Unconditionally- The Beginning Of Revelation

27. Counsel and Combat

"I-I didn't realize", I told her, quickly wiping my face, "D-did you come looking for me after I left?"

"Yes", she replied, "By the looks of your face before you suddenly ran off, I was worried you were having a panic attack"

I smiled bitterly. Had it been that obvious?

"It sort of had", she replied and my eyes widened.

Man! Had I said that out loud?! I can't believe what I'm doing!!

Despite my utter exhaustion, I managed to smile at her, "Thank you for coming after me and I'm sorry to have worried you", I told her, "I'm just going through some...difficult stuff in life"

So difficult that I felt like any minute now, I would shatter into a thousand pieces and drift away with the wind.

She was quiet for a few seconds before replying, "Why not tell someone about it?" she replied, "It'll make things easier"

I sighed and looked away, shaking my head sadly, "I don't think so...I don't think it will"

If anything, it'll probably complicate things further

"Look Suzzanah", she spoke pressing my shoulder gently, "there are things in this world that are bigger than all of us, and if we were meant to face those things alone, then there wouldn't be so many of us"

A heaviness descended upon my exhausted persona on hearing her words and I raised my gaze to her to find her watching me, her calm eyes gleaming understandingly, "Sometimes you need to go beyond how you think things are, to discover how they really are", she said softly, "and you'll be surprised at what you find"

I knew she was referring to how I had said I didn't think telling someone would make things easier. I sighed again, heavily, shakily, "I don't think I have the strength for any more surprises right now", I breathed out feeling a cold numbness descend upon me. The evening air had turned chilly and it was making my already cold body shiver involuntarily.

Or maybe it's the fear and not the cold that's causing me to shiver...

The wind got colder and colder and I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself. My breathing became shallower as I found myself sinking deeper into despair.

I can't go on like this, I can't go on anymore...

All courage had left me, smothered by the weight of the terrifying events transpiring in my life. And I realized very slowly and very painfully that I was breaking, and I was breaking fast.

"Napoleon once said, Courage isn't having the strength to go on- it's going on when you don't have strength", Megan's soft words hit my cold body like a rush of wind making my head shoot up to look at her, my eyes wide in disbelief.

She smiled at me and there was something in her smile that warmed my cold body, "You may not have any strength left, but just the fact that you're still here even though it seems like you'd rather not be, shows that you do have courage. And honestly, that's enough"

My heart welled at her words as she squeezed my shoulder comfortingly, "It'll be okay", Megan said softly, her calm green eyes offering strange but genuine reassurance, "It really will"

She didn't know...she didn't know anything about what I was going through, and yet hearing those words somehow made my heart a little lighter and I realized that I really needed to hear that, even if it was from a stranger. For the first time, for the very first time someone had acknowledged that my efforts to keep it together weren't in vain. Someone had told me that what I was now, was enough.