𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐌𝐄 𝐁𝐘 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐄 - 𝐁.𝐄

forty one - disarm

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julia.
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august 25th.

with my elbow propped up against the window and my fingers absentmindedly tangling into my hair, my gaze locked onto the empty stretch of road ahead. it was narrow and winding as if it were leading me further and deeper into my own thoughts. i let myself get lost there, wandering and stumbling over memories and feelings i'd been trying to bury since the moment i'd left the house. but no matter how hard i tried, it was like every thought of her was following me, clinging to me, dragging me down, forcing me to remember—to never forget a single detail.

i didn't even notice the tears until they were already streaming relentlessly down my cheeks. my eyes were bloodshot, seeming like i'd created such an unhealthy sort of red hue that i could feel burning every time that i blinked. my lips were slightly parted, my nose bright red and too clogged to be breathing on its own so it had my lips take in the air, my brows seemed to be the only thing knitted together as i tried so desperately to keep everything else together.

i didn't dare sniffle, i didn't dare make a sound that would give me away. if my mom noticed that i was crying, she'd ask why. and i couldn't tell her. i couldn't tell her about this summer, i couldn't tell her about billie, i couldn't tell her about what happened between billie and i. never. nope. nada. not a chance.

there were too many reasons why. one of them being because we'd promised to keep this thing solely between us. saying it out loud would make it real in a way that she wasn't ready for, and the word could easily get out to the public. her first public "relationship" with a girl would be an eighteen year old. that's not the best look. another reason was because the hurt was too fresh for me. it felt impossible to even speak about her without breaking down all over again.

it's got such strange cruel irony that someone could say that they loved you—those three words that you've wanted to hear for so long—and it still wouldn't be enough to hold everything together. because now i was here, stuck in the passenger seat of my moms car, heading home where i'd be alone again, rotting away in the emptiness of that house, in my bedroom. my mom was leaving tomorrow, off to another business trip or whatever. and i had school creeping up in less than a week.

life is just so... unkind. it's like whoever was in charge of my reality had it out for me, trying to make it twisted and unfair on purpose. i felt like somebody had made me their puppet, like they had a voodoo doll of me just to keep bringing me down further and further. all this shittiness couldn't just be a coincidence anymore.

my mom glanced over at me, and even though i didn't say a word and she didn't say a word, i could feel her concern. i saw it from my peripheral in the slight pout of her lip and the way her eyes softened when she caught me trying to blink away the tears. but she didn't push. she knew me well enough to know that i wouldn't tell her. we had some sort of unspoken understanding, we had this quiet and painful agreement to just let each other be whenever one of us had been sulking.

then, as if she couldn't just sit there and do nothing, she reached over and gently placed her hand on my knee. her touch was soft and tentative like she was afraid of breaking me. but it's also like she knew i was already broken. her thumb brushed back and forth in its simple wordless gesture, it was meant to give me comfort even though she had no idea what she was trying to soothe. but she still tried. and i really-really appreciate it. but that made it worse somehow.

the tears came harder after that. i had to swallow back the heavy sob that almost threatened to escape my throat. the last time she'd seen me cry like this was at my dad's funeral, and then for a few days after that, and then the days turned to weeks, then the weeks had turned into months. but that was when grief had wrapped itself around me like a blanket in the cold. could this be like grief? losing billie even though she were literally a text message away?

i've always kept to myself. i've always held everything in and never told my mother how i ever felt because we were never close on that level. it was my dad i was closer with. but right now, i needed her. i needed her more than ever.  soon she'd be gone too. she'd vanish like everyone else in my life seemed to be doing.

everyone was quite literally disappearing. life was just like a cruel game. either i pushed them away, or they just left. it was always one or the other. and now it felt like everything was happening all at once, all in this short and unbearable span of time, and i couldn't breathe under the heaviness it brought over me.

i literally rawdogged the entire car ride. i sat there in complete silence besides the engines whirr. no airpods, no radio, no music, no chatter, nothing to drown out my thoughts. just the sound of the tires on the road, the soft hum of the engine, and my quiet, muffled sobs. neither of us had said a word the entire time.

i think i might've dozed off at one point for what could've been half an hour or fifteen minutes, im not too sure. i woke up just as the landscape had changed from freeways to highways. soon enough, i'd be greeted with the familiar city skyline.

the towering skyscrapers stood against the creeping night sky, twinkling like stars themselves while guiding us back home.

we passed through the busy streets, weaving through slight traffic until we turned onto our street, lined with familiar luxurious and large white brick townhomes with the black window trim and the black doors. some of the older buildings still stood, their red brick facades and a reminder of how much things had changed and yet how much things hadn't.

my mom pulled into the alleyway behind our house, lined up with garages behind everybody's home. the car eased to a stop as she clicked the button on her sun visor to open the garage door.

the sound echoed in the quiet night, and you could hear the low mechanical hum through the window, making me feel like the complete end of something was drawing near. she carefully parked inside beside my audi a5 in the way she always did, and then engine cut off with a soft push of a button.

i stepped out into the cool night air that flowed in through the open garage, walking my way to the trunk. my fingers soon wrapped around the handles of my suitcases. they felt heavier now, like they carried whatever i couldn't bear to hold anymore. my mom, always noticing the little things, grabbed my backpack from the backseat, draping it over her shoulders to carry instead with her purse still in her hand, i was too lost in my thoughts to remember my own backpack. i'd literally almost forgotten it.

"thanks," i muttered, my voice barely even a whisper, my nose still stuffy from all the crying.

she gave me a small nod, her voice matching my quiet tone. "of course." she told me with a soft and comforting smile that barely displayed along her lips. there was such tenderness in her tone, like she understood that in some ways, that 'thanks' wasn't just for the backpack.

i grabbed her luggage too, wheeling it over to her as she waited, the two of us standing there in the dim light of the garage. the night stretched out before us, still feeling full of unspoken things that we'd never say or admit to each other, mostly from me.

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a/n: this is how i envisioned the beginning of this chapter 🙃

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1393 words.
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