My Person

Part 6: Was It Ever Real?

Celine:

Truly, what is the meaning of love? Why – do people love? Why did – I ever love? Love is just an excuse to distract you from the real problems in life. To distract you from what's really important. A set of lenses to filter out the truth. I was lied to. Abandoned. I am not a person to be thrown around as if my feelings can easily be retrieved when wanted. I had dignity. I had worth. Well, I mean. Have. I mean have dignity. Have worth. I am sick and tired of waiting. I am going to move on, and when I do, I will never look back. I promise. Promise the stars, the moon and most importantly, myself.

10 Years Later:

April 23rd. The tenth anniversary of my kidnapping, the loss of the one thing I cared about. I tried running away from my past. But it's hard running away with a brain that doesn't want to forget. A constant repeat of all the pain, fear, and overwhelming paralyzing powerlessness I experienced. Moving on isn't as easy as it's made out to be, because if someone can make you feel unsafe and vulnerable how can you expect the rest of the world to be any different? You expect what you know. I lack mental stability and emotional availability. I don't feel things deeply or fall asleep peacefully. I am a shell of what society told me I should be, and I'm helpless and lost from what I used to be. Sebastian was someone I relied on to breathe. But I never realized how dangerous that was till I was out of breath. Drowning. Ripped from the air I was so used to. I was forced to learn how to swim on my own, and that was the hardest achievement I had to do.

I pick my bags up from the floor as the elevator arrives on the ground floor. As I walk out of the glamourous lobby, my heels clicking on the marble floor, I inhale the smell of lavender spray in the apartment building. It's one of the many reasons I picked this place. It allows me to start my new life without my past being ripped out entirely. As I go through the doors to leave the building a drop of rain hits my face from above, causing me to take out my umbrella from my bag. The raindrops start to trickle down from the dark and cloudy skies forming. Thunder roars from above as I close my eyes from the droplets hitting the crimson umbrella, a persistent sound repeating—drip, drip, drip. Blocking out the bustling city, I try to focus on the little drops as I exhale a slow breath. A rush of excitement runs through me. I smile at the reminder of how far I came ten years ago today. You don't know the true abyss of love until the one you love is no longer in your life. Only then, after your heart has been torn out of your chest and pulverized to trillions of pieces, will you know the depths behind the word. Flashes of the memory of him and I under the same dark sky consume my mind. I still remember the days we laughed until we cried, the days we loved till our hearts ached. In the end, it was us against the world, but in this case, I guess the world won. I still feel the emotions of those memories like they were yesterday; however, that yesterday turned into a decade. The sound of a loud honk grabs my attention from the busy streets, signaling I should get going. I shake the memories and get my head straight, pulling myself back to reality. I have a huge presentation today with the prominent executives of my firm. I have been working with Google as a business consultant for the company's innovation department. Today is either going to be my big break or a permanent break.

As I walk towards the parking lot to approach my car, I see a small girl getting picked on by many older boys. Before I can help, she pulls up her fists and hits the biggest guy of the group right in the face. He is knocked out in seconds tumbling to the floor. All the guys look at each other and agree to leave, abandoning the guy on the floor. They all run for their lives as she pulls up her fists for round two. A chuckle escapes my mouth as I stare in disbelief at this little girl taking control of a situation I don't think many other girls could survive. Her brown shoulder-length hair looks golden in the sunlight. She cleans herself up, straightening her tee-shirt and letting her hair down. In the Venn diagram of my life, violence and infatuation rarely overlap . Fortunately for me, this is one of those rare instances. Suddenly, I lose grip of my keys, making them fall to the floor, creating an echo throughout the parking lot.