This is the spiritual successor to my story "Crazy." Fret not, as you do not need to have seen that story to read this one, though I would appreciate it if you did have a look. Enjoy!

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Finally. Peace…quiet…calm.

Finally, you gathered the courage. You finally picked yourself up, shook yourself down, and did it. It’d been tearing you up inside the night before, the entire weekend, even this morning when your heart was racing at light speed even though you were nowhere near doing what you’d set out to do, when your mind was racing at light speed thinking about all the possibilities of what could happen, telling yourself not to think of the ones that you wanted because you knew that whatever happened wouldn’t be one of the options that you considered, when your breaths were racing at light speed and you were taking in deep breaths and sucking in as much air as your little lungs could hold…and…

Calm. Now there was calm in your heart, calm in your mind. Sure, you’re a little disappointed, but of course you are. But you’d expected that, and that was exactly what you got. So you couldn’t be too surprised, at least.

It’s an odd feeling to be out of the storm that had consumed you for the last few weeks. Of course, it hadn’t all been that bad. You’d had some moments when the clouds broke, and the sun shined a little bit, and you were thankful for that. Those little bits of light were what kept you going, to be honest. You can laugh at the ridiculousness of it all now.

To say that it’d been difficult was an immense understatement. It’s fun to ride a rollercoaster once, but too many times and you begin to feel nauseous. In the same way, your first trip on the rollercoaster was exhilarating in a way, with all its highs and lows, proving to yourself that you still had the burning flame of emotion within you when you’d thought it gone for so long. But now, too many rides have worn you out, made you sick, tossed and turned you so much that you aren’t sure your head is still on straight.

You thought it’d be harder for you to deal with rejection. But the truth is, it’d been hard enough already and so rejection was simply a light at the end of a long, tortuous tunnel. Although it was the flat light of a rainy day, it was light nonetheless and that was better than nothing. Now, you have the luxury of living, not having to wait for anyone else when making plans or going places.

And also, rejection is hardly a new feeling for you. As much as you wish this wouldn’t be the case, you’ve been pushed away more times than you care to remember. You think you must be doing something wrong, but at this point you’ve been doing it wrong for so long that you don’t think you know how to fix it.

Sometimes, you wonder if it’s all too little, too late for you—if you’ve been stuck in your ways for so long that by the time you figure out what’s going wrong, everything will have blown past you and you’ll be lost with nowhere to turn. They always tell you not to settle, but sometimes you wonder if settling is better than having nothing at all. Your tastes are always higher than you can reasonably achieve, anyway.


You’d had another dream of her. You’d been wondering if or when it would ever happen, and it finally did, right on cue.

At least this time it wasn’t as bad as last time. Last time it was like being spit on, a punch to the face, just short of soul-crushing. This time, at least this time was just a dress rehearsal of sorts for this morning, except…she wasn’t there. It had been almost like an omen, telling you that it wouldn’t work out. But you had to take your chance anyway.

But why?

You remember the time when you thought you had options. Oh, what you would give to be in that position again, even to blindly believe it. You know now that you never had options, not even a single one. But ignorant bliss is sometimes better than knowing unhappiness.

You wonder why you even bother. You know by now that you have unrealistically high expectations, that somehow this disfigured blob in the mirror could somehow make anything out of itself. There are so many fish in the sea, they say, yet none of them are for you. Your mind destroys you at every turn, you can’t hold a conversation to save your life, and you expect things to work out well for you? Change, they say, change and you will find success, yet you changed and changed and if anything, you’ve just changed for the worse.

But now, you know you must not do anything stupid. Something within you wants to, your hidden drama queen, but you suppress it with as much force as you can. The last thing you need is to do something embarrassing.

Something deep inside you wants desperately for her to change her mind, too, but that part is easier to repress. You’ve spent years developing yourself into the emotionless, cynical husk that you are now, and years more defining that husk into a full person. You’ve crafted something undesirable, utterly useless, and you’ve become desperate.

There are no invitations to dinner now. Not that there would ever have been, because every single one before had been met with complete silence. There was no more obvious sign, yet your stubborn mind refused to believe it, and wanted the words straight from her mouth. Just a simple no, rather than ignoring. You’d been hoping for a straight answer for an eternity, giving the option multiple times. Yet every single time, you are met with silence.

But no more.

Finally, you gathered the courage to ask outright, get that straight answer you wanted. And even though it wasn’t the answer you wanted, it was an answer. And now that the weight has been lifted off your shoulders, you feel free, like a captured bird finally liberated from its restraints.

And you should feel good now, right?

…Right?