find your balance | nekane

[Cait]

I’ve already made my mind up before the bottle touches my lips: tonight, I’m drinking until I can’t feel a damn thing.

I want to be free of the pain of mourning – I don’t want those memories. The shaking hands clutching to a cup of chamomile tea, desperately seeking warmth, yet never finding any. The faded pink pillowcase that’s starting to turn grey with a backlog of tear stains pressed into the satin. The familiar presence of Death taking his assigned chair in the corner to watch me drift into a codeine-induced land of nightmares.

My room fades in and out of view as my senses are flooded. Rows upon rows of the very same room line the streets outside my window. I’ve seen as much – carbon copies, rinse and repeat. Neighbourhood, familiar. Empty houses and dark rooms that look like the inside of the Justice Building, locked away for another year, until the vault is reopened and I’m saying goodbye to yet another Izar child. A never-ending cycle. A wheel, unbroken.

Why.

Why, another question, another drink, why, repeated.

Why do I keep coming back to those cold foyers and farewells with hope in my heart, when it makes no difference? When my words are just destined to fall on empty ears?

Why?

And drink.

Why?

And drink.

WHY?

And drink.

I need to stop trying to find answers in places they’ll never exist.

I need new solutions.

.
.

The District Eleven Orphanage is the last place I expected to find myself on a Wednesday morning. Especially when I’ve been graced with the presence of a killer migraine and a subconj from the hour I spent crouched over the toilet last night. It mustn’t have been enough to dispel my sins fully, though, ‘cause surely there’s still liquor running through my veins, fucking with my psyche. It’s the only reason I can think of to justify this ill-conceived blueprint of a barely-there plan.

I swore off kids years ago. It’s as far removed from the Izar philosophy as possible, but it wasn’t a decision made on stubbornness, or some act of segregation. Rather, the opposite: a decision made on love. How could you bring someone into this world, with the knowledge of what our namesake beholds? It’s a promise of a premature death sentence. Cruel. I’ll take a lifetime of solitude and loneliness if it means never having to bury my own lifeblood.

It doesn’t solve the problem of now, though – a truth I’m painfully aware of. It pricks at my skin and I can’t help but itch, trails of blisters left in the wake. We’re still dying, and to have hope of anything better feels futile. I’m forced to sit by and watch this… insanity. Children with Izar blood sacrificing themselves, their names, and for what?

God, for what?

I can’t keep asking myself the same questions and not getting answers. It’s sending me spinning, free-falling, out of control and lost to the simulation.

I’m desperate, so desperate to put this bad luck to rest.

I went searching for solutions at the bottom of a bottle. I don’t know if I found it, but something in me feels closer to discovery.

By the time my head catches up to my heart, my hands are already pushing the Orphanage door open. The building is small, but not in a warm, cozy way. It’s too small, double bunk beds lying empty and unmade, pushed against the walls and packed as tightly as sardines. There’s no particular smell, and I don’t know what I expected but the absence of odour makes me anxious. The walls are a lime green, faded and patchy in places if you look long enough – like someone went to the effort of bringing colour into this space, but didn’t have the heart to do the job all the way.

I’ve never been good with new situations or accepting change, and in the last 60 seconds I’ve all but been reassured that I’ve made no progress at all in this life, because being in this hut makes my skin crawl and sets my teeth on edge in a way I should have expected, truly, but for some reason wasn’t.

I guess I thought things were better than this.

A tiny bell jingles as the door swings shut behind me and I step further forward into the entrance. A young woman sits behind a small desk, dark hair piled high on her head and pulled so tightly that my head starts to throb again at the sight. After a second, she looks up at me, bright eyes and dimples on full display.

Ugh.

“Hi there! Do you have an appointment this morning?”

I blink at her, lost for words and racking my brain to try to remember how to speak. Why did I think this would be as simple as walking in and walking out?

“No, uhh, I don’t… I didn’t realise…” I trail off uncertainly, unsure of what I’m trying to say. Her overzealous demeanour has thrown me – how can anyone be so cheerful this early in the morning?

She smiles gently at me, clicking her tongue as her fingers start to thumb through the pages of the calendar in front of her. “There’s an availability on Saturday afternoon, 2pm, if that suits you?” She looks up at me, expectantly.

I blink. Again.

“Um, no, I’m sorry, that won’t work. I need to do this today.” I hate the way my voice breaks at the end, as it shatters any illusion that I was ever in control. I clear my throat. Try again. “Now.”

A light, airy laugh fills the room and the girl – whose name badge proudly announces her to the world as ‘Jenny’ – rolls her eyes ever so slightly. Not directly at me, but just pointedly enough to tell me I should know better. “Without an appointment, we don’t have time to prepare the children ahead of time for their interviews. They tend to get quite anxious when we spring these things on them with no notice. It’s a very important day for them, I’m sure you can imag–”

“It’s okay. I don’t need any interviews.”

There’s no laughter to follow this time. Not even a smile. Just our passing silence.

“I’m sorry? I’m not sure I understand.”

And I’m paranoid, way out of my depth and feeling far too sticky. I’m certain she can smell the liquor lingering on my breath – that the plan is over before it’s even started. I try to keep my voice small as I speak through pursed lips.

“Interviews won’t be necessary. I just want to adopt a child. It doesn’t matter which one.”

I’m kicking myself before the words even land.

It sounds so cold. I can hear the way it must seem – like it’s a choice as simple as deciding what to eat for breakfast, not worth more than a few seconds of forethought. It doesn’t feel nice, and I hate myself even more than I did last night – like that was even possible.

I’m so out of my depth here. I need to find a part of myself I’ve spent years trying to bury. I need warmth.

I go digging.

“I’m sorry. I know there’s probably rules and protocols to follow and I’m probably way out of line. Pause. “I just watched my baby cousin die. And it’s like… we keep losing people, and I should be used to it by now, but every time it hurts exactly the same.” Sigh. “And it gets lonely, impossibly, because there’s never enough seats at the table to begin with, and yet you just know that we’re not as whole as we were a year ago.” A long, deep breath. “I guess I’m just tired of feeling lonely. And I can’t replace anyone – I can’t bring them back. I’d never want to. I just wanted another face around. I just wanted to–”

To what? Play God? Sacrifice an innocent child just so someone else can live another year or two?

“To give someone a better life.”

Bile rises in my throat – from the alcohol or the lies that are still truths, I don’t know, it’s all the same, I’m a

fucking

bad

person

…

…

…

and a good liar, apparently, because the woman’s eyes soften as she closes her book, picks up her pen and stands.

“One moment, please.”

She leaves me alone to count the seconds ticking past on the grandfather clock in the corner.

By the time she returns, I’ve counted four hundred and eighty two.

“Follow me.”

She leads me down the small corridor into a small room at the back of the building. It’s cold. Metallic and clinical, with one desk, two chairs and a single lightbulb in the centre of the room.

Only one chair is empty.

I look back to Jenny, but she’s already closing the door behind me as she leaves me alone with a stranger.

The badge on her desk sits proud: DIRECTOR.

So this is it.

Another chapter ended.

Another chance for a happy ending.

We have to try.

[Cait]