Dragging Feelings

There are those times when life gets far too suffocating to deal with. A mental weight so catastrophic that it pushes down on the shoulders, creating a bubble of cursed air that burns the lungs and a pressure behind the eyes that invites tears to gather. This feeling can be as soft as a blanket, as swooping as a rollercoaster, as insurmountable as craggled mountains, and as piercing as a butcher knife, all in a rotating cyclone that seemingly never ends. 

Cecelia has never felt such an encapsulating emotion in her entire life. She has since lacked a reason to be filled with grief; she has never experienced the loss of a loved one, nor a runaway pet, and not even the breaking of a friend group. She has been lucky, she realizes now, to have never known such a cutting sensation that she has seen on so many people’s faces. 

She glances out over the green of her college campus from a bridge that arches over a burbling creek, trying so incredibly hard to keep herself together. Yet, the inner corner of her eyes burn as she wills herself to not let a single tear fall. Her lips quiver and her chin wobbles as her teeth chatter, the frost of betrayal banding its icy-hot tendrils across her bleeding heart. 

“Ceecee?”

Recognizing the voice, she turns away from it. She swipes under her eyes with her sleeve, marking the floral, yellow shirt with a line of mascara and eyeliner. 

“Hey, are you ok?”

The sleeve sweeps over her cheeks, nose, and under her chin before she plasters on a plastic smile, already feeling it waver as she spins towards her friend. 

The crumbling facade fails completely as she sees Dylan standing there with a pitiful sheen to his eyes and a crease between his brows. She breaks easily, steaming tears cascading down the apples of her cheeks, causing her to hide her face behind her hands. 

“Oh, God. Um…” Dylan readjusts his backpack slung over one shoulder nervously. “Do you want me to get someone? I’ll go get someone”—he starts to leave before spinning right back around—”or should I stay? I don’t know what to do here.”

Another sob wrenches from her throat, but it comes bubbling out with a slight laugh. “Gosh, you are terrible at this.” She sniffles and makes work of clearing her face again, even as more salty water leaks from her tear ducts. 

Dylan shuffles on his feet. “Are you okay?”

Cecelia frowns. “No,” she spits out somewhat unkindly. 

Her friend waits for her to say more. When she fails to, he says, “Well… What’s going on?”

Nearly cracking again, she shakes her head. “Nothing important.”

“Yeah, okay. And I’m the president. Tell me what’s making you…” Dylan gestures at her face with small circles. 

Cecelia scoffs playfully as she wraps her arms around her middle. “You can’t even say ‘cry?’” 

Face contorting in dissatisfaction, his eyes fall to the ground, contemplating for a few moments. “Is everything okay with you and Aiden?”

Shoulders slumping, Cecelia shrinks away from the truth. It is something that she has been attempting to shelter herself from for over a week because it only brings her to immediate tears. And, it does just that now, drowning her beneath deep, frothing waves. 

“Okay, okay, nevermind. Don’t…do that,” he rushes to say. “You can tell me about it.”

Staving off her emotions, she gives him an out in fear that he is only saying things to get her to stop pestering him with her drama. “You never want to hear about this kind of stuff. You’ll just get bored.” 

Instead of throwing in the towel and walking away, Dylan surprises her and places his backpack next to hers on the bridge. “I’m all ears.”

Cecelia inhales deeply, attempting to find the center of the tangle that her emotions have made of themselves. It should be so easy to spill all of the details of what Aiden decided was best, but she is unable to locate a tether to hook onto, all of her thoughts so murky and wading in regret-addled waters. “I… I just… It’s so stupid.”

“Mhm,” her friend minutely encourages. 

His subtle support makes her throat ache when she swallows, so she takes a breath. “I tried my best to reason with him. To make him realize that…” She chokes up, opting to choose new words. Ones easy enough to rip the band-aid off. “We broke up.”

Dylan straightens. “Oh, Ceecee, I am so sorry.”

“It’s, um, it’s fine.” Her voice cracks on the last word. “I’ll get over it, but I just… I can’t help but want him.” A new wave of upset comes over her. “I miss him so much,” she whispers as thoughts of Aiden’s arms around her send her deeper into remorse.  

Dylan sighs out his nose, rubbing his fingers over his brow in a contemplative way. 

Cecelia goes quiet. The abundant feeling of being a bother worms its way between her grief, coalescing into a lump in her esophagus. She feels like she is taking away from Dylan’s day. He should be out with friends, not having to tend to her and her ridiculous needs, and she can deal with everything herself, she always has, so Dylan shouldn’t—

“I can’t imagine a world where I wouldn’t miss someone if I spent every day with them for a whole year.” 

Head turning, Cecelia stares at him. Her friend has never been one for deep conversations, especially not ones involving his intimate personal life. So, she closes her mouth and wipes her nose to silence her sniffles, allowing him the space to speak more. 

Noticing, Dylan continues. “It’s difficult when someone is a part of your world and then, suddenly, they aren’t anymore. So, you should let yourself feel upset by it all. There’s nothing wrong about that, and I know you well enough to know that you’re going to hide away until this all blows over. But, as your friend, I can’t let you do that.” 

She had felt warm and fuzzy at the beginning of his speech, but that has now turned to a cold worry that settles in her gut. “What do you mean?”

“You push everyone away to make them think you’re happy all the time,” Dylan says so easily that Cecelia almost doesn’t take any offense.

Almost. 

Her face scrunches up into a childish scowl. “I do not—”

“You do.” Dylan stares at her with serious eyes. “That’s fine. Everyone has their quirks. I’m just saying I’m not letting you do that. You’ve always had a difficult time getting through tough situations. I mean, you’re still wearing that necklace he got you.”

Cecelia looks down and, sure enough, the gold heart pendant Aiden had gotten her for her birthday still hangs around her neck, lined in diamonds and reflecting the light as if trying to cheer her up. Rather, it plunges her into that delicate, watery state all over again. She remembers when Aiden had presented the box to her, a grin on his face as he eagerly prompted her to open it. She had been happy then. She had felt loved, and as if she belonged. The space that those feelings had taken have become bare, a hollow in her psyche that disturbs her, a safety blanket that had been stolen from her before she was ready. 

“What?” Dylan questions, catching onto her silence. 

“I…” She grazes her fingertips over the pendant. “I didn’t realize I still had it on.” 

“I can help you take it off.” Dylan reaches for her neck, fingers curling to find the clasp. 

“No!” Cecelia shouts far too loudly. She leans away, hand shooting up to fist the pendant. Fear spikes through her at the thought that he will rid her of a physical object of Aiden's love for her. 

Dylan raises his hands in surrender, a scared expression widening his always neutral face. “Sorry.”  

Cecelia sobs at her outburst, unbelieving that she would let herself do that to her friend, so frightened of herself that she unintentionally allows Dylan to see her uncontrollable panic. She can feel his eyes on her as she cries, hunched over the railing of the bridge, troubling to breathe, heart racing, body shivering. It is a deluge that commands her, one that obscures thought and function, and she fears it will never cease. She has lost the person who could calm her in a way that no one else could. 

“I just wanted him to love me,” she whispers through a raw throat. 

“I know,” Dylan soothes. Uncharacteristically, he places a warm hand onto her shoulder blade and rubs a soothing line up and down. “I know.”

The calming action and the sweet words lengthen her sorrow. It makes her feel everything, as if her friend had just broken the dam past repair, and now she cannot control herself. It is a horribly vulnerable, yet relieving confusion. And now, she notices that Aiden had never made her feel this strange sense of comfort before. She had loved him, she still does, but she had never gotten a break with him; always getting nitpicked, talked down to, ignored, forgotten. It is an unfortunate realization and she hates it. She hates that she cannot choose whether she loves him or hates him. She hates that he couldn’t have treated her better. She hates that she has to feel so regretful over things that he always criticized her for that were so ingrained in her being that he just didn’t like her. And, most of all, she hates the grief that clings onto her skin, coercing her into a convoluted reality, one where she misses fleeting touches and empty promises, and where she begged at the feet of the man she loves for another chance, only to be turned away because he had never, not once, felt the same.