After The Ending (John Frusciante)

Chapter 23

John couldn't sleep.

He kept on staring at the ceiling, then at the walls, then tossing and turning in his spot until his frustrations got the best of him.

He slowly got up and rubbed his eyes into his palms, a breath of exhaustion soon escaping his lips. He then made his way out of his room and down to the kitchen, hoping that perhaps a glass of water was what he needed in order to soothe his state of being. Everything around him was dark and silent, Amaya and Matt both in their rooms and in their beds a long while ago, probably enjoying a peaceful slumber while his head was spinning with thoughts. And the thoughts were the same as always, the same as they were every night when he couldn't sleep and ended up wondering out of his room with the intention of distracting himself with that same glass of water.

God, how he hated this cycle and evenmore so, how he hated this house.

He couldn't wait for his own place to be finished so that he could get out of here, cursing himself almost every day over the decision to stay. He thought that he could handle it, but realized rather soon that it was a lot more difficult than he had anticipated.

She was everywhere.

She was there when he wanted to grab himself a quick snack from the kitchen and she was there when he thought it was safe to go and have a swim on his own and she was there even when he wanted to take a shower after the longest and most exhausting day at the rehearsal. Perhaps she wasn't always there physically, but there were bits and pieces of her that did nothing other than mess with his head and his heart.

And he hated that.

He hated how it was obvious that everything in the kitchen was arranged by her, in the same way as it had been in her old apartment and later even in his old place, after she had spent their evenings together cooking dinner for the two of them. He hated how the chairs by the pool were always exposed to the Sun, because he knew that this was the way she preferred them to be and he hated how the bathroom was always impeccably clean, because he knew that a dirty bathroom was one of her biggest pet peeves.

And perhaps all of those things would have even been tolerable if he wasn't constantly alerted by the one thing driving him mad the most – that intoxicating smell.

The perfume so characteristic to her and only her, sharping his mind whenever she passed him by or whenever he took a seat on the couch downstairs, the soft pillows immersed by the sweet scent. And no matter how much he tried to ignore it, he always ended up failing, falling into the abyss he was currently trying to find a way out of.

It was always in the darkness when his mind began to wonder, reminding him of the moments he had put so much effort into trying to forget. But no matter how much he tried, he still couldn't help it – the warmth of her skin and the softness of her hair, the way her touch felt against his and the way her lips used to dance over his own. He remembered all of it, as if it was yesterday and he felt absolutely pathetic over it.

His heart still raced whenever he thought about those moments and the way she made him feel, trapping him in the endless loop of what ifs. What if he had pushed just a tiny bit harder? What if he had called or showed up at her door just a few times more?

What if he hadn't fucked it up in the first place?

That was the million dollar question right there and for that he didn't have an answer. But it's not like he didn't try. Because he did, he did try.

He took another deep breath once he had downed his final gulp of water, ready to migrate back to his bed when he heard some shuffling against the front door of the house. Finding it strange, he made his way towards it in order to investigate when a rather surprising sight appearead in front of him – the strawberry blonde girl his thoughts had been so occupied with, definitely not upstairs and in her bed as he had thought.