Re: Tea House
She was looking directly at the other woman and doing her best to block out the emotions that were raging around her. She steeled her shoulders to it, another time and another place she would have interjected, or casually observed, but never ignored. She'd never ignored anything until recently and here in this new face she allowed herself the opportunity to feel that feeling and the guilt and shame that went along with it. That wasn't her, but she had know way of knowing who that was. So many people perceived so much, and believed so much about her that she let them. She didn't let them to see the empty pit that felt like it had replaced every bit of her on the inside. She had been hanging from the ledge of the cavernous wasteland for too long and eventually it would have to fill up or she'd fall.
She didn't realize she had been so silent and staring past the other woman entirely until she tasted the copper tang and realized she'd bitten down too hard on the inside of her cheek. She closed her eyes for a moment and gathered her thoughts. She filed them as neatly as she could and for the briefest moment she was ready to lie. Ready to say she was strong and lovely, and always landed on her feet. She wanted to repeat what she was always being told, that she would be okay. She was going to be fine, everything was going to be okay because she was strong and good and she deserved it. As she picked up her tea again and took a sip of the liquid that had since gone lukewarm. She let it roll over her tongue for a moment before forcing it down.
"I..." she smiled in spite of herself, a pinprick in her throat that told her tears may come if she thought too long and hard about it. Instead she laughed, a sad laugh, but a laugh just the same. Her elbow came to rest on the table and she leaned the palm of her hand to her forehead and she sighed loudly her chuckles still coming out softly. Except it wasn't her laugh, these weren't her hands, and it wasn't her face. This was all a secret. No. Secrets destroyed her life more than once. This was a confessional. "I'm lost,. And I'm afraid I'm losing hope." She couldn't expect happiness, she didn't dare expect contentment. But hope was something she never wanted to lose sight of again.