Mixtapes & Polaroids | Sam x Deena

51

When people die, it's not just their hearts that stop beating.

A lot of people see death with blinders, because it's easier to digest. It's easier to comprehend that you've only lost one person, to keep the pain controlled, preventing it from leaking out like toxic chemicals rotting everything it touches. A lot of people go through the motions as narrowly as possible, scrambling to find ways to minimize the loss and the void, the hurt and fear and blame.

They have support groups and therapy, but others take a darker path. Others search for redemption and serenity at the bottom of every bottle, because drowning your insides with liquor hurts less than drowning in all the sorrow. The headache that comes the morning after, the bitter taste on your tongue, the smoke and the haze— it all hurts less than the aftermath of permanence.

When you realize they're not coming back, when you're sitting in a chair surrounded by people you don't know weeks, months, maybe even years later, or when you're covered in sweat and smoke— the moment comes like an inevitable plunge into the abyss. It's like walking on thin ice, waiting for it to crack beneath your feet. When it does, and you're engulfed by the pain the world has trained you to run from— you never come out of it the same.

People were naturally wired to hold onto good things. Nobody is born to reject love, to reject company and affection. People gravitate towards it, to friends and family, to lovers who can fill the silence even in the darkest of nights. And we were never trained to let go without a smear of pain, and that's why death is the most painful one of all. Because when you let someone go, you hold out hope for the future.

That maybe someday you'll catch a glimpse of them in a crowded place, or come across their name in the papers or a find a letter in your mailbox. Maybe someday your phone will ring and they'll be on the other end with an apology and another chance. In death, all hope for the future dies too. Because you know you won't see them in a crowded place, even if you search for hours. You know the only time you'll see them in the papers, is if it's memorial. You know that all the memories left in your head— are the last of them all.

No hope, no chances.

No redos, no take backs, no showing up unannounced trying to right the mistakes of the past because once someone is gone, all of your what ifs, all of your regrets and mistakes become permanent. They become anchors that tie you to the ocean floor, making sure that all the air you'd ever get are little glimpses that you need to fight tooth and nail for.

So when the blinders have to come off, when you realize you havent just lost one person, that you lost a part of yourself too— a part you may never get back, some people don't make it out. Some people never learn to live with missing pieces, with ghosts of the past that haunt them. Some people, even as they live and breathe— become ghosts too. Ghosts with a heartbeat, destined to roam the earth like it was already the afterlife.

And that's exactly how Deena felt, stopped outside her own house when she gets the message that all of her friends are waiting there for her. When she was escorted after the roads were closed off, when she realized she had to face everyone she loves— and tell them everything they've lost.

In that cold December morning, a part of Deena died too.

"Where the hell have you been?" Kate shoots up from the couch when the door opens, staring right at Deena who slowly walked in.

Every step against the hardwood floor felt like it unraveled in slow motion, the crunch of the leftover snow under her shoe, the squeak of floorboards, her heart, her ever so broken heart beating in her ears. She tried to know what to say, Deena doesn't know how long she stood on the porch with her keys in her hands, clutching it so tightly it could pierce her skin. But she doesn't know, because how could she?