Wilted Petals

Chapter 13: Breaking the Distance

For most of my life, I've hated crying around other people. Jen can count on one hand the number of times I have broken down in tears in front of her, and 90% of the time it's when I've dealt with a form of crippling tragedy. Not to mention, that aversion coupled with my difficulty of opening up is like a combo deadlier than ammonia and bleach.

    With the past week of being in the hospital, you're dealt with tragedy like it's Satan's personal deck of playing cards. I thought the pain of having Isha back in my life would cause my emotional state to be thrown into the blender.

I was wrong.

What has happened this week has completely squashed any thought of Isha and somehow, its impact was worse. And most of the time, you suck it up and deal with it because it's a hospital. Shit happens, right? Well, how can we forget those times that a patient's death makes it feel like you're being sucker punched in the gut? Well, it just so happens that this week, it happened to me. And once is bad enough, but Satan just had to waltz his way out of hell and right hook me in the abdomen twice this week.

    I'm sitting in my car, with my breathing heavily shallow. I've been avoiding checking my phone all week because I know that the guilt of not replying to Manish is going to start eating me up inside like termites on a wooden staircase.

But the emotions are too much. All the guilt, sadness, and pain is mixing up to be the world's deadliest potion that no one should have the misfortune of ingesting. All I need is for someone to listen to me and really not judge me over this whole thing.

I finally have enough lady balls to look at my text messages to see if Jen or my mom is willing to hear me out on whatever I'm feeling. When I go to check the messages, the first thing that I see is my conversations with Manish. The past few texts that he's sent me are there to start ringing in my head like church bells.

In particular, my eyes are fused to the last text. "Jaya, you're pretty quiet lately. I hope everything's okay. I'm always here if you need someone to talk to."

Once the text registers in my brain, I have this itching urge to call him up, break down in tears, and scream, "EVERYTHING IS NOT OKAY. TWO PEOPLE FUCKING DIED AND I FEEL LIKE SHIT." But I decide better than that and choose the path that won't earn me a one-way ticket to a mental asylum.

My trembling fingers limp their way across the keyboard in an attempt to form a cohesive text. "Manish, I'm so sorry. Been super busy and this week has been so bad at the hospital. Do you mind if I call you up and talk about it?" My thumb shakily taps the send button as I flop back like a fish out of water.

I try to take deep breaths so that I don't start a screaming match in front of Manish. I try to compose the bullfight of emotions that are going around in my head. But the fight only gets more intense the more I try to collect them, and it only makes me want to scream and shout even louder. It doesn't take longer for my phone to vibrate with the notification of Manish's reply.

I sit right back up like someone shocked me awake and check the text that's popped up on my screen. "If you want, you can come over and talk about it. If not, call is fine."

My eyes widen with that thought. I can already picture what it's going to feel like. Us sitting on his squishy couch while the warmth of his apartment blankets me enough to make me be comfortable talking about all this.

My shaky thumbs somehow manage to type out, "I'll come. Be there in 10." After that, I drop my phone in the cup holder. My fingers trip their way to my lap to get my keys as I shakily put them in and turn them to start the car. All I hope is that Manish won't Usain Bolt for the hills when he hears what emotional waterfall I'm going to spew on him.