S t a r t
I looked up at the sky.
It was gonna rain. Again.
I sighed and started walking towards my home. It was a long way so I put in my earplugs and started my favorite playlist. I pulled my hoodie up, trying to ignore everybody on the road.
“Time pushed me to the edge... the jump was my decision...”
A tear rolled down. Every time I hear these songs, I cry. I knew it yet I listened to the same songs on repeat over and over again.
And then it started raining. I was aware that I had my books with me and surely they’d start dripping water by the time I reached home. Then I’d have to write tons of pages again. But it's not like I cared. I kept walking.
“Hey girl!” Somebody pulled me back as a car ran over the exact place where I was standing. “Do you wanna suicide or something?”
“Something or the other would kill me eventually,” I muttered and stepped back. The person who pulled me back was a huge guy, with a beard and green eyes. He looked down at me and his eyes widened.
“Holy shit,” he stood in the rain with me on the road. “Girl, what has happened to you?”
I shook my head and was starting to walk away when he grabbed my bag and starting pulling me towards the opposite side of the road.
I’m hurting so bad and I don’t even know if I have the energy to get better, let alone pull away from this man.
I let him pull me by my bag and he finally stopped inside a shop. He grabbed a towel from somewhere and started drying his hair. I stood near the door, looking outside as the rain poured harder. I didn’t even bother to open my soaking hoodie; it wouldn’t really matter to me if I actually died from pneumonia.
“You’ll catch cold,” the man said softly and handed me another dry towel.
Why did they have so many towels?
I dropped my bag by the door and opened my hoodie, all the while keeping my earplugs inserted in my ears. I started rubbing my hair with the towel when he came to stand in front of me.
“What’s your name?” he asked. “And what happened to your face?”
I knew I looked like shit. Every single person didn’t have to point that out to me.
“Julia,” I murmured. “Julia Terobia.”
“I’m Augustian,” he replied. “This shop’s mine.” I looked around, noticing for the first time that it was a salon.
Explains the towels.
“You can stay as long as you want. See how hard it’s raining outside? I’d rather you stay here.”
I nodded and he stared at me again. “What has happened to you?”
“I... fell,” I lied, “and couldn’t sleep for the last couple of weeks.”
I hoped he would buy the lie because I didn’t have any other excuses to cover up my dark circles and the gash on my face which I actually gave myself.
“You’re not a very good liar, you know,” He eyed my wrists. My hoodie was not long enough to cover the pain I inflicted upon myself almost every day and I knew his question before he even opened his mouth to ask. “How’d you explain the cuts then?”
“Fine.” I looked at him and whatever he saw in there surprised him because he flinched then. “I cut myself because I hate myself. I want to feel something. Through all this numbness, I’d be glad to feel anything at all.”
“Can you teach me how to feel real?” I could feel the waterworks coming. “I’ve been thinking too much. Help me.”
I looked outside once again as the tears rolled down my cheeks.
I knew I'd lost myself completely. I knew how much it hurt me. It cost me my sense of rationality to continue loving him. Loving him was harder than breathing underwater. But I couldn’t stop.
“Life is hard, Julia,” He rubbed away the tears with his thumbs. “That’s why no one survives.”
“Hope is the actual killer.” I picked up my bag from the floor. “No matter how hard you try, expectation will kill you.”
Wish I never trusted him, wish I never loved him. I lost myself trying to love him.
With that I opened the doors and started running in the rain. I didn’t care where I went as long as I felt I was far away from that man. His questions brought up emotions I had buried deep inside of me. I knew I had never really been successful at forgetting him but that’s the thing.
I was trying to get over him; I was trying so damn hard. Some mornings I would wake up and think, maybe, maybe I finally was free. Free from my echoing thoughts of him. Free from the constant battle of loving him and losing him. But then other mornings I’d wake up and all I could think about was how his eyes looked like with sunlight in them and how his face looked just before he broke into a smile.
Maybe we weren’t meant to be together, but I wanted us to be.
I didn’t want to have a single grain of hope, because blessed are those with no expectations. But sometimes I found myself subconsciously wanting him without giving myself conscious permission to do so.
I stood in the rain – staring at nothing, seeing nothing.
Maybe we will be together someday.
Maybe.
