Setting Me On Fire

6

Molded To Feel Nothing

I was having a cranky morning on top of hardly sleeping on the plane last night, and now, I wasn't sure what was wrong with me.

I would've taken a walk to soothe my, well whatever this was. But my face was everywhere right now, and I didn't want to be followed by the paparazzi. Ever since we came back from Miami, I've been getting cameras in my face before going to work, or even as I'm leaving or walking into Fasho.

I don't even know how they found out where I lived.

After winning twenty award plaques for every fashion collection I made, I thought I would've gotten used to the attention. But I haven't, and so the fact that people know who I was, hasn't yet registered. I would find myself feeling confident and deep in a trance at work, but once I was home, I would look back on it and ask myself how I accomplished all of my amazing work. Amber says I become a whole different person.

It was raining in New York, I sat on my daybed with a book simultaneously reading to cease my cranky mood and watching as the rain blew against my windows. The large curtain that was made for my floor-to-ceiling windows was halfway shut. Not because of the outer light, the sky was stroked with different shades of gray, so the light illuminating across my room wasn't as blazed. I just preferred it that way.

I was a closed-off person. You would only see me talking to people if it had to do with my work. When he said I was monotonous, it left me in a fit of pique, but it wasn't the first time I've heard something like that. People told me one way or the other that I was detached from the world, that part wasn't new to me, what was new was how he expressed in his own words that I was detached from my heart.

It may be that I was somewhat aware of this, but not entirely. Like I've said before when I learned of my habit of becoming a brick wall, I didn't care. But that didn't mean I understood it. Not fully at least. Just to an extent. To put it easy for you, I know that I can be distant from emotion, and I knew that I can be nonchalant, but I think I've gotten so used to it that it just became who I was. Every day I wore a mask of stoic.

I think the point I'm trying to come across here is that I never really questioned it until now. I wondered about it all day and night, just fishing for the answers to this puzzle.

I spent most of it wondering about him and how he tried to "open" me up. Like what does that even mean? I have yet to ask him and figure out his name. I've waited to hear it from someone else, so I won't have to ask him myself. Marco doesn't address him by his name, just says, bro.

What puzzled me was why I even wanted to know. I think it had to do with my perfectionism, it was out of place, he's not whole without his name.

He was always here, downstairs with Marco and Yufei. An—

A knock interrupted my train of thought, "Ms. Amborisa." Minda's voice came from behind the door.

"It's open."

She opens the door but doesn't walk in. "Mr. Bianchi is here to see you."

Liam was here, great. I nod, set my book down, and stand up. "Let him know I'll see him in my office." She nods and walks away.

I put on my Milano silk blouse and make my way down the hall and subsequently down the stairs. I make out the boys and girls in the living room, but I continue to my office.

When I walk into my office, Liam is leaning against my desk facing the door. His eyes land on mine, and I look away as I walk behind the table and sit down. When I look back at him, he's sitting down on one of the chairs across from me. I cross my legs and wait for him to speak.

"Margo are you alright?" He asks, his concern leaking from his words. I lean to one side of the chair to rest my elbow on the arm and clasp my hands.

"I'm alright, and you?"

He tilts his head in confusion, his eyes looking back at mine with a hint of indignation. I know I was being a birdbrain, but I was in an emotionless state. I couldn't help it. I couldn't find it in me to care because, in reality, I didn't.

I don't know if I ended up this way because of my father, or my mother, but my senses are telling me it was from my father. He had a habit of consuming his time with work, and although he loved and praised my mother, he could be cold and aloof. This is why I wasn't surprised that Marco and his relationship wasn't as good as ours.

"Margo, you've ignored my calls, and messages, is this your form of breaking up with me?"

I owed it to him, to be honest, to give it to him straight. Even I knew when there was a limit to something. And this was mine. "Yes."

His lips part a bit, but then they close and he nods. "Alright, I understand." He stands up. Liam was a guy who takes an answer and goes on with his life. But he also needed to know everything at the same time. So he always found himself between two roads. We were similar in that way.

It'll take him at least a week before he comes back to me asking for answers, but now he's taking my answer. "Goodbye, Margo." He leaves my office, and I lean back in my chair.

As I sat in my noiseless office, I started to understand why he wanted to "open" me up, I was molded to feel nothing. He wanted me to feel everything. He wanted me to feel him. But I can't have that. I've grown too comfortable in my stoic state that I just couldn't open my doors to him.

I wanted him nowhere near me, even if I was no longer with Liam. Over and above that, how he made me feel alarmed me. It was foreign to me, and it was overlapping with my contemporary safe state.

I needed to stay away from him.