Overlap

Chapter 121: My Worst Enemy

<09/09/2018 - 21:30 | Link Street (Park), Marietta, GA, USA>

Though the months of sorrow and sadness dragged me down through the bottomless pit of despair, I continued my night walks daily, returning to the park, a place of promise between us both. Despite all of the summers I've survived in the past, being away from her was never easier than the first time. Sure, I didn't break down and fall to pieces like before, but I returned here, wondering where all of my past emotions were. I felt the dampness of the shell around myself, a mental zone I imprisoned my soul into for protection, despite knowing it has this cost.

No matter how damp my emotions have become, standing in a place like this, staring up at the stars in the night sky, and thinking so much about her brought much more intensity to my aching heart. But I stood by, exhaling calmly while preparing my body for what was to come, for there was finally some hope for me today.

"Lumina." With all the might and will I could muster, I projected my emotions and my energy outwards, beaming them to the infinite sky above us. The air temperature around me was finally cold at last.

"Reed." My body shivered with my breath, having forgotten what it feels like to hear my name in her voice, with such happiness and desperation to connect to me again. "You finally managed to call me back!" So much excitement filled her voice, a weight lifted from the anticipation of seeing me again. Even with the weakness of the connection given the pitiful air temperature around me, I could feel everything she could flowing into me.

Perhaps it was because I had been deprived of my will to go on for so long without her; perhaps it was because I had not allowed myself to feel any happiness in the months that followed the summer; perhaps it was because I had unknowingly tore pieces out of myself after crying to tears too many times to function. When I heard her voice like this again, and realized how much she looked forward to seeing me again, everything I had suppressed deep down broke all the cages I confined them to, reawakening my sleeping soul to the moment around me. All of the dampness in my heart disappeared, my eyes widened with life, and the fog in my brain blew away. "I really missed you." It was for this reason I could hold them back no longer, the tears I refused to shed for many weeks at a time. I refused to cry when I should have, but now I couldn't stop those tears from returning.

"Reed, what's wrong?" Her concern was only from confusion, having not expected me to be this emotional about her return.

I could hide it no longer. My body trembled as my voice became muffled into the moist pockets of my palms, absorbing as much of my tears as they could. I don't want to cry like this in front of her, but I can't hold this sadness back anymore. "Nothing... I'm just glad you're here. I missed you too much, Lumina." Though she could barely hear me though my own sobbing, I could sense her desire to wrap her arms around me, sharing in our synchronization despite being unable to physically hold each other.

"Hm. I'm here for you now Reed. Please... It's going to be okay now." She did everything she could to try and cheer me up. Her simply being here for me was good enough, but I let myself continue crying these cursed tears of despair for minutes without end.

"I tried Lumina. I really tried to be okay this summer, but I just couldn't do it. Even if it's several months each year, a single day without you can be unbearable. I wish I could be with you more often."

"Me too... You know I get the same way too."

"I know." I know too well. I'm not the only one who breaks down this way. There are moments where I see the effects of our separations take tolls even on her. In many ways, she's in the same boat that I am. The way I feel now, even if Lumina doesn't feel this way at the exact same moments that I do, this crushing defeat swallows her soul too, until she starts to go insane or shut everyone out. She has more people to talk to about it than I do, and even then, it's not enough to blanket our annual heartbreak.