Crying Myself To Sleep

As I stumbled through the front door, my vision blurred by a torrent of tears, the horrifying sight of my mother and Mrs. Scott hunched over stacks of wedding magazines barely registered. The glossy pages, filled with images of happy couples and elaborate floral arrangements, seemed to mock my shattered heart.
"Sweetheart, what's wrong?" My mother's voice pierced through my sobs, laced with concern as her eyes lifted from a page adorned with lace and promises of forever.
I tried to speak, to form the words that could explain the jagged ache in my chest, but all that escaped was a choked whimper, and my tears fell faster, hotter.
"Did Will do this to you?" The edge in her voice was sharp and immediate, drawing a line in the sand at the mere suggestion that he could be the source of my pain.
"Absolutely not!" Mrs. Scott's voice cracked like thunder as she surged to her feet, her protective maternal instincts a force to be reckoned with. "My son would never hurt Amina; he adores her! He's been smitten since they were children playing in the woods. Our families joining is what we've all wanted—to end this ridiculous feud for supremacy among the hunters. Will knows this. He wouldn't jeopardize their future together, our future."
Her words, meant to comfort, only served as a reminder of the expectations weighing on my shoulders—of love entangled with duty and legacy. And yet, none of it mattered now, not when the hollow space inside me echoed with a truth that no arranged union could fill.
A silence thick with unspoken truths fell over the room. I could feel my mother's gaze, heavy with concern, but it was Mrs. Scott's flushed face and the way her hands trembled that held my attention. The air seemed to vibrate with the weight of her words, still hanging between us like a guillotine poised to sever the fragile threads of our families' alliance.
"Diane," my mother began, her voice a dangerous whisper as she set the wedding magazine aside with deliberate care, "perhaps you've forgotten that not all matches are made with such... strategic intentions."
I watched, numb, as realization dawned in Mrs. Scott's eyes. She pressed her lips together, perhaps wishing she could swallow back the confession, the plans, and politics laid bare. "I—I didn't mean..." She stammered, her usual poise crumbling before me.
"Didn't mean what?" My mother's tone sharpened, each word a dagger cloaked in velvet. "That our children's happiness is secondary to your family's aspirations?"
The argument unfolded like a storm, their words colliding in midair, an echo of the thundering hearts trapped within my own chest. The pain of my unspoken secret gnawed at me with renewed ferocity, and I found myself retreating from the tempest of their dispute.
Without a word, I slipped away, the sound of their quarreling fading into the background. Each step took me further from the world where I was the pawn in a game of familial chess, away from the battleground where my future was being carved out by everyone but me.
In the quiet of the hallway, I leaned against the wall, letting out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. Their voices became distant, muffled by the walls and the roaring in my ears—a symphony of discordant notes that I no longer had the strength to harmonize.
The door to my room clicked softly behind me, a whisper of sound that felt like the closing of a book—a finality I wasn't prepared to face. My knees buckled, and I sank to the floor, the plush carpet failing to cushion the weight of despair that had anchored itself inside my chest. Tears spilled over, unchecked and unbidden, tracing hot paths down my cheeks as sobs wracked my body.
It was the echoing emptiness where love should have thrived, where dreams of a future with Shadow Tate should have blossomed but instead withered in the harsh light of rejection. The stark truth clawed at me: he didn't feel the same way, never had. All the moments I'd treasured, the glances and almost-touches, were they just figments of my longing?
Curling into myself, I wished for oblivion, for an escape from the relentless ache that whispered seductively, "What is there to live for now?"
In the deafening silence that followed my own ragged breathing, a thought slithered in, insidious and cruel. Had Shadow never claimed me fully because he saw me as fragile? A human girl made of glass, easily shattered by the primal force of his true nature. The idea twisted in my gut—was I so breakable that he dared not touch me? Was our love a lie not just of the heart, but of the flesh?
"Is it pity that stayed your hand?" I whispered to the ghosts of memories, to the shadows that played across the ceiling, mocking me with their dance of what-could-have-beens. As the night pressed in, I lay there, shivering with grief and the cold realization of my own humanity in the face of his immortal strength.
The soft knock at the door was a jarring intrusion in my cocoon of sorrow. "Amina, dinner's ready," Mazet's voice filtered through the wood, hesitant but determined.
"Leave me alone!" My voice emerged strangled and raw, a stark contrast to the quiet of my room where despair had been my only companion. There was no appetite left in me, not for food, not for life.
Footsteps retreated, only to be replaced by heavier ones that stopped outside my door. "Amina?" The deep timbre of my father's voice was laced with concern. Another knock, firmer this time. "Please, open the door."
I couldn't answer, didn't have the words to explain the tempest inside me. Instead, I let my silence speak volumes, my sobs a muted soundtrack to the worry I knew etched his face.
"Did... Did The Shadow hurt you?" His voice cracked the air, a tentative question carrying the weight of unsaid fears. "When you went to see him about the traitor, did something happen?"
The mere mention of The Shadow sent fresh pain lancing through me, but I buried it beneath the blankets, stifling the truth as best I could.