Between Two Eternities || Travis Hamonic

(34) Soft and Soaked in Pain

"You were born a child of light's wonderful secret- you return to the beauty you have always been."

-Aberjhani, Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black

I have no fear where all my love for Bobby will go. Love lost. I know exactly where it will go.

There's so much love in the world - between people, for things. That's not hard to understand, even for me. It's when people claim to fall out of love that I get confused. What happens to the love they claimed to have had?

Mine is going to someone.

There's only three doors on the whole floor, so it's not hard to find. I knock with a shaky white fist, the tears still streaking my cheeks and goosebumps littering my bare arms.

The cab driver had asked me if I was okay. I said yes. I will be.

I'm going to be.

I hear footsteps behind the door, and then it is opened. He's dressed very casually, and his hair is a beautiful mess. I can see behind him into a pristinely clear space with hardwood floors. My eyes flicker back and forth between the apartment behind him and his eyes.

"Arden? What are you doing here?"

I don't sigh of relief like I would expect myself to; I don't run into him and kiss him hard; I don't drop to my knees and beg him to take me back.

I simply cry harder, sob even. In front of this man that I love. Tears that dried receive new life and slide down my skin. His eyes say everything I need to know before I speak. "What's wrong?"

He's hurt, but not the way he was outside Manhattan Center of Therapy. On that day, there was nothing in his empty eyes. Today, he's hurt and confused and all for me. Yet there's something else, something that is almost making them glow. He has hope, however little. Seeing a girl unexpectedly at his door could do that to a person.

Everything makes sense. The tornado in my head that has overtaken me finally ceases. The sun comes out (theoretically of course, because it's actually quite a cloudy day), and I see white fluffy clouds.

He does something to me, this boy. It's his only detriment. He steps on my heart but it was my privilege to have my heart be broken by this boy.

The heart is made to be broken.

But only if Travis can be the one to put it back together. The emotion that breaks your heart is sometimes the very one that fixes it.

"I love you, Travis." I say it through my tears, my voice cracking and hands still shaking, knees wobbling. I could collapse at any minute, and it shows.

It's a beautifully tragic thing to witness. Because this mess of tears and love is me. To have all this culminate in a sad and perfect confession of love is one hell of an ending.

I dare not look at Travis when he doesn't answer. Talk about embarrassment. The gray carpet of the hallway begins to get blurry, from my looking at it so hard and from the tears that pool at the bottom of my eyelids.

The floor doesn't interest me once I hear Travis move. He lets go of the side of the doorframe that he'd been gripping until his knuckles turned white and takes the one step needed to get to me. I look up again and there is no hesitation between the time I see his eyes again and when he kisses me.

My tears dry up, that's the heat that is generated between us. I could never forget what it was like to kiss Travis under the Rockefeller Christmas tree. And now, I don't think I'll ever forget the way he kissed me in the hallway outside of his pent house.