Agoraphobia by CharlieandEm (reading cloud ebooks txt) 📖

would like to add this terrible habit to her list of flaws, but I think, regrettably, that we taught this to her.
She finished her shrieking when she found him, and, to my relief she went away without asking anything, probably in a rare moment of Robin’s dominance. We sat together for a few minutes until the flicker started to die.
“Thanks.” I said into his neck, once I was feeling stable enough.
“I love you.” he replied. The fact that my brother, whose girlfriend, he considered to be the main asset of his life, I harassed, could still say that he loved me was evidence enough that I should give up my issues with Ron. I should forget, if I had to simply ignore her to start off, the reasons I could not live alongside her; and forgive that he gutted my brother every chance she got. The only reason I should do this was; even though I knew that Robin loved me, he did not skimp on saying it. Saying it made it real, and reminded me that it was true. I got up and walked to the arch in line with our door. I could see the staircase within reach and thought I could make a run for it before I started crying about what an ungrateful sister I was – but, because he sat silently in wait of my retreat, I knew that I owed much more to Robin than negligence.
“Despite my terrorizing habits,” I started, formal in feeling awkward, “Please remember that I always love you too.” Robin chuckled.
“I know, Olivia.” He sighed.


My room was quiet, because Ron and Robin had stopped bickering next door and my parents were asleep. I had grates one of the pairs of parallel walls that let the sounds of the house and sounds of the garden in according to its orientation. At any moment that I chose to sit still and listen, I could get an indication of what was happening around me; or so I like to think. I still had Sebastian’s paper in my hand. It was scrunched where my fingers gripped it, so I straightened it out slowly on my unmade bed and prepared myself to read it again. The concluding paragraph was the one that was exciting and chilling at the same time:

As a whole, this principle could be applied only in the circumstance of entire rejection of definite personality, thoughts or any other defining characteristic the performer may be restricted by. In this, as it is unrealistic to fully defy one’s original self, separation and ‘boxing’ of one’s own thoughts, traits and ideals may be an alternative to full rejection. Thus the principle can never be applied as there is no alternative to momentary reversion back to one’s true self.

If I could do this, as the rest of the paper that thoroughly expressed, any social interaction would have my desired outcome or something close to it simply by achieving a large scale manipulation. Of course, the down side was, Sebastian had been applying this theory since he first met me. When he had tried to explain his way out of the obvious conclusion I was going to make, he told me that the theory had been new to him close to the time of the hunting Club dance. Recalling its events, and his persistence, I realised the lack of finesse he had had when executing the principles of his theory. He had improved over time, toning his chance down to simple similarities as the nuances worked themselves out; as he had expressed, but not applied before he realised the absence, the most important feature of this theory and its success was noticing general trends in your subjects behaviour and applying stereotype. When you walk into a room you place the furniture, windows, lights and people in it in your mind. The orientation of your body is now set to the latitudes of the room. The most productive way to exist in the room is to be comfortable in it; should this be moving to avoid a draft, sitting down or any other manipulation of your placing. People were predictable, which brought comfort, if only subconsciously, to most people; thus, manipulating yourself to be comfortable in the room that is your subject is priming the interaction to achieve the most productive outcome. If you assumed that other people were likely to feel about, react to and aspire to things in similar ways to those you can notice by being vigilant; you probably were not too far off and could safely assume a relatively small number of outcomes for a particular event. Something had flared the argument between Ron and Robin and I decided to use their interaction as my first case study. Luckily Ron had become so agitated by the silence, probably lying next to Robin and seething while he thought that everything was hunky-dory, that she stormed out of their room into the passage. This let me hear the full exchange. My lucky streak continued as Ron managed to draw substantial evidence from what sounded like a handful of minutely incriminating events to support her argument, and spur her jealousy, that Robin was ‘looking at other girls’. As typical, and perfect for me, as this was I was irritated that Ron would suggest something so unlikely. I halted my train of thought, knowing that I was being failing to be the most vital element: impartial. Not that I had figured out what it was yet, it was a certainty that Ron was painfully insecure with her relationship with Robin. As ungrateful as I seemed, to have a boyfriend that spent every moment with her and gave up most of his ambition to keep her safe from what ever it was that she was escaping; Ron’s reaction was simple, common and easy for me to follow. Every instance she gave for Robin alleged debauchery, beat him into less and less participation in the conversation. Eventually, though she was repeating herself, an obvious sign of a waning of the evidence bank, Robin replies constituted only of pitiful sighs and, because of his physical nature and her outraged bursts every so often, I assumed a few minimally evasive physical gestures. By assumption I deduced that the outcome of this argument would be one of two things; Ron would start crying and Robin would comfort her, or Robin would man up and sleep on the couch after defending himself. I was hoping for the second option, only realizing that this was against the rules after the finale of their exchange. In the end Robin tried to comfort her, but the hag sent him to sleep on the couch. He left quietly, and I imagined his boyish features melting away as he licked his harpy inflicted wounds downstairs. Once he was out of earshot I decided that I should sleep; unsatisfied with my performance and deducing skills, and willing to rest my crusty eyes. To my surprise, as I lay in the warm, eerie night that snuck up in the hours after midnight, Ron started sobbing. To let my own mind rest, as considering her upset as something close to guilt would misalign my image to the point of my discomfort, I let myself assume that they were tears of self-pity instead.

I refrained from calling Sebastian, receiving his calls or meeting him at the door when he called on me three times in the week it took for me to decide what I thought about his theory. On the Monday, two months after his induction supper, I found a pocketbook in Robin’s room and wrote down the pros and cons of the theory and decided that they were even. Where the theory constituted mainly of lying flat out to every person you ever interacted with, including yourself, insufficient social manipulation was the main cause of all failure. By my rationale people like happy people, thus pretending to be bright and sparkly was a natural affinity among most. Faking happiness was an expectable prerequisite to the social contract. If every other emotion, justified like happiness in the social contract, was applied to the same rule there was no lying in this theory. By all measures this theory would benefit more than harm. Although finding out that Sebastian was not a real person and simply a garment tailored to my fit did not sit well with me. As flattered as I was, because it was evident that this theory was designed to suit short term relationships, that Sebastian was still interested in me and even shared his theory with me; I decided by Wednesday that I was sceptical about whether I was comfortable with spending any time with the imaginary Sebastian. However I closely involved mentor would be invaluable. Deliberation over the theory was like a young girl on a rope swing – back and forth in its frolicking, but inescapable as it hung onto my psyche of dear life. The torment lay in the illusory nature of my decision. Fretting over a hypothetical life choice was ridiculous, but, in its seriousness, distressing and exhausting. Friday came and I welcomed the clarity it would bring, because Friday was the deadline I had set for a decision. I called Sebastian, pensive as the phone rang in a purring, robotic way that was comfortable and predictable.
“Hello?” Sebastian asked. His voice fluctuated with signs of stress and business which meant he was at the library.
“How is work?” I commenced the interview as apprentice.
“Olivia,” he was surprised and mildly irritated, “Its fine thank you.” his side of the line was quiet, perhaps as he asked for a break. After a muffled, shuffling moment he lifted the phone to his ear again. “You never called me back.” He accused with a hint of hurt in his tone.
“This is me calling you back.” I sounded grating even to myself. I was nervous. “Were you in pain?” I asked, feigning amusement.
“Writhing,” he joked back easily, obviously an easy method to gain leeway in a conversation. That made sense, appealing to the ‘happy person’ inside.
“I have a proposition for you.” I cut to the point, unsure if I could dodge any more manipulation.
“Oh yes?”
“Meet at my house?” I asked as whimsically as I could muster.
“Fine.” I could hear him smiling.

It was early afternoon. The sun was cooling as the year pressed on, but its warmth was not so weak that I could lie in the sun comfortably for more than an hour. Ten minutes before I had shuffled my picnic blanket a meter upwards under the shade of a tree. When I heard Ron answer the door, it took every once of self control to remain where I was and let Sebastian find me. After he and Ron exchanged greeting and he asked how she was, allowing her to warm up to him, she flew into a rampant discharge of all the terrible things that had happened to her just today – the convenience store was out of her favourite shampoo, I was causing trouble with her, naturally, and other unimportant inconveniences that sparked the bomb to the end of the world – while Sebastian listened quietly. I, being a substantial distance away, caught only the very worst of Ron’s problems due to the unhappy shrillness of her grief. Fortunately, with a generous helping of false apology, Ron excused her venting and directed him outside. Had Robin been in at the time she would have skipped right to the last sentence and found someone else to abduct and torture; because she happened to feel sensitive to accusing Robin misconduct and then offer herself emotionally to another fine young specimen in his presence. Perhaps some kind of relatively unselfish thought