Ten Petaled Rose

Chapter 9: Yes, I Mean, No

John had laid in bed all day. Curtains drawn, door closed, head covered by a thick blanket that left him in near pitch black darkness. Face pressed into the pillow beneath him. A few times, Mimi had come to check on him, but she didn't say anything. She knew that he went to parties, and that some days he didn't feel like waking up afterwards. In another life, she may have stopped him. Or tried, in any case. But John wasn't the average teenager, getting drunk just cause he could. He had his reasons, and she didn't dare try putting herself in his shoes. He'd been told a thousand times by a thousand different people; nosey neighbours and teachers. "Family friends" and whoever else thought they knew better.

"Get over it," Like it was that simple.

That easy of a thing to do. Yes, rip a man's heart out of his chest and he'll go on living just fine. They wouldn't have dared tell him such a thing when he'd been small. Young and innocent and confused about it all. Though in the absence of innocence people tend to think that they can say whatever they want. That once the innocence is gone, there's no possible way that words can hurt anymore. He ought to be old enough to let it go. He ought to focus on his life and career and what he was going to do when he graduated. But this pain wasn't like that of a death, where there's a moment of sadness, sometimes even years, before the pain dulls enough to get by. This was a constant. Every single day he was faced with the thought that she had left him. Every day he found himself wondering why he hadn't been good enough. Had he whined too often? Cried? Was he guilty of being a child? Would she love him more, enough to stay, if she saw him now? Death has a finality to it, a clear ending, but she wasn't dead.

She was in perfect health. Just not with him.

It would be easier if she was dead. Then he wouldn't have to read her dreary letters, all so identical that it drove him mad. She didn't even have the time to write something original. Just the same words, over and over. New day, new place, new man that reminded her of John. She only said that so he'd think she thought of him. He didn't know why she bothered. Clearly, she wasn't coming back. Why did it matter what he thought of her? She was carelessly playing with his mind and his heart. Never once pausing to consider just how severely she was torturing him. Sometimes, he just wanted it to stop. His ever yearning, child-like self, asking all these questions, while he had no answers to give. He'd have rather drowned in liquor than his own mind. Nothing pleasant held residence there.

Except perhaps Paul. A boy who could pluck a bird from the sky with his bare hands. A gentleness John would never be able to mirror. A kindness he could hardly fathom. Deep in his eyes, there was something John couldn't explain. It was sort of like, this foreign feeling, he'd heard of all his life. This euphoric feeling, better than drugs, better than sex, which for all his life he'd believed to be a myth. Some stupid nirvana people propagated just to give fools like John hope. But it was real. It was real and it was right in front of him. Hidden there, in Paul's eyes. He looked into them and somehow, he just knew everything would work out. Everything would be okay. Perhaps not today, but, one day.

John had never felt that kind of assuredness and to be quite frank, it terrified him. He'd had his heart broken once before. What if it mended, only to be broken again? What if this time it did him in? No, he couldn't risk that. He wouldn't. He didn't think he could survive it. And even if he could, he didn't think he'd like the person it would turn him into.

Part of him didn't even want the pain to end. As much as he wanted it to. He didn't know who he was without it. He didn't know how to be, how to act. He doubted anyone would forgive him. Though that mattered less. What really concerned him, was what would be done with him once his bitterness, and carelessness were gone. Would he plummet to the bottom of the food chain? Would people cease to see him as untouchable? Would he become some worthless 'welcome' matt that others would feel compelled to walk over? He scarcely liked to even consider the matter.