Thank You

Empty

"You didn't tell me yours, sweetheart."

My eyes find their way back up to meet hers, but none of the hostility I held in mine can be found in her ocean gaze. The cold color seems incredibly warm, and I wish I could drown myself in it. I can feel my body relax as she gets into my head.

"C'mon, most people have left by now ; we should be able to make our way out without getting bothered."

She doesn't wait for me to answer and gets up, brushing her suit with her hands before handing me one to help me get on my own feet. However, I don't seize it immediately and keep staring at her, completely choked up by her mesmerizing eyes.

"I didn't think you needed to know about my name, so I didn't ask about yours ; thus, I apologize, this comment wasn't..."

"It's okay," I interrupt her again, grabbing her hand, "Where are we going ?"

"I will drive you home. I don't like the idea of you being alone in the streets at this hour, even though you came here by bus. I was so..."

She shakes her head, cutting off her own sentence. She softly smiles and tightens her grip around my fingers.

"Alright slow poke, time to go."

I get up with little help from her, but her touch alone makes me fly. She doesn't let go of my hand, and the warmth of her body revives mine. None of my earlier resentment still lies in me - she blew it out just with a smile. She could make me feel anyway she'd want to, changing my moods to her envy.

She walks straight out of the box, drawing me behind her, slightly looking over her shoulder to smile at me a couple times. We both make your way out, stepping into a silent and empty theatre hall. Even as a child, I had never seen this place emptied from all living souls ; going in surrounded by people, going out through a crowded room as well. But it was back when I had people. Now, all I know is loneliness. I have no one. No one but her.

I'm drawn out of my thoughts by a cold feeling on my hand. She let go of me. She parted from me. The cold seems to spread in my body faster than a fire, and I suddenly feel as empty as the room we're standing in.

"I will be just a minute. I have to get the keys back from my office. I usually close this place on Christmas. I mean, I close down the theatre I'm in," she says in a light chuckle, "Just stay here, I will be right back. Do not leave without me, alright ?"

The sound of her heels clicking on the ground fade away, and even though I can still hear it from the distance, the already faint noise is muffled by this feeling of emptiness invading me. The sound of her walking around her office, opening drawers and somehow elegantly cursing as she couldn't find said keys disappears, leaving me in a black, soundproof-like state of mind ; an entire universe that I can't stop myself from creating whenever she parts from me. She's just like a drug : so sweet when you touch it, but shining violently and harmfully in her absence. Never had I felt this lonely and empty since Ro left me.

The single thought of his name and the beautiful yet dead scenery I'm standing in brings back the memories. Those memories that tear me down, the ones I wish I didn't have - even if Ro is in them. If I have been fighting and struggling every single day to keep his face clear and neat in every image of him happy that I witnessed and remembered, failing for some to make him look exactly the way he was, his features are so defined in those memories, so much that it hurts. The scenes run through my head, like stills from the most horrendous movies ; a horrifying picture book that never stops.

My head spins, and I wish it was empty again instead of full with these atrocities I long to make disappear. I want to move, to dig through my skin, flesh and bones to get the images out of my brain. I want to scream, but my body doesn't respond anymore. I am stuck, standing in the dark, blind and deaf, bearing too much for my small body. I wish I could just collapse, make a noise, make her, make Cate run back to me, but I can't. However hard I try, my limbs stay dead and frozen. Minutes feel like hours - days even - the coldest and blackest ones. I can't stand it anymore ; all I want is to make
it stop.

I thought having Cate on my mind would ease the pain and free my mind from - if not all - some of these memories I desperately despise, but there I am, experiencing it in the worst way I ever have, unable to even blink. The more I wait for Cate to come back to me, the more I fear I am going to get stuck in this state of mind forever, that this will end up getting impossible to stop. Added to that is the fear that Cate might not return, leaving me here on my own, mocking my childish demeanor, letting me rot from the inside. However heavy all these thoughts and pictures are in my mind, my heart feels empty as ever.

Caught up in my mind's game, I can't hear the footsteps of Cate coming back to me. Her presence is barely noticeable in the state I'm in.

"Diana ?"

Her voice sounds so far away.

"Diana ? Are you alright, sweetheart ?"

My body feels so numb.

"Diana ! Diana, answer me, I beg, are you alright ?"

My heart feels so heavy even if it's so empty.

"Diana ! Diana, I am going to touch you, alright ?"

He should be here instead of me.

"It's just me, I am going to touch your arms okay ?"

The warm feeling of her familiar hands on my body brings me out of my murderous state of mind, and it feels just as if it was the first time air invaded my lungs. I collapse into Cate's arms, choking, looking for more air than I already have.

"It's alright. You're alright. Breathe darling. In and out. Breathe. You're alright. Just breathe. Breathe for me."

Her embrace tightens ever so slightly, and my body feels so small in her arms ; curled up against hers, weak, fragile and shaky : just the way I hoped she would never see me.

"Alright. You're coming with me."

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👀👀