A Tale of One Deviant (Book One)

Chapter 194: Progress

Anastasia swept off...no, Mother...swept off the shards of the phone shattered over her, groggily waking up yet again that day to more of my antics. Father seemed to think that, so long as he didn't move, even if I was awake, I wouldn't disappear.

     But he was wrong, for more reasons than one.

     Because with my fist stretched out in front of me, I saw clothes that weren't mine. My kimono was gone, replaced by the standard de Libellule. I wouldn't have started internally melting down if I'd known I'd put that on me, but I knew I didn't. Mana trails told me someone else had put it on, taking advantage of my tired state, and-

     ...clink.

     No-

     Panic rushed up my brain, telling me I was compromised. I was exposed. I was vulnerable, and not in my designated safe space hidden somewhere no one could find or see me. The collar around my neck was in full view, its chain sagging outside of my shirt and looping down inside again to the stake. Like neon snail trails their fingers had rubbed over it, traced the thing, discovering my secrets and shames while I slept.

     Unforgivable.

     I wanted nothing more than to take it all back. But because I couldn't do that, mind lost to the panic and anxiety of showing far more than anyone besides Magaris or Kiki saw, I lost it instead-

     "Firea."

     Such a soft voice. Such a loving one from my mother.

     It planted the seeds of confusion in me, having been about to erase their minds and snap away, to go shower or scrub somehow to get the feeling of their hands on my skin, on my scars, to go away. It felt like I'd told them about Kaya, my greatest shame of all - that was how terribly overwhelmed with fear and guilt and the crippling feeling of judgement on my back as I sat just in front of them, hand retreated to reach over my chest, gripping the pad on my left shoulder like curling up that much could do something to hide me and my totaled self-esteem from view.

     "Lay back down," she whispered, sitting up just enough to plant her hand on the mattress behind my back, arm leaning on my spine, hair tumbling over me. She leaned over just a bit over my craned head, right hand coming to cup around my face and persuade me downwards. "You can still rest-"

     "How dare you," I breathed, legs beginning to tense, muscles wanting to bend so I could jump up and run away. But with that tension came a more overwhelming sort that told me I couldn't move - I was frozen. Out of fight or flight, I'd chosen to freeze. "How dare...how dare you..."

     "Ana," Father whispered in warning, beginning to sit up himself on my other side. My shoulder caved away from his presence with a jerk, trying to ball up and avoid him. "I'm sorry, Firea. It was me."

     Peeling away my shell, carefully built, stubbornly maintained, without my permission. Without me being awake. Without me being able to say no.

     Exposing what I didn't want anyone to see.

     No one moved.

     And for once, then, he was right. If anyone did, anymore, even a twitch, I was gone. My head was beginning to throb, eyes burning from being open for so long without blinking, frozen in place but ready to teleport the moment I felt threatened. Because without my little tickets to invisibility and obscurity, anything was exactly that - a threat. Love, touches, words, movement. Whatever, wherever, whoever.

     "...why."

     "It was wrong of me to do that when you slept," he acknowledged, hand resting limply on his kneecap just a bit in front of me. A number of thoughts told me that if he so much as moved it, I'd leave him an amputee without any regret. "I know just how important it is to you to remain hidden from the world, because as vibrant as you are, you never really did like being seen. What I didn't realize was that it wasn't because you were protecting others by not showing them things, but protecting yourself, because it's your armor. It's only seeing your reaction and thinking back to the last few times we've encountered that I've come to understand this now, and I'm sorry it's this late. Without seeing you as you are-"