Chapter 41 Chapter 40: A Cage of My Own Making
With my forehead pressed against the cool glass of the hopper window, the world outside blurring into streaks of grey and green, I finally stopped running. The frantic energy of my flight had drained away, leaving behind a hollow, aching stillness. It was time to take stock.
What did I know? What did I really, truly know?
The questions echoed in the quiet space of my mind, cutting through the noise of guilt and fear. The answers came not as shouts, but as quiet, undeniable truths, rising from a place deeper than the chaos of the last few weeks.
I knew I was human. A person. And like every other person rattling around in this city, I needed to be seen, to be understood, to be loved. That was the fundamental engine of my being. It was a simple, stark realization that made all the complex biology feel almost secondary.
But the biology was the cage. So, what was the key? My mind, sharpened by exhaustion and despair, latched onto the only pattern it could find, the only data points I had. The alcohol. The sex. Silver. These were the three constants woven through every violent, unpredictable change. Were they triggers? Or were they merely the backdrop, the circumstances under which my body felt safe, or unsafe, enough to transform?
My mind revolved around those three things, around her, like a planet around a sun. She was the gravitational centre of it all. In trying to untangle the mystery of my own body, I had become so hopelessly, desperately tangled up in her. The thought was so consuming, so all-encompassing, that I lost all sense of time and place.
I was jolted from my reverie by the automated voice announcing a stop in a neighbourhood I didn't recognize. I looked up, disoriented. The familiar landmarks near my parents' street were long gone. I had missed my stop completely.
A wave of weary frustration washed over me. It felt like a perfect metaphor for my life: so, lost in my own head that I bypassed my destination. With a sigh, I disembarked into an unfamiliar street and began the long, trudging walk back, each step a heavy punctuation mark to the morning's disastrous events. The journey home felt endless, a fitting punishment for a coward who had run from the one thing that might have been my answer.
The key felt heavy in my hand. As I turned it in the lock, the mechanism gave its familiar, grinding click, but before I could even push, the door swung inward. My mother stood there, still in her dressing gown, her face etched with a worry that quickly morphed into relief. It was unnerving; she was never home at this hour.
A jolt of adrenaline, the last dregs of my panicked flight, shot through me. "Shit, Mum! You scared me."
"Language, Nanda," she chided automatically, her brow furrowing. I was twenty-two, a legal adult in every way that mattered except for the one that truly counted in our society, and yet she still spoke to me as if I were a child who’d tracked mud on the clean floor. The normality of it was somehow more jarring than if she’d screamed at me.
"I've been so worried about you," she continued, her eyes scanning me up and down, taking in my dishevelled hair and the jogging suit I’d been living in for days. "How are you feeling? You look a little pale." Her gaze was sharp, probing for the slightest sign of illness or, I feared, something else.
A plan clicked into place in my weary mind. Honesty was a labyrinth with no exit. But playing the part of the convalescing patient? That was a straight, simple path to exactly what I needed: time and solitude.
I let my shoulders slump slightly, injecting a deliberate weakness into my posture. "I'm much better now," I said, my voice softer than before. "I even plan on taking my shift at the deli tomorrow. But…" I paused, bringing a hand to my temple. "I still feel really weak. Just… no energy."
It was a perfect performance. Her maternal instincts overrode her suspicion. "You don't have a fever, that's good," she announced, her cool hand pressed against my forehead in a gesture so childhood-familiar it felt like a brand. She studied me for a moment longer. "Maybe you should just take a bed day. Rest is the best medicine."
Score. Just what I wanted her to say. I nodded weakly. "I was thinking the same thing, Mum. But I think I'll take a waterdrop first, you know, to help my muscles. They're so stiff."
My mother smiled, a sweet, genuine expression that made a pang of guilt twist in my gut. She was happy to have a problem she could solve with soup and rest. "That's a good idea. I have the day off, but I, have to run a few errands first. I'll make you some of my special broth when I get back." She patted my arm, already mentally compiling her shopping list for a sickroom.
"Thanks, Mum," I murmured, slipping past her into the hallway, the weight of my deception already settling on me as heavily as the fatigue I was feigning. The door to my room had never looked more like a sanctuary.
The thought became a mantra, a single, focused point of light in the fog of my panic. I just need to last until the weekend. Until the trip to Sylva. That was the only thing that mattered right now. It was a finish line. If I could just cross it, everything else, the shattered trust, the self-loathing, the terrifying puzzle of my own flesh, could be dealt with later. Survival now was about simplification. Reduce the variables. Eliminate the risks.
I took a long, scalding waterdrop, letting the steam cleanse me. Afterwards, I put on soft, warm nightclothes, even though it was only ten-thirty in the morning. The fabric felt like a costume, a uniform for the role I had to play: The Invalid. The Convalescent.
The logic was desperate but clear: if I looked the part, maybe I could buy myself some precious time alone in the dwelling. If I was sick, I would be left in peace, quarantined from the well-intentioned but suffocating scrutiny of my family. It was a cage, but it was a cage of my own making, and for now, that felt like control.
Then her face sprang, unbidden, into my mind. Not the angry face from this morning, but the one from last night, smiling over a pint of mack, her eyes full of life and wicked humour. A physical ache bloomed in my chest. No. I didn't want to be away from her. The very idea felt like a self-inflicted wound.
The contradiction was unbearable. I was sure we were falling in love. I knew, with a certainty that felt more solid than my own bones, that I wanted her by my side more than anything else. But I was a prisoner of my own biology, a hostage to a body that betrayed me, at the moment of greatest connection. My love for her felt like the very thing that could destroy the future I needed, the future that, ironically, was meant to build a life where I could deserve her.
The brutal calculation was inescapable. I was too scared of my own body to be near her. I needed to be a Polli for Sylva. I needed to be stable, predictable, normal, if only for a few days. This trip was my only chance.
So, a new, painful mantra formed alongside the first. Get to Sylva. Do the job. Be the Polli they need. Then, run back to Silver. It was a plan built on a foundation of cowardice and hope, a promise to my future self to fix the ruin I was creating in the present. I just had to pray that when I finally turned back, she would still be there waiting.
The silence of the room was deafening. It was a vacuum that threatened to suck all the resolve right out of me. I couldn't just sit there, waiting for the walls to close in. I had to try and bridge the chasm I had created, even if the attempt felt pathetic.
With trembling fingers, I pulled my com from the pocket of my nightclothes. The screen glowed, a cold, impersonal light in the dim room. Opening a new message to Silver felt like stepping onto a high wire. Every word had to be perfect, a fragile balance of apology, explanation, and desperate reassurance.
I typed, deleted, and retyped, my thumb hovering over the send button as if it were a detonator.
Sorry for running out like that. I really wanted to stay but, I cannot face it, if I change again before Sylva. They are expecting a Polli. I don't know why I change. I just know that it has always happened when I have stayed at yours. I really need you to understand this and know that I really like you. (Heart)
It was a mess. It was cowardly. It laid my fear bare without offering any real solution. But it was the truth, as I understood it. I hit send before I could lose my nerve.
The message whooshed away into the digital ether. An immediate, frantic hope seized me. I stared at the screen, my breath held, waiting for the three little dots to appear, signalling that she was typing a reply. I willed them to come. A simple "OK." A "I understand." Even an angry "Go to hell" would be better than this nothingness.
I watched the screen until my eyes burned.
No dots appeared.
The com remained silent and dark. The hope curdled into a hard, cold knot of dread in my stomach. The silence wasn't just an absence of sound; it was an answer. It felt like a judgment, and it was far more terrifying than any words could have been.
The folders of Sylva poor company.