Toxic Illusions

Our Colors

"Why did you come here?"
I was almost screaming. My eyes were not like me. They were too weak.
  I pushed off his hands away from me and quickly wiped my face with the back of my palm, it didn't help. My face was already so wet as the tears came rushing down.

   My stomach suddenly became tight and heavy. It was as if my uterus was growing and pushing up against my abdominal wall. I clung it, bending over and crying like I had done that night.

  Everything I had fought so hard to forget was coming back to me. And even though I wasn't broken, I felt hurt. I hurt myself.
  How dare him come into my life and turn me into a crybaby? How did I let this happen?

   He hadn't even said anything yet, and I was at the verge of crying myself to dead. The pains of having suppressed my feelings and every other agonizing pain I had experienced over the past years. They all just wanted to come out.

   In those few minutes, I battled to keep my sanity.

The facade I had over the years learned to maintain was wearing off in a matter of minutes. A big girl. I only now agree that big girls cry too. But it really hurt. I really wanted to die.

    "Carole. I am sorry."

I suffered my insides as they squeezed the more from the lots of more tears I had to contain. I struggled to accept that that was the familiar voice of the man I fell in love with.
  I could feel the pain in his soul from just listening to the tone of his voice.
I was sorry too.

    "I have lived every single day of my life in hell since you left. I want to be happy Carole.

    I want to be with you.
You make me happy."

*
   I had thrown my eyes back at the table I served drinks to last. There was just something about that voice I heard that had caused an effect on me.

He was really the one. Staring back at me.
Fiercely looking, yet calm as ever.

I wasn't supposed to be there anymore. It was wrong of me to have come to work  today. As a way to even further hide my naked thoughts, I had to quickly leave the bar.
Hurrying away, thinking that would do me good.
I told Monique and Nate that I had to go home before Salor returned. I needed to pack my stuffs so I could join my mother tomorrow.
Of course they understood, they saw my mother's face. Even though I didn't have to tell them the whole story.
It was still the perfect excuse.

~
"You shouldn't have come here.
I had managed to get a hold of myself. I cleaned my face again.

Go. Be happy. Leave me alone Virgil."

Now I could see him.

"Did you see my mother at the bar too? Did you see her face?
I was all up in his face now.
He remained calm.

Love happened to her. Now she can't walk around during the day without makeup. And he still has to beat her up before she can get money to buy them."

"What do I have to do to make you see me for the person I am.  I don't want to know what men did to you, but you should know that I am not that kind of person. I wouldn't dare to hurt you. I would never."
  Virgil said, his voice sounded like it was forced to be loud.

"What did you have to go through? Why do you have to hurt so much? Come close."

Who is this Man? What exactly did he do to me?

    Seeing him break down the way he did caused me to cry the more. What I wanted was to see men in pain too. Just the way the women in my life where. I wanted them to feel how bitter those women felt.
I didn't want to feel pain when those men did. But I do.

My father, mother's ex-husband, Salor, Aunty Morena's late husband. Felix especially.
  Laura works her butt off to take care of their little family. Poor girl. I even pity her son Avery the most.
I wish they could all be made to face the law, but that was shitty too.
  I doubt they were in pains right now.

But I didn't want that for this very Man. I didn't want that for Virgil.
   My heart wasn't believing what my head was saying. I wanted to feel him again.
Spending those months at his place, during the quarantine were the best days of my whole life.

  I know it will seem as though I didn't have any emotion. Trust me, I marvel at myself too. Most times I'd catch myself reminiscing the swell times with Virgil.
I really enjoyed those times. They were the only times I really felt like a woman. I was treated like a woman.
I'd catch myself and dislodge the thoughts.

   But somehow I could cry in front of him. A man. I had never done that before.
  It felt so strange to me. Must have been why I left. I couldn't handle his show of genuine affection, a good kind of  love.
A kind of love that didn't require my tears on a daily basis.
      I wasn't used to it.

I don't know. But Virgil had me on some kind of confinement. There should be a more suitable word that would read a better meaning to how he made me feel.

"Come close."
He put his hands on my shoulders and pulled me into his bosom.

I felt peace.
A rush of fresh air and a total completeness inside me.

I never wanted to mention how much I love Virgil. I didn't want to make him see me vulnerable.
But he already did.

And even as he knew, he didn't make me feel how the women in my life felt. He didn't let me cover my face with makeup.  He didn't make me cry till my face turned pink. I did that to myself.

Virgil was perfect. I saw no wrong in him.

I was still crying when I told him,
"I love you."
That was the first time I said that to him.

Only Ines and Paloma heard me say that. Those girls would swear I was the best sister in the world.

  I was the best after all.

I cared and protected them from the world I had to grow up in. Seeing how I was with my sisters was the only hope my mom had held firmly. It was the only reason she still felt I could be redeemed.

Even my mom never heard that from me. I was always too busy hating her choices in life to give a shit about how I felt about her.

   But something in me told me that wasn't going to be the last time I would say that.

   "I love you so much too Carole."