A Dream I Used To LOVE

Chapter 31

Rose came over the next day. I didn't feel like getting out of bed, I lay in bed with the curtains drawn. "Audrey," she said while drawing open the curtains.
"Rose, please I don't want to talk about it" I pulled my cover above my head trying to avoid conversation and human contact. 

"The first step is always the hardest but once you take your first step, things get easier eventually" that was the first thing she said, she didn't lecture me, she didn't ask me not to be sad, she didn't give me false hope that all will be fine. 

Have you ever realized how your body is honest when you're in physical pain, you cry. But the heart is a liar. It stays quiet even if it's hurting. With age, I understood one thing the longer you keep denying something the longer it takes for you to stop getting hurt. When we run away from our emotions we become a dormant volcano waiting to explode one day and when we do we are like Vesuvius ready to take anybody who comes in our way turning them to ashes.

"You shouldn't be embarrassed about being sad" she pulled the cover and hugged me.

I placed my head on her shoulder breathing heavily hoping that maybe the pain would also go away and when I breathe in I might feel lighter, maybe even happier.

"Let's go to the lawn" she dragged me out of bed. We sat on the swing, I didn't say a word. Sometimes I feel silence helps more than anything else.  

"How are you feeling?" 

"All good" I smiled but in fact, I wasn't good at all. We all have pain and joy within us but, without acknowledging the pain we can never know joy. 

"Stop pretending like it doesn't hurt. Stop pretending like you're okay. Audrey, you can't keep running away from your feelings" 

"When my feeling hurt others I am allowed to run away from them"
"Talk to me, Audrey. Forget that anybody else is involved, be selfish for once, and tell me exactly how you feel. If you want to make people around you happy, you must find your own happiness first. Being selfish isn't always a bad thing. Try to only think about your happiness when things are too stressful. It's okay to do that."

She was right but I had already been selfish and now I didn't want to be selfish again. 

"I felt for him more deeply than I've ever felt before and honestly pushing him away was hard, but that was the only way our lives would be normal." The thing about love you see is that it has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get–only with what you are expecting to give–which is everything. 

"And why do you feel the urge to make everything normal. Sometimes things happen because it's supposed to be that way. I know him well. He has never liked anybody in his life as much as he likes you."

"I deserve normalcy, Rose. I don't want so many complications. I don't want love to be a constant tug of war forcing me to fight for one side, Forcing me to choose between people I love. My love for everybody is different and I can never compare it or measure it. That is just unfair."

Mid-conversation we were interrupted by Mia. "Addie someone has come to see you"

Kathy was standing behind Mia, I really didn't want to talk to her. This was my life, not a court where she had come with a plea for her brother. Guilty or not guilty wouldn't change things. I never let my family interfere in his and somehow I expected the same from him. 

"I'll leave you two alone. Bye Audrey" Rose got up to leave but I didn't want her to. 
Before leaving she glared at Kathy. 

Soon enough both Rose and Mia left, Kathy came and sat next to me.
"Audrey, I warned you once if you ever hurt my brother I wouldn't leave you"
I looked at her with anger in my eyes.
"Excuse me. I hurt him!!"
I wanted to slap her today, although I did manage to keep my emotions in check. How does it feel when someone you expected to care for you doesn't do that and then has the audacity to blame you in some way or the other. 

"On his birthday this year, Tyler asked him which was the best birthday he had ever celebrated and you know what he said?" she paused and looked at me. 'He wished he was never born' I said to myself rolling my eyes. I didn't mean it but then again I was very angry at him. Kathy continued  "his 18th birthday with you was the best and nobody can ever match up to it because that's how important you are to him, Audrey" 

If I was important to him then he should have realized how important my family was to me, what hurt was not the fact that the deal was called off but that he knew about it and still decided to hide that from me. He knew the night when he came over for dinner, the night I felt so deeply in love with him but it was all fake.
"So what? That doesn't change things"  
"I know him very well and he truly loves you more than he's ever loved, anybody"
I cut her off "And I love my family more than anybody else in the world. I'm not going to hurt them and be selfish"
"Audrey"
"Kathy I think we are done here. Please don't make this harder than it already is"
I got up and left. I wasn't going to change my decision. Not now not ever.
It was New Year in 4 days and I wanted to get away. Probably start the year without Chris around me. Mia and Ryan decided to stay for New Years' while I wanted to visit Mama and Papa. In relationships, people often say 'space' is necessary so that you can put yourself first and grow and that's what I exactly needed to do. 

I needed space, to prioritize. It seems easy from the outside and the obvious choice is to choose your family but the heart is a strange organ. Nothing should possess as much power as the heart. It's dangerous. It hurts when it knows it shouldn't and craves for things it clearly shouldn't crave for.