What do the stars feel when they look at Us?

Chapter 18: vacant gazes

I don't know if anyone is able to just fully heal their worries. Especially overnight.

It started to seem like a process to me. A process that would take a lot of time.

And I've grown aware of how much worries can take away from you. I didn't feel like putting it into words yet.

But still, in those few hours between Pedro's family visit and having to show up at the park, I felt like I was walking around with worries stuck to my legs and feet.

My solution was to walk in and around the house, in circles.

The old, red carpets became streets for my runaway thoughts. The drizzling rain was cooling for the seconds that I spent roaming outside.

I eventually stayed there.

But why was there nothing, absolutely nothing I could do against these worries?

It just didn't feel right. Being this helpless.

It wasn't an okay thing to happen.

But it did. Over and over again.

I sat in my mom's armchair, contemplating.

What would Linda think? Does she even want to see me?

Matilda can't be right about the liking thing anyway.

Linda can't like me.

I didn't run towards the train tracks for nothing.

She came back from Romania and closed off this chapter that I was.

I've got empathy for that now, right?

"Ben?"

My mom opened the door to the patio next to our garden halfway, spoke in my direction.

Didn't catch me off guard. Rather interrupted my thoughts.

"I'll go meet with Kathie to get some coffee and catch up on things."

"Yeah."

"Everything alright?"

"Sure, yes, of course, have fun!"

The utmost effort possible. Mastered the situation. Got right back into spiralling.

She closed the door behind me.

After a while, it got colder. Much colder. Windy type of freezing cold. Ice on my bare legs and feet.

And I had enough.

I had enough of being in my room with my regrets plastered onto the wall.

I had enough of sitting outside while emotional blizzards swept across the terrace.

How come I felt safe in my room after waking up this morning and now didn't dare come back to it again and rather sit in the garden and not move for, like, hours.

What had changed in the way that I saw things? Why did I feel so pathetic now?

I had to imagine myself standing in front of these walls and staring at those words my mom and I thought of and wrote down on them.

I didn't want to look at them.

I wanted to stare in another direction.

My mind didn't feel ready for that kind of confrontation.

But that was exactly it. Confrontation, right?

How did I not notice that before?

It felt..., like a revelation.

The freezing cold had built icy layers around the fragility of my feelings. I had gotten more and more fragile the closer the evening came.

The only action that I thought might be reasonable was painting over it.

It was my room. And whenever I felt like it, I could just paint over everything, right?

That's not avoidance, isn't it? It's just..., eventually facing things when I'm really ready for them to happen.

So I finally, finally got up, paid the basement a visit, got the nearly dried, black paint, went upstairs, got some newspapers to lay around or beneath the regret areas and started colouring right over it, paint on the wall, on my face, on my fingers, on the floor but at long last, my work was done.

A crooked, black rectangle.

I took a step back and looked at the masterpiece I had created.

Soft raindrops collided with the polyphonic rooftop tiles.

It was half-past four. About an hour left until I had to get ready.

I took the tiniest brush I could find, laying around in the mess on the ground.

I felt my heart racing. This was confrontation.

I wrote her name down right above the top right corner.

Right where my vacant gazes used to meet.