The Fall Of Edith

Chapter 10

I've been posting a lot of random thoughts and bits of poetry on Twitter lately and there is this one guy I started talking to on there. We have been texting for a while, scattered messages over the whole last month. His name is Vince and just last night, sometime around four am we found out that we're in the same country. And not only that, he lives in Sheffield which I found out, is less than a two-hour train ride away from my place. "omg, should we meet?" he asks me and I reply with "yes, totally, I don't have anything to do so tell me when you're free and I'll take a train"

"how about on Wednesday?"

Once Wednesday arrives I'm excited and buzzing with energy and adrenaline all morning. I'm eager to get out of bed, I set an alarm, get dressed and do my make-up and hair, all before 8 am. Then I go to Birmingham train station and board a train to Sheffield. If he murders you there's nobody who knows where you are. The thought crosses my mind while I find myself a spot to sit. There's some comfort to it though. I imagine a young woman excitedly going on a journey to be murdered and smile.

There's not much I know about Vince; we have only been talking for about four weeks. But at the same time I can check his Twitter account at any time, which means I have access to his most secret and private thoughts, updated almost every hour. Two hours ago he posted "am going to meet an amazing friend today. So nervous!!" He's the same age as I am, is in an online relationship, more or less like I am, is tied to his phone all day and loves BMXing and biking in the outdoors. He is also suicidal and has a date set when he wants to kill himself.

Once I arrive in Sheffield, I'm a little overwhelmed and nervous. But I force myself to keep moving and check google maps for directions to find the place where Vince and I decided to meet. It's in the very centre, a square called Millenium Square. Vince told me there are some gigantic, modern art silver marbles, which are easy to find. He turns out to be right, I spot them immediately and recognize Vince right away too. He's thin and bony, sporting a typical skater look. Vans, black pants, hoodie and cap on his head. He has a full beard, which makes him look twice his age and after getting closer I can also discern some tattoos, ear piercings and snake bites on his lips. He brought his bike and he's waiting for me, doing some impressive jumping tricks. As soon as he catches sight of me walking up to him he gets off his bike. There's an awkward tension and my stomach is in knots, not knowing what to say and where to look. "Shit, you're way more beautiful than I imagined" he says it with so much honesty, and so obviously without any flirtation or second thought, it dissolves all the tangles inside of me and I laugh out loud.

"Well, you're just as beautiful as I knew you would be" I tell him and he smiles. The day will forever be one of the best ones of my life. We start walking around Sheffield aimlessly, wandering through empty alleys and main roads, free as birds, our minds soaring above our bodies, racing hand in hand. Like they've been made for each other, our minds dance and swirl through the air together. We talk about Twitter, about life, about all of the relationships we ever failed.

I show him the chats on my phone, he shows me his music. The whole day I feel more comfortable and myself than I've ever felt before.

"do you think this is the start of the best friendship ever?" I ask him while sitting on a wall, overlooking the river.

"of course it is, you can mark your calendar"

I don't know if my presence gives him the courage, or if he is just a brave person, but on our stroll through the city, he speaks to more strangers on the streets than I ever have in my entire life. One time there's a man passing pushing some rare and exclusive bike I would've never noticed and Vince walks up to the guy and says "I really love your bike! It's a Shan N5, right?" The man looks genuinely surprised, starting to smile like a child unwrapping birthday gifts. They launch into a short chat about the bike then and I stand next to Vince smiling.

"It makes me so happy to make a stranger's day, even if it's just a tiny thing" He tells me and I'm genuinely impressed.

At the same time he's so hilariously inappropriate. We're walking back to the place where we left his bike, locked to a fence. Right the moment a lady with a sour look on her face passes by he says loudly "You think we can steal this one, Edith?" I glance at the woman, who's now looking at us suspiciously and reply, matching his volume "Sure thing, bet we can pick that lock"

The woman turns around at us, opening her mouth to say something, but then changes her mind and walks away quickly, shaking her head. We both bend over laughing.

We spend the whole day together, as soon as night falls and it gets too cold to sit outside, we go inside a bar and start drinking. We order whatever contains most alcohol, ending up with a shot called "Kalashnikov". The waiter delivers it to us in flames and it burns all the way down into my stomach.

Talking to him is so easy, he gets everything I say. I notice him looking at my arm, the place where my sleeve moved up a little. I move the sleeve up all the way and hold my arm out. He brushes his long fingers over my chopped up skin and smiles at me. "From when are these?"

"This one from yesterday and the others a couple of months ago" I reply and he doesn't ask anymore questions, instead shoves the sleeve of his hoodie up as well.

"Can I?" I ask and he nods, so I move my thumb lightly over his arm. There are hills and valleys, craters on every inch of his skin from his wrist all the way up to his elbow and probably beyond there, still covered with his hoodie. It's so much more than what I've done to myself, I'm stunned into silence for a while, thinking about the masses and masses of pain he must have been through.

From afar he looks so tough with his beard and cap, tattoos and piercings. But it's all just a cover, a mask. Behind it hides, like a rare diamond, his beautiful soul and his mind, tortured like a trapped butterfly.

By the time we emerge from the bar, tipsy and filled with fire, it's past midnight and I have to run to catch the last train back home.

Back home in my apartment the loneliness hits me harder than ever before. I get the feeling of complete helplessness and panic, like I used to get as a child when my parents took me to the seaside. In my wetsuit I'd be splashing around in the waves happily, then suddenly like a stab in the back, a giant wave would topple me over and make me spin under water. I go to the library and grab every book about my greek gods that I can find. I want to drown myself in their stories, in their magnificence.  "only the fire of life can melt the chains of death" I find the quote in a book about Thanatos and scribble it on my desk like a school kid. 

Vince and I stay in touch for another couple of days but then float away from each other, like two pieces of driftwood, impassively being pulled in different directions on a vast ocean. We're stuck in two separate worlds, like parallel universes. Our conversations keep getting shorter until they're just the skeleton of what they used to be, consisting of nothing more than "hi, how are you" and "I'm fine", a lie so unmistakable it's comical. 

Days also pass without any word from Mauricio.

"why are you always disappearing? I can't take it anymore" the truth.

"you're the one who disappeared and left me for month, not me" I can't argue with that, but is he always going to use that against me now? I don't feel like those situations are comparable.

Pain and heartache raining down on me, I don't think he understands the sorrow he's causing me. 

It's a sunny day today, the sun is smiling through my windows, sprinkling fragments of light on my face, my walls, my bed. 

In the bold afternoon sunlight, flecks of colour appear on thoughts of you.

The seed is for the day we met,

Growing branches every minute we both share

A bud each time you touched my heart

Cut off, the second that we fell apart