They don't tell you that they won't be there forever, that some people won't even acknowledge your kindness. All the smiles you put on to be there for them won't last and the promises will fade along with them.
You're always left with you at the end of everything, no matter how much you try to avoid it. Loneliness will come for you, like a sharp pin, waiting to stab a dagger through your chest. It will eat away whatever life is left in you, even if you try to bury the pain in uninterested people. You could go to every hangout, every bash, and reunion you can imagine but it still won't change the fact that they never cared.
They told you to save some heartbreak from the beginning but felt you could change them otherwise. That you could beat that lonely sensation by socializing and finding community, only to find out that wasn't a community at all. But instead, a trap, laid out to suck you dry of whatever hope you had. If you thought your parents would be cruel your friends prove to raise the bar of expectation. Taking that lonely feeling you were running from and smashing it into your chest so you could remember, so you can see there is truly no running.
The feeling would feel like a thousand stings and get deeper and deeper each time you echoed the word, building an eternal sadness that would be hard to shake. The tears you would cry would fill the ocean and surrounding lakes and your bones would feel the pain. Growing faint by the day, fading along with any capacity of your brain.
The entire situation pending regrets that you would have to hold on to for years, and words of destruction would be repeating in your ears. Doing its best to destroy the very fact that you are still holding on, even though every fiber left in you wants to give in.
Wants to let the beast take you and make you forget your ways as the cruelty of humanity makes you beg for your final days. Each suffering decade becoming even worse than the next and the nihilism can't make you forget. You wonder why humans keep doing it, putting themselves in an endless loop.
The insanity must be fun for them but to you it is getting tiring, sad, and bleeding you from the inside. No bullet can do more pain than what the world has already shot, beating you like a drum and you still haven't forgotten.
Each day, each second, pilling up on you, losing your voice even though you didn't want to.
You can try and try again, but the truth is you will never win, and hell, no one does. We only dull it with small fragments—fragments of memories and melatonin—hoping we can sleep so we can get a boost of serotonin.
Even our dreams aren't always safe, attacking us when we have faith, nightmares bringing terror, and string memories of error in our ways. Imperfection is our fear, bringing everything near, and it all ties back to the loneliness that pierces the chest.
Never bringing us rest.
Charles had soon left and with that, some maids came back to help me get ready, I was dressed in black today. Not sure why but it reminded me of my mother and the story she used to tell me as a child. Plus, the veil she usually wears, when walks around, which I've been seeing less of lately.
One of the maids tilted her head to the side, "Are you ready, Lady.Victoria? We made sure you look presentable for the guests." I give a half-smile at her dull-eyed expression, walking over to the mirror in my room. The dress looks doll-like, puffy with long sleeves and pants to follow. My hair is twisted into a long braid making it all seem a bit dramatic honestly not really fitting the scene and almost funeral-like.
But instead, I sigh and give a subtle nod, "It is nice, thank you for helping me get ready."
The maids bow their heads, "It is no problem, Lady. Victoria, we know you will do better this time when the guests come and you be patient until further instruction. Good day."
They left and I pressed hands together, glancing back at the mirror to see a version of myself that I'm used to, disappointment. My face looks thin and my fingers slender, my eyes lacking life with my hair a pale ginger. "Why do I have to see them again so soon?" I ask myself, looking to the floor with watery eyes. I don't know what made me want to cry but for some reason, I couldn't help it.
Clear liquid stinging my eyes with some drops falling from my face, dropping onto my dress. It was difficult to do this again, pretending that I was alright, that I was perfect. My parents might be used to deceiving but for me, I don't drink away my problems like my mother nor smoke. Neither do I gamble all my funding away, like my father(Not that I have access to it anyway). At least, I think that's what he does, I heard my mother yelling about something like that one day, but she quickly shut it down when she sensed I was in earshot.
She likes to keep my father's affairs quiet, swearing to herself as she bottles it all in. She does everything by herself except her puppets when she needs something. Now I have to be her puppet again, attempting to be a good heir, or else I'll get the soup treatment. I shudder at the thought, I almost hate tomatoes now.
I shake my head going to wait over by the door, it seems so long but it's probably the only peace I'll have today. So, I should be grateful, but for some reason I can't shake the feeling of loneliness, of a pattern I am scared that will continue.
Even after I take over this place, will this feeling ever really go away? Never feeling safe and never like my own person, always in someone else's shadow. Being compared to and never ever being enough.