I'm panicking. I'm panicking because I'm late finishing laundry and I might be late for a barbecue and the Penis Puppetry show tonight. I'm panicking because of something stupid like money.
I'm panicking because I'm at a part of "Ender's Shadow" where the tension is too high for the characters to bear.
I'm panicking because I leave for Waterloo tomorrow evening, for three days, and I haven't received the tickets yet or read a single page of the book that I know the written exam is taken from.
I'm panicking because I skipped four parties last night (although no one had actually called to invite me to Kate's birthday pool party, seems they just assumed I'd be there). I'm panicking because I spent the evening with David's closest friends, one pregnant and one with a six-month-old baby that she entrusted me with while she went to fix dinner. I'm panicking because last night was perfect, from jumping in the pool with Emily and Olivia, to pool wrestling with David, to the fact that I had no idea there even was a pool and Laurence's bathing suit fit me perfectly, the first time I've ever looked better than someone else in their own clothing.
We drank and laughed and talked and I didn't put my foot in my mouth despite David's almost-perfectly hidden worries that I would, that I was too wild for his friends.
As I was carrying an unconscious Emily to the car, remembering the way the girls chose me to clamber all over when they were bored, chose me to confide in, to play with, to beg for another story, when they've known Laurence and Sherry since birth, Chris, David's most held-back friend kissed me and told me they'd all be sorry to see me go.
I'm panicking because this morning it was David's girls that call me, that were disappointed because today is the last day they'll ever get to spend with me (the next month is all vacations and weekends away) and when I spoke to David...
... Emily had asked him why I couldn't be daddy's girlfriend. We'd kept it hidden from them so well, but now they're asking why not... Telling their dad that it's obvious that he "wants Gila to be his girlfriend and Gila wants you to be her boyfriend" and then announcing that they'd like that too.
This is one thing I've never built walls about before. I can get over a man, his perfect touch, his perfect kiss, how I've never before had a perfect chest for clinging to. I can get over poetry and smiles and his voice and how I can see him changing before me, I can get over all of that.
But how do you get over two perfect little girls...
Two perfect little girls who are comfortable enough with me to throw tantrums that only their parents see, and who love me enough to stop threatening to run away to London when I scoop them up and tell them it's alright. Two little girls that I can already see learning from the math tricks I show them, the reading tricks, the arts and crafts and origami.
I'm making a difference in their life and abandoning them.
Dammit, I'd rationalized this so perfectly. I'm not their parent. David made that clear. Made it clear that no matter who walks in and out of either his or Alison's lives makes no difference.
And I, who's been begging to make a difference all along am caught in my own trap.
And so I'm panicking. Panicking because I'm late for my laundry, panicking because I've somehow managed to make too many commitments and I've said no to every phone call since Wednesday. Panicking because I don't even want to go to Waterloo although I know that it will push my life so much further forward if I do, panicking because I don't think Paris will call with a job, panicking because even if they do I'm lost.
These aren't tears, they're body-wracking sobs, and they're just making me even later.
Dear godlessness... It hurts....