Atlas Black

Chapter 9

L L A N A M O R O Z O V A

Five words were all it took. Five words which completely changed everything for me. Those five words which I wish so damn much were taken back and never said.

There is no Atlas Black.

After Kai's departure and after the movie marathon which I never got to finish with Sas, I didn't pay attention to anything else other than those five, soul-breaking words she spoke out to me.

I was speechless, no words could form that I could speak aloud to Sas. I wasn't sure to what think, feel, do at that precise moment of time. The time where my world stopped its usual rotating.

Forming at least a question, in a voice so hoarse it was like I was barely speaking I asked, "What do you mean?"

"I've been in Stanford for as long as anyone, I know everyone's faces and names. No one passes me without my notice. I would know if there was an Atlas Black, I'll tell you that."

She sees the look on my face and her expression turns into one of confusion and worry. if I could see my own face staring back at me right now, I'm pretty sure all the colour pretty much drained out of my face, my eyes staring into the abyss, red rimmed eyes staring at nothing in the distance. I was motionless. Frozen. Numb. Incapable of feeling.

I've had enough of feeling this way but this time the words rang true, hitting me deeply in a spot I didn't think I could recover from.

The only reason why I thought I could get through this was because of the idea of Atlas being here. Getting me through this. He hasn't, I've been getting through this on my own and it's so fucking hard because I've never felt this lonely than I do now.

I'm facing the facts that, all my life Atlas has lied to me, deceived me. Made me put in blind-faith into him. Internally boiling and raging on the inside, externally I'm incapable of feeling and tearing up or having another mental breakdown crisis right now.

All this restless energy building up inside me needs to be put out there somewhere. It's not okay or healthy for me to keep this all inside of me because before I know it, it'll get more worse and it won't turn out pretty.

"Are you okay?" She asks. No I'm not okay. I don't answer. She takes my silence as an explanation on its own.

"Who is he to you?" I don't want her asking me questions any further so I stand up about to make my back into the confinements of my room.

"No one. He's no one to me." and I move towards my bedroom door and lock myself in for the rest of the night.

Pacing back and forth in my room, I'm clawing at my hair, my teeth gritting against eachother as I'm trying to put everything to sense.

Atlas, a liar, deceiver, my best friend, my first crush, the guy who had my heart first. But he lied to me. I can't come back from that.

In my head, I'm debating on whether to stay locked up inside and wallow up in my own sorrow or to get the fuck out of here. If I stay here, I'll just be in even more self-pity and I don't want to pity myself any longer.

I don't deserve to feel this way. To feel so broken and lost and alone at such a young age. I should be out there living my life, living my dreams, forgetting for an even an ounce that an Atlas Black ever even existed. He never entered my life. That he was just a hallucination. That he wasn't real.

I'm not about to let a certain Atlas dictate my future and to stop me from feeling any happiness. Searching frantically through my closet and my suitcase, I pick out a black crop top with spaghetti straps and designer black sweats with intricate details and patterns around it. Pairing it with with airforces.