Hollow

[Nullia]

I'm sorry, Estel.

I'm sorry.

I feel nothing.

All of what was inside of me has left. All of what you filled me with is gone. All of what you had given me, all of what I had loved.

All of you.

There,

was a time in my life that I believed I was hollow.

That I was a doll. A shell. A tool.

That I existed for one purpose, and that purpose only.

There,

was a time in my life that I believed I was unimportant.

That I was worthless. Useless. Forgotten.

That I lived in the backs of people's minds, that it would never change.

There,

was a time in my life that I believed it would remain that way.

That I would be the same. Unchanging. Stagnant.

That I deserved this fate by way of birth, and that I would face it without expectation.

There was a time I believed I lacked a human heart. That one was not placed in my chest.

Not out of negligence.

Not because I was forgotten.

But because I was made only to do one thing.

I believed I did not have one. I believed myself devoid of one. I believed there had never been one. I believed that would never change.

My legs give out.

I collapse through the door. Like the worthless object I am, I don't have the strength to continue.

It has been spent.

I see the dim flicker of your wisp. I see your stupid board in the corner. I see your candles, I see that skull on the table. I see your wannabe occultist bullshit all around me.

And I start to cry.

No,

I start to bawl.

Like a child. Like a child devoid of its mother. Yet even when she died a year ago, I did not cry like this. Someone else had filled my heart.

You.

You, Estel. You.

There was a time I believed I lacked a human heart. Until I bared myself to you, and I felt you touch it. Hold it.

Not with knives or daggers like I thought.

But with your hands.

I felt you touch it, my human heart. I felt you take it into your palms, and hold it. Caress it. Treat it, treat me, like I was real. Like I deserved you.

Like at any point in my life, I had done something to deserve you.

I realized then, that I had one after all. That one beat in my chest. That it could flutter. That it could race.

So now is it that I understand.

I do not possess one anymore.