Dear Myself (A Study of Sheska)
--
It's okay.
You're a big girl, and you won't cry anymore.
Books are your first love, your first lover, have always been, always will be.
People get fired. And even if getting fired feels worse than the books make it out to be, the books say it will be okay. There will be other times. Other jobs. More books.
It's okay.
You're fourteen, a big girl.
You won't cry anymore.
It's okay.
-
It's okay.
You're a young woman, a grown-up girl, and you don't cry anymore.
Books are your dark temptation, your dark tempters, always calling, always drawing.
People get fired all the time; you've learned that already. It shouldn't even hurt anymore- you've been through this before. There will be other times, other jobs, other books to read, and besides, you remember every book you've ever leafed through, their wisdom filtering eagerly into your mind and making the war, all wars, like distant fairytales, vague bad dreams. Even if you didn't understand before, you can always think back, run the fingers of memory over the feel of worn pages, understand it later.
The smell of burning flesh is strange, like barbecue done halfway, and the smell of scorched blood gives it that unmistakable reek that distinguishes it from frying meat. It's the first time you smell flesh burn alive, the first time you smell books burn. It's not the first time you run, and it's not the first time you hide, and it's not the first time you get away.
It is, however, the first time your reading has nearly killed you, because if you hadn't been engrossed in A History of Xerxes: The Phantom City you would have heard the explosions, the gunshots, the screaming, the roar of flames. It's the first time you regret enjoying reading so much because your former boss, who yelled at you and hit your arm and finally tore the book from your hands to get your attention, is now part of the stinking barbeque and roaring tinder pile that was your former workplace.
You could've been part of that, too.
It's okay.
You're sixteen, a young woman, a grown-up girl.
You don't cry anymore.
It's okay.
--
It's okay.
You're a grown-up now, an independent woman, with rank and a uniform to back it up. Of course you're not crying.
People die all the time; you've learned that already. Books are much better, and they stay in your mind for much longer than the babbling, transient beings that appear occasionally to order you around, take your things, talk with you and laugh with you and show you pictures of their daughters and crow in delight at what ravishing sunlight-touched beauties they will be when they grow up.
That's a lie though.
No matter how hard you apply the heel of your hand to the traitorous moisture that makes your vision blur, the tears keep coming, because this one man- this one man, with his cunningly tilted glasses and dramatic declarations and multitudes of lovingly laminated photos- this man was the one to take your hand and drag you around on your first day in your current job, half deadly serious, half casual mentor and all loving gushing father asking what you think lovely darling Alicia my sweetiepie would love for her Happy Happy Unbirthday. This man, one among many humans who finally seemed real to you after such a long, long time, is dead, and of course you're not crying, of course you're not.
You really wish he could have lived to see his little daughter turn twelve, to see her first date, to beat off the boys and brandish a rifle like he always said he'd do. Look at the girl- she doesn't even understand that Daddy's dead- her mother is doing enough crying for both of them, and damn if you can see more because everything is a hazy wash of color and you've given up on trying to dash the tears away.
It's okay; it'll be okay.
Of course you're not crying.
You're twenty-two, grown-up, independent, even if your face hurts with the effort of trying not to cry, because you aren't crying. It's just- raindrops.
Of course you're not crying. You don't cry anymore.
Even if you are.
But it's okay.
Somehow you're sure he understands.
----
A/N: I can't really say anything meaningful after this. Maybe I'm PMSing? D: Or maybe I'm just tired? Yeah, that's probably it.