Work Text:
On the days she was the most awake, she felt it the least.
The days she woke up from dreams of a pretty blonde woman lifting her up, they felt more real than the clear walls of her bedroom and her mother's smile.
The days when she was alert enough to notice and return the smiles Manfred Bloor sent her way, she felt the most like they weren't sincere (and neither were hers).
The days where she was aware enough to enjoy the pretty colours of the paint on her canvas, she felt like she wasn't doing art. That there was no deeper meaning to the pretty pictures she drew -- worse, a gaping hole where the feelings she wanted to express were supposed to be.
And she would hang her head, she would space out wondering what she was supposed to feel like, she would try to figure out where she had gone wrong, she would feel her heart race and her fingers tremble and her legs walk away from her and her doom approach.
And whenever she looked out for the danger, she saw... everyone else.
Everyone else had straight postures, vivid eyes and clear paths. They talked and laughed and made art. They did everything in that way that Emma knew she didn't.
There was something wrong with her. It always would be. She knew deep in her heart that she wouldn't be able to change.
She had to flee.
So, she fled; deep into herself. She stayed in her head where only her thoughts could harm her.
And when that wasn't enough, she knew she needed her thoughts to be quiet, too.
She began to read.
The reading helped ease her mind, but only while she did. So, she decided she wouldn't stop. Because if she did, the thoughts would come back.
She read late at night and in the early morning, and if she could barely focus the days after, even better.
Nothing could stop you brain quite like exhaustion.
Nothing held off dreams like a lack of sleep.
Nothing cut out the presence and eyes of others like ignorance.
Nothing could harm her if she was sufficiently disconnected from reality.