Chapter 19: Get It Together

He couldn't figure out exactly what he'd done to illicit a response like the one he had gotten right after telling her that she could have one of the chickens he had bred. She had practically, no, she had run out of the barn and Marnie's, and Liz had disappeared right after. He couldn't find her anywhere, something that had made him sick with worry as he let the dogs out and fed them. Just in case she was going to run from him again, he stayed by her house, hiding in the shadows behind her chicken coop waiting until her saw her home, albeit sniffling and with tears in her eyes, before heading home himself. Yoba, he wished she'd just talk to him about whatever the problem was. There was no point in all of this mess.

There was something else that was confusing him; primarily, it was her talk of him leaving sometime. Surely, she had to know that he didn't plan on working for her forever; he'd want his own job eventually. And besides; hadn't he expressed some sort of interest in her lately anyway? Sure, he didn't have a clue what exactly they were yet, but there was still a them and they in the picture. Didn't that count for anything? Didn't he tell her that the other day, though not in nearly enough words?

He ran a hand through his hair and groaned, staring at the clock. He hadn't slept at all, and he had to be at work in an hour. She was going to avoid him, probably. He'd get there, and she'd head off to the mines or off fishing or something. He got up, back cracking. He may as well get there early; maybe he'd catch her off guard enough for her to talk about what was on her mind.

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It was interesting, sometimes, how depression worked. She felt like an emotionless robot had taken over control of her body. Either that, or like she wasn't really in control of her own actions, simply going through the motions of life. She was able to act normally, or so it seemed to her. She was fine with everyone except for Shane; he was the one who reminded her of her faults all too much; she wasn't good enough to deserve a man like him; she wasn't good enough for anyone to stay with her. Hadn't the past told her that? Her parents not thinking she was good enough throughout her childhood should have tipped her off early on. Yoba above she wished she had killed herself successfully. It had to be better than going through life like this; like an emotionless robot. Even Alan hadn't thought she was worth much. Not enough to keep from having emotional outbursts at her from time to time, not letting her express any emotion other than happiness without some sort of temper tantrum. It was like a living hell at times. But, if even he admitted that she was too much work, why the hell did she seem to be so cocky in thinking that she deserved better?

Even those thoughts felt odd; they came at her with the ease of someone swimming through maple syrup, and any emotion attached to them was completely gone or faint, at best. If anything, it was like she was being sent the thoughts by someone living on a distant planet, they didn't really feel like they came from her herself and they felt quiet at that. If they were her own, original thoughts, wouldn't there have to be at least a little emotion attached? Wouldn't they have to feel like her own, instead of dark, whispering comments floating through the back of her mind?

To be honest, this sort of thing happened often. Her therapist told her it was a result of childhood trauma. She wasn't really sure what he had meant until he had asked her if there had been a lot of times growing up where she had no opportunity to express her emotions. Thinking back, there had been a lot of those. She had always gotten in trouble for doing something wrong growing up. She actually still hated holidays and her birthday just because of some of the awful, nasty memories that came up with it. Her parents were much better now, but emotional manipulation had been heavy growing up. They'd even made her feel guilty for being born a few times.

He'd drilled her pretty deeply this week once she told him about the interaction with Shane, too. He told her that she was being irrational and taking things out of context, not really anything helpful since, logically, she already knew that. She just was panicking anyway because she had been unmedicated for such a long, long time. She couldn't help it. His diagnosis, however? Her abandonment issues were making it hard for her to trust Shane, and, on top of it, when the threat of abandonment or confrontation happened, she tended to emotionally shut down. He hadn't been nice to her when he said it, either. It had felt like he'd tried to drop a nuclear bomb on her soul and, well, he had succeeded. All in all, she was a screw up.

The therapist had asked her if there was some way she had "gotten over it" before, and her only thought had been her friend Chris. He had always managed to coax her out of her shell, even if he hadn't really been trying. He just treated her as if everything was normal, like she wasn't doing anything too weird or wrong. It had taken a while, but it usually worked. Alan, on the other hand, had made things worse. It hadn't been until after he died that she realized how emotionally… unhelpful he had been. The man had never really even tried to push physical contact on her, even though it was something she had begged him to do while not under the influence of, well, her emotionlessness to help her snap out of it. Her therapist used a different phrase, emotionally abusive, but she wasn't sure if she agreed. Alan surely hadn't been that bad. It was more like… emotionally restrictive. Abuse was going too far, wasn't it?

Either way, the man had recommended a few things: first of all, talking to Shane. If she couldn't do that, she had to talk to someone she trusted about it, at least. Someone she could talk to. If Liz was being honest, though, she didn't have anyone to talk to anymore. Marie had a kid now; she really couldn't talk to her. She was much too busy. Besides her sister, she really had no friends. So, she was sitting on her porch, staring at her dogs. It was ridiculous, but she didn't really feel any embarrassment. It was almost like her emotions were being choked back by something that was just barely holding on. If she didn't talk to something soon, she'd end up looking like more of a loon, for sure.

"Toby," she began. At the sound of his name, the dog turned towards her, cocking his head. She leaned her head against his chest and closed her eyes. He huffed, not exactly happy with the position, but clingy enough to let it happen as her arms wrapped around his body. "What is wrong with me?" She paused, hating herself as a tear made its way down her cheek and dripped onto the poor dog's head. She was so stupid. So fucking stupid and so fucking…

"-overdramatic…" A loud sob, followed by a few sniffles, interrupted her speech. "Wh-Why am I like this? Why can't I get my shit together, Toby? All I ever do is panic... I panic about the budget, whether or not I'll be able to eat or if you guys will. I panic about the amount of farm work, and it's not even that much... Hell, I even panic over whether or not the house is clean enough and no one comes over! …and with Shane… I panic that I'm going to screw things up with him. I think I already have. He's already said that he wants to leave..." She was rambling now, unable to stop the torrent of insults she was mentally hurling at herself, unable to stop the hurt and betrayal she was feeling.

Another soft sob followed. "I never do anything right," she said, though this time it was muffled, as she was saying it into the dog's fur. "I always mess up. And shut down. I'm not good at emotions, Toby. I can't handle them. I just wish… I wish someone would stick around even when I push them away… I wish someone would finally decide that I'm worth it. Alan never thought I was. He told me as much… that I was too much work to be 'worth it' sometimes…"

She looked up at her dog, her only companion for the past ten years and sniffed again. "If that… guy didn't think that I was worth it… who would? How could I?"

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He wasn't actually sure if he was supposed to be coming to work. The brunette hadn't talked to him about it for a while, and he got the feeling that she needed space. But, Marnie was starting to notice, and "vacation time" wasn't a good enough excuse, even if the winter season tended to be less busy. It was close to spring, anyway, and he knew enough about farming to know that she'd need help preparing her fields. It'd only been a few days and he missed her. A lot. He hadn't realized how much time he spent talking to her, working for her, and being with her until he wasn't able to. Jas was worried too. He had told his niece to stay away for now, mentioning that "vacation," but she was coming to depend on Lizzy as much as he did these days. He could only hope that the woman would come around; the last thing that Jas needed was another mother figure to go missing. Marnie tried her best, but Lizzy just seemed to have that… "mom touch" in her personality.

As he walked up to the path, he was startled, but grateful to hear the sound of a female voice floating towards him. He cautiously walked up, using the chicken coop as a sort of shield and guilt flooding through his veins. It was just so he could make sure she was okay, he told himself. He wasn't being a creep.

To his surprise, she seemed to sound okay, but her voice was a bit rough. She was saying something about how to plan the spring harvest, seemingly talking to Toby who was for all intents and purposes, looking like he was listening, he decided after sneaking a glance around the coop to look at her. The mutt was sitting next to her, a white paw on her lap and eyes on her face. Shane poked his head around the corner again to catch her wiping her face before turning her face towards the sky, eyes closed. It didn't seem to be a good time to round the corner; there was no way to without her knowing that he'd been spying on her. But, he still needed to talk to her, to talk about what the hell was going on between them.

The brunet started back down the trail before turning around, making a fair amount of noise coming up this time, to the point where Lucas and Lucy barked and ran up towards him, tails wagging. He greeted them loudly, for good measure, before coming in view of the porch. He stopped relatively close to Liz, noticing how she seemed to be embarrassed at the way her lovely brown eyes were bloodshot and her cheeks were stained red. She refused to make eye contact, even as she greeted him.

"Hi, Shane." He simply nodded in reply, not quite sure about her mood still. She sighed. "I owe you an apology."

"What for?" He asked in surprise, more about her mood being so… good after what was obviously a hard cry session. He wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he wasn't the dullest either.

"For being so distant lately. I was just… caught up in a few things." Brown eyes did finally meet his own darker ones, even if it was just for a brief second, before she shrugged and looked away. "It wasn't your fault, though, and I shouldn't have… ignored you for so long."

"Do you want to talk about it?" He managed, after a few seconds of debating. She shook her head at him, and he shrugged. "Alright."

He stood awkwardly across from her for a few more seconds, looking at her as she gazed passed him. "Life is shit," she managed.

"Sometimes," he answered back.

"Most of the time," she disagreed. "But I'm also someone who only notices the bad times, not the good. It's… something to work on, for sure."

Another moment of silence passed between them before she had the courage to speak again. "That's life though, right? You always have something to work on." She got up, a relieved Toby rushing away to go join the giant wrestle dog pile occurring a few feet away and stretched.

"Anyway, we need to till the ground today. And start installing some sprinklers I made a few days ago. You up for it?"

Shane nodded in response, glad to have her finally back to her seemingly normal self. "Sure thing."