, Nina somehow made all her worries seem to vanish. At least for a split second before Lain would remember the horror that was reality. But while Nina made things better, when Lain was alone it was almost as if the devil himself came to speak to Lain of her sins.

To Lain, being trapped alone in her room was the closest she'd ever felt to being in an eternal darkness.

When Nina unfortunately wasn't there to keep her wife company as she attended to keeping the girls healthy and happy, Lain couldn't open her eyes for she feared that if she had, she would see the shell of a person she had become.

As her eyelids stayed glued to one another, the only thing Lain could seem to recall was her final interaction with Nick and Nelson.

She couldn't get the look of fear Nick had in his eyes when Nelson confirmed her suspicion out of her head. Everything from that day seemed to be replaying in slow motion. She remembered every detail to the tee and while that would've been a blessing, she hated herself for preserving the memory.

It was a curse she had to endure.

She vividly remembered the way Nickolas had paused in order to hit his brother after the confession. That in itself hurt to see, but by the way Nick turned back towards Lain seemed almost distant. She didn't even know who she was looking at anymore.

The kind-hearted, goofball, she had known him to be seemed to only be a facade. The look in his eyes had been one of pure emotion. She could tell that was the real him. That was Nick. The part of him that he hadn't showed before. While she understood why he didn't express this side of himself often, she couldn't shake that look of a stranger out of her mind.

Nelson, on the other hand, had his own issues.

Lain's barely-beating heart couldn't even bare to think of his name. Nick may have been the one that wanted to withhold information from her, but Nelson had done the worst. He had solidified her deepest fear. He was the one who sent her mind into its endless spiral and she couldn't figure out how to bring herself out of it.