i welcomed the dark | paige oneshot

She was pretending.

Her smile was a small, dying thing — stretched to its limits & bound to shatter. She became familiar with the sharpness of broken glass; in her hands and beneath her feet. It wasn’t the idea of breaking that frightened her, it was the reason why. A terrible weight had settled on her shoulders, and no matter how hard she tried to move forward, she was trapped by it. Frozen in place.

There was no metaphor
for the way she was caged.

That’s all it was. A cage.

But she continued to play her role — she kept the production going, even when all she wanted to do was curl up behind the stage curtains and disappear. She didn’t want to be seen. When Kieran was there, she tried to hold herself together. Her acting was less convincing around others, and not at all when she was alone. She knew it was wrong, but those were the moments she longed for.

( When the world was quiet,
and her thoughts weren’t as loud. )

It was unfair, the way she left so many of her responsibilities to Kieran — and it was unfair, the way he accepted them so gracefully. If she was being honest with herself, she wasn’t trying at all. Not even for him. Everything was forced, her joy and her affection; and she hated herself for it. She hated that the love of her life refused to call her out for her behavior, that he was willing to accept that the woman he planned to marry was a bad mother.

Most of all,
she hated that she was willing to accept it, too.

And she hated that she couldn’t even hold her child.

She hated many things. It was like so much of her progress began to move in reverse when she gave birth, like all the hypocrisy and anger and sadness came flying back. The emptiness was the worst part of it. Maybe she was trying to fill the vacancy, to feel any emotion. Because she couldn’t force happiness, even if she liked to pretend that she was capable of it. She couldn’t kiss Kieran anymore, she couldn’t nurture her baby.

She couldn’t ask for help.

She didn’t know how.

All she wanted to do was sleep, and to pretend like nothing was wrong. But that was impossible, and she couldn’t escape it. Her depression followed her closely, kept a hand on her shoulder as she tried to cook breakfast — always weighing her down, making her feel so tired. She couldn’t even bring herself to get her son out of his crib. She prayed that he wouldn’t cry for her.

She couldn’t answer him.

She couldn’t do this.

She greeted Kieran, forced a smile, but she couldn’t meet his gaze. She kissed him, but she did not lean into it. He prepared to leave, to take their son to visit his grandfather, and she should have wanted to go with them. But she was anxious, running off the desperate desire to be alone. She wished them well, acted like she had advice to give, and she watched them walk out the front door like everything was perfect. He told her to rest as if she deserved peace.

And then there was only silence;
and then she allowed herself to break.