Lonely had made it a habit over the last few days to check if his door was unlocked in case Confidence came to visit him. But for a week after he had walked out of his garden in tears, he hadn’t seen the man once.

He’d known from the second he’d left that it had been a bad idea. Confidence must have trusted Love for a reason, but even so, the idea of spending time with more than just Confidence made his stomach hurt so much that he knew it wouldn’t be a good idea. The more people he became friends with, the more chance there was that Sadness and Disgust would catch him.

It was safer for him to just have Confidence, which was hardly safe at all. From what he had seen, the man was popular and that meant that if someone saw them together, it could easily spread. Maybe Love had already spread it around, but Lonely doubted it. Confidence trusted him for a reason.

Maybe it was better that they hadn’t seen each other for so long. Lonely wanted to see him again, but being alone was better. It could even be that his stupidity had finally pushed him away. It made sense.

Instead of dwelling on it, for the last week Lonely had focused on work and reading. After his day at Confidence’s, he’d decided to finally make his home larger. He attached another room off the living room, a proper library decorated with comfortable chairs and a bay window like the one he had seen at Confidence’s.

He built the shelves himself, using it as a distraction from his thoughts. There were so many he had to make in order to fill the room and by the time he stacked all the books onto them, there was only a shelf and a half left free. He would have to make the room bigger as his collection grew and he knew that in a few decades, his library would be bigger than the rest of his home.

That morning, he was finishing up his work. Playing the violin and passing on his loneliness made him numb and that was better than what he usually felt. It gave him free space in his mind for reading.

With his library complete, it was the best place in his home to read. He’d built in such a way that the bay window faced the sunset, his favourite time of day. It was still the middle of the day but by the time he finished reading, the sun would have set long ago.

He placed his violin back in the case with a sigh. He was sick of working, but it would never end, not until humanity was gone and even then, something else might take its place. Shaking his head, he walked out into the living room, picking up the book he had left on the sofa that morning. He almost dropped it when he saw the figure standing in his library.

“Confidence?” he said as he stepped into the room, clutching the book tight against his chest. “What are you doing here?”

“When did you build this?” Confidence asked as if he hadn’t spoken in the first place, staring around the room in wonder.

His words caught in his throat for a second as he tried to figure out what was going on. “Just this week. I built the shelves myself,” he said, his gaze on the floor.

“It looks nice,” he said.

“Thank you,” he replied, hating the awkwardness that fell between them. It shouldn’t have been there, but it was his fault that it was. “What are you doing here?”

Confidence ran a hand through his hair. “I should have come to see you sooner, I’m sorry. I wanted to give you a little space,” he explained and sat down by the bay window. “I came because Love and a few others were having a picnic. Did you want to come along?”

A picnic? He’d never been invited to one before, but was it really such a good idea? He’d always wanted to go just to see what they did, but they were such a big deal that he had no doubt that Sadness and Disgust would make an appearance. Confidence wanted to spend time with him though, that much was obvious.

He frowned, his fists clenching. “I don’t know,” he muttered.

Confidence pursed his lips and Lonely didn’t know what to think of the expression. It didn’t suit him, of that much, he was certain. “Because of Sadness?” he asked.

All he could do was nod and mutter “Why else?”

Then there was a hand on his chin, lifting his face towards Confidence’s. “They don’t control you, Lonely, don’t you know that? They don’t control any of us. We are free to do what we want, feel what we want,” he said, his eyes piercing Lonely’s soul.

“That’s not-”

“It is! I don’t know your history with them, but they’ve lied to you, lied to so many of us!” he yelled, stepping away and running a hand through his hair. “We were designed to pass on an emotion, but that never stopped us from feeling everything else, everything the humans do! That’s why we look like them, we are like them!”

It was wrong, it was all wrong. They weren’t allowed to say things like that. That wasn’t how they worked, wasn’t that what Sadness had told him when he’d first awoken so long ago? “Stop,” he said and turned away. He couldn’t listen to any more of it, not when there was a voice in the back of his mind that said Confidence was right.

Confidence pulled him straight back. “Can’t you see? I’m angry right now! I’m so angry that Sadness has got you brainwashed like this, got you scared to make friends when you have no right to be. They like control and after all this time, you are the easiest to control because they’ve isolated you from the start!” He was rambling and it didn’t matter what Lonely said, because he wasn’t going to stop. “Just because your name is Lonely, doesn’t mean you have to be!”

Everything fell silent, even the wind outside and the creak of the floorboards under their feet. It was as if Lonely had suddenly become deaf and the only thing he could hear was his own thoughts. They were a jumbled mess, not a single word making sense. The seconds passed slowly as he and Confidence stared at each, the latter panting but Lonely couldn’t hear it.

“This isn’t why I came,” Confidence said and his hearing came back in a rush. “I just wanted to ask you-”

“You don’t know what it’s like,” he said with narrowed eyes. “You have no idea! Every single day, all I feel is loneliness. The only way to get rid of it is to work, but that makes me feel worse because I have to make people feel the same ache, the same longing I do.”

“Lonely-”

He shook his head. “Don’t! Let me talk,” he snapped and crossed his arms over his chest. “When I’m not lonely, I’m numb. Sadness has threatened to isolate me further if they catch me doing what we’re doing. I don’t want that so I have to make do with what I have. But even if I have friends, all I will feel is loneliness. You’re wrong, I don’t feel anything else.

“You’re only saying this because of who you are. You’re Confidence, that’s all you feel, that’s all you pass on. You’ll never understand what it’s like to be constantly feeling like me or like Anxiety or like Sadness because you pass on one of the best emotions out there. So don’t even try telling me that I’m being controlled, that it’s possible for me to be happy. Don’t give me that hope.”

Confidence stared at him with an expression that wasn’t at all confident and for a second, doubt welled in Lonely’s mind. He pushed it away. What he knew, what he’d been told from the moment he’d come into being was the truth, otherwise Sadness never would have told him. It hurt and it was awful, but it was how it had been for centuries and how it would be for the rest of time.

His friendship with Confidence had been a fleeting thing, he’d known that from the start. One day the other man would realise that any kind of relationship with him was fruitless and would only end with separation. All he wanted was to force him out of his shell as if he believed it was his duty to make him better. There was no point in even trying.

“I’m sorry, I should have worded it better,” Confidence whispered and ran a hand through his hair. “But you’re wrong. Look deep inside yourself, Lonely, and you’ll realise that I’m telling the truth. I’ll tell you a secret, when I’m with you, I’m more nervous than I have ever been but I’m also happier. Before I met you, I too was lonely.”

He didn’t give Lonely a chance to say anything before he turned and stormed from the room. Frozen in his library, he winced when the door slammed shut and silence filled his home once again.

Tears streamed down his face and he collapsed by the bay window, his head in his hands. He’d made a mistake, snapping at him like that, but he hadn’t been able to help himself. It had been the only thing he could think of to do, the only way to make Confidence understand that things were not as simple as he liked to believe.

He’d pushed his only friend away, but he’d known it couldn’t last. It had been stupid of him to even try but Confidence had drawn him in. It had just been his loneliness begging for another outlet and Confidence had been there, that’s all it was. It could never be anything more.

He sat there for hours in the room he had built because of Confidence, sobbing so hard his throat ached and screamed for him to stop. In the back of his mind, their fight repeated itself over and over again, the words growing louder and louder.

They weren’t supposed to be able to feel anything more than the emotion they were named for, but Confidence was convinced otherwise. He’d said he felt lonely too, nervous, happy, but it shouldn’t have been possible. Sadness was the first of them, they knew the truth.

Didn’t they? There hadn’t been anyone else with them when they’d woken. Who knew how long they had to convince themselves that all they could feel was Sadness. After that, everyone would have believed what they were told, even if it wasn’t the truth. Who were they to know for sure that what they were being told was the complete truth?

He shouldn’t be questioning what he was told. Doing so only made him as bad as Confidence and anyone else who followed him. But he couldn’t help it. Confidence had told him to look deep inside himself, but when he did, all he saw was his constant loneliness.

But he needed to see if Confidence was right, if he had made a massive mistake. It would nag at him, scream at him until he eventually did it. So he dove deeper, remembered the day at Confidence’s house when their hands had touched and there’d been butterflies within him. That wasn’t loneliness. That was something else.

Then Love had shown up and he had been… He’d been scared. He’d felt fear that Sadness would find out about him. And earlier, he’d been angry, so angry that Confidence couldn’t understand why he was scared.

It shouldn’t have been possible. He shouldn’t have been able to feel something that wasn’t loneliness, but there he was, remembering all the times he had been sad or happy or angry. He wanted to push it away, to deny that he had ever realised it in the first place and go on with his sad and pathetic life.

But he’d known from the start, hadn’t he? He’d felt different things from the moment of his creation and believed that it was all a part of his loneliness. He hadn’t been numb after work, he’d been calm. And when he read his books, he was happy, satisfied.

He had to keep his realisation secret from Sadness if he didn’t want to be isolated further. Now that he knew what he was feeling, the idea of being separated from everything and everyone terrified him. He could put words to it, to each and every feeling in his stomach when he should never have been able to.

He’d pushed that part of him away, believing that it was wrong and the first time someone had tried to show him that it was the truth, he’d pushed them away too. He needed to fix it while there was still time to do so. Confidence had wanted him to go out and meet his friends. The idea was terrifying, but he needed to speak to him.

It would take a long time before he understood properly what was going on, but he could at least get Confidence to explain it all to him. Lonely grabbed his coat from the hook on the front door and ran from his house before he could think it over and change his mind. He wouldn’t speak to anyone else, just Confidence. He needed to apologise to him.

He made it into town faster than expected, panting loudly. People stared at him as he ran past but for the first time in his life, he didn’t care what they thought, even if one of them was Sadness. He needed to find out the truth and there was only one person who could tell it to him.

The communal gardens were almost empty when he arrived, making it easy for him to spot Confidence’s blonde hair near one of the tall oak trees. Lonely moved with more determination than he had ever felt in his life and stopped short at the laughing faces sitting at the picnic table.

He recognised most of them. Love and Happy, Fear and Wisdom, Disgust and Sadness. And at the head of the table was Confidence, laughing and grinning as if nothing was wrong. He seemed happy, which shouldn’t have been possible, but it was. And he was happy without Lonely there, when he’d spent all that time trying to convince him that he’d been sad without him.

If it was a lie, he wasn’t sure, but he knew that it wasn’t the right time to demand answers from him, especially not with Sadness and Disgust there. He felt like a coward, but it would be better if he talked to him another time when there weren’t other people around. He should have thought of that before he ran all the way there.

So he turned and walked away, trying to identify the sick feeling in his stomach but he couldn’t place it. He would talk to him later, he couldn’t let his discovery go unnoticed, not when Confidence had been the one to bring it out in him. The first chance he got, he would find him and demand the answers he deserved.