We never fight and sometimes it drives me up the wall what lengths she'll go to just to avoid it. It's easy enough to tell when she's upset about something, but she just lets it hang in the air like an oppressive fog, sighing indignantly when I go off to play with Elysia rather than deal with her mood.
I know what she wants. She wants me to force her to tell me what's bothering her. But I've always believed that if something's important enough to upset you, it ought to be important enough to talk about without having to be pushed. My stubbornness on this issue is apparently boundless, because even after it ruined one relationship, I still see no need to change.
No, it's not stubbornness. It's fear. Fear that if I push her, she'll push back. And if she asked, I would have to tell her everything, even the parts that would destroy her, and I love her too much to ever allow myself to be the cause of that.
Ever since we returned, she's been acting a little odd... But I suppose I have been, too. It'll be okay, though. Things will get back to normal. And normal, on balance, is perfectly fine.
It's amazing how Elysia can hear my key in the door from anywhere in the house. Before I can even get the door open, I hear her cry out, "Daddy's home!" and come running to the door to greet me. It never fails to lift my spirits and fill my heart with joy.
This time she grabbed my leg and clung to it before I had a chance to drop my luggage to pick her up. When I did manage to pull her off my leg and into my arms, she was crying. So I kissed her adorable little cheeks and asked her what was wrong. Her reply was to throw her arms around my neck and bury her face on my shoulder, where I heard a muffled "I missed you!"
I couldn't help but smile as I hugged her tight. I missed her too.
I begin my final semester of college on August 23rd. I will be attempting to work nearly full time while taking a 15-credit courseload -- a technique taken from the book How to Die from Exhaustion in Two Months or Less.
This actually affects my RP availability surprisingly little.
I am UNAVAILABLE: Sunday 9am - 6pm, Tuesday 7am - Thursday 9:30pm, Saturday 7am - 8pm.
If I am online during times when I have said I should be unavailable, talk to me and I might be able to do some RP, depending on how busy I am and the subject matter (no smut while I'm at work, kthx). But be warned that any RP I do while at work may have to end abruptly, or have long, sudden lulls.
My life is in notebooks...at least as far as work is concerned. Countless little notebooks containing the details of missions long forgotten, closed and locked away from everyone's eyes and memory.
But memory isn't like a notebook. You can't just turn a fresh page and never again see what's written on the others. You can't close it and walk away, no matter how hard you try. You can't lock it in a safe and forget about it.
You have to live as best you can with all the pages showing, and learn to deal with the fact that even though you can still see page 25 and feel its effects, you're on page 34 now and there's nothing you can do to get page 25 back... Even if you've only just managed to fill in the blanks that make that page make sense.
Heh, I don't suppose I'm making much sense right now either. I can't wait to see Glacia and my darling little Elysia-chan again. I miss them... I haven't been away from Elysia for this long since she was born, and there's a part of me that's afraid that she won't recognize me when I come back if I'm gone too long. But that's silly...right?
Whenever I get this way, I just don't know what to say Why can't we be ourselves like we were yesterday I'm not sure what this could mean I don't think you're what you seem I do admit to myself That if I hurt someone else Then I'll never see just what we're meant to be
I've noticed a difference in Roy since we've been sharing a bed. He's calmer, more...like he used to be. But I have to admit, at least to myself, that it's making a mess of me. I try not to let on to Roy, because this is something he needs, but all it's doing for me is serving as a painful reminder of the days when sharing a bed with him was neither unusual nor something I felt guilty for -- a reminder that those days are long gone.
The fact that we're so far away from home isn't helping matters. At home, I have no reason to regret anything. I love my wife dearly, and there is nothing that could ever replace my daughter's place in my heart. At home, their love is enough. Or it was, before I knew that the end of my relationship with Roy was based on a misunderstanding. Now that I know the truth, and especially now that we're out here where it happened, I have doubts.
But I also have integrity, and I have no desire to destroy what I have built, just because I question my motives for building it. That wouldn't be fair to anyone involved, least of all Elysia. I will give him as much as I can give without endangering my marriage. It won't be as much as I would like, or as much as he deserves, but I hope it is enough.
Roy and I have come to an understanding, and that should be enough.
[OOC note: 5 points to anyone under 20 who recognizes the lyrics]
I feel as if a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Or, at least part of one. I'm still not absolutely sure if what I have is better than what I might have had, but I'm not inclined to make a mess of things in order to find out.
It'll all smooth itself out in the long run, though. Being away from home (and being in this place in particular) appears to be making things seem worse than they really are.
OOC Note: Yes, this is what Hughes was starting to write at the end of the train scene. It may be short, but it took him the rest of the train ride to write it, as well as several edits in the process of recopying it so Roy couldn't see all the crossouts.
Roy -------
I want to apologize to you. You are and always have been an excellent friend to me, but I can't deny that the meeting we had shortly before we left on this trip had a profound effect on me. That conversation, that contact, reminded me of so many things... A simpler time, perhaps. I know that, given time, I can put all of that behind me once again, where it belongs, in the past. Please forgive me for all the inconvenience I've caused you, and I promise to make it up to you.
I'm grateful to Glacia for packing my clothes in sets. I'm horrible at figuring out what goes with what, and left to my own devices I probably usually end up looking like I dressed in the dark. That's not horribly far from the truth, but on a trip like this it's best to remain as inconspicuous as possible.
This small stack of pictures of Elysia isn't nearly enough. I miss her like crazy already, and we haven't been gone very long. I don't suppose it'd be too much to ask if someone who's still back in Central could check up on my family every once in a while? I really hate leaving them alone.
Sometimes it's unreal how unbelievably stupid I can be. What on earth was I thinking, coming along on this trip?
The truth is that I wasn't thinking at all. Roy asked for my presence, and I granted it, assuming that the situation wouldn't be more than we could handle. He does need me, in a professional capacity, but if I had stopped to consider the possible repercussions of being away from home with him (especially given all that's happened recently), and going to Ishval in particular, I don't know if I would have come.
The last thing I wanted was to be a distraction. The last thing he needs while trying to protect these boys is that sort of distraction.
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