Thus with a Kiss

Chapter seven

Paige

It hurts.

And I can’t make it go away.

And when I say it hurts, maybe that’s an inaccurate description of how I’m currently feeling- it’s more that everything feels too loud, too intense and I’m starting to collapse in on myself. And it gets like this sometimes, in my head I mean. I try so hard to ignore it but sometimes I physically can’t. And most the time there is no explanation to the sadness; it just creeps in and ruins whatever good thing I may have going on.

One.

Two.

Three.

Sometimes breathing helps.

Sometimes it doesn’t.

***

I’m not sure how long I sit here before the tears finally stop pouring, but it feels like a hell of a long time. I try to catch my breath but I’m struggling, and I can feel it happening all over again and how do I stop it.

How do I stop?

As though on the edge of a wind, something settles over me, taking away the stinging from my throat and heaviness from my head. Its’s almost peaceful- or at least it would be if I thought it would last forever. But that’s the thing about peace, its transient. You have to grab it whilst it lasts. I look around, certain I’ll find someone or something to blame this quiet reprieve on, but the room is empty, just me and my not-so-quiet thoughts.

Deciding to try and stick with this momentary reprieve, I head downstairs to cook myself dinner. Sometimes it’s all too easy to let myself slip away into bad habits and just let myself starve- even if I have to force myself to eat, it’s better than the alternative of not eating at all. I pop the kettle on, ready to boil some pasta because, let’s be honest, nothing works better than pasta at fixing a good many things. Not wanting to overexert myself, I keep my meal pretty simple: creamy chicken pasta. Whilst the pasta boils away, I take my time methodically cutting the chicken into thin pieces; there’s something soothing, peaceful, about the precision of it all. Cooking is almost like therapy because it gives me something physical to focus on for a solid 40 minutes, without getting lost in my head; I get lost in the task at hand instead.

Once everything is cut up and cooking away in the pan, I wash things up as I go to save myself the time later. It’s still relatively early in the evening so once I’ve eaten, I’ll probably sit down and try and get into a good book. Sometimes reading is another way to focus on anything but myself because it’s a physical task; it isn’t like watching tv where you’re passive because your mind has to do the work in order to learn the story. And it’s that kind of exertion that allows my mind to slowly switch itself off. But if I’m being honest with myself, on days like today, I’ll spend all of 10 minutes too distracted to really concentrate on whatever booked I’ve pegged as my next victim, and just go to bed, even though it’s way too early to actually drift off to sleep.

But that’s a routine of mine, one I find incredibly hard to break; I repeat it over and over again because it brings me an empty sort of comfort.

Fifteen minutes later, with dinner cooked and the dishes washed up and drying, I sit down and eat. And even though today hasn’t been the best of days, the fact that I’m trying is enough to bring a small smile to my face because that’s all the really counts, the fact that I’m trying.