Desire

XXI.

Lea

I've never felt this kind of emptiness before. It's like a void has opened inside me, swallowing everything I used to feel—joy, sadness, hunger, even the will to get out of bed. It's been almost a week since we stopped talking, and I can't even bring myself to function. I've barely moved from this spot, like the weight of everything is crushing me into the sheets.

Every day I think, today will be the day I get up. I'll shower, I'll change, I'll do something, anything to feel like myself again. But then I just... don't. I can't. The energy it takes to simply sit up, to swing my legs over the side of the bed, feels like too much. I just lie here, staring at the ceiling, feeling the same dull ache in my chest. It's not sharp, not overwhelming. It's just there, like this constant pressure, reminding me of how broken everything is.

I haven't eaten in days, but I'm not hungry. Food doesn't even make sense to me anymore. Nothing does. What's the point of eating if I'm just going to feel this emptiness afterward? I've been ignoring my phone. Rosie, Avery, all of them—they keep messaging me, asking how I am, but I can't bring myself to respond. It's not like any of them know what's going on anyway. What would I even say? That I can't even muster the energy to put on clothes, let alone talk about how I'm feeling? I haven't seen anyone, haven't spoken to anyone. I don't have the strength to pretend I'm okay.

The worst part is how quiet everything feels. This apartment used to be my sanctuary, my escape, but now the silence feels suffocating. I don't even play music anymore, which is insane because music used to be everything to me. I'd sit at the piano for hours, just getting lost in the melodies, but now even that feels pointless. Music is just another thing I can't bring myself to face, even if it is second nature to me. I don't want to write, I don't want to play, I don't want to create. I just want... her.

God, I miss her. I don't even know if I'm allowed to say that after the things we said to each other. After all the venom and anger, I still can't shake her from my mind. Isabel. The person I'm supposed to be hating right now, the person I should be furious with, is the only thing that's filling this emptiness. And it's not even filling it—she's just there, a ghost that haunts every inch of this space, every corner of my mind.

And it hurts. It physically hurts. The way I keep hoping she'll reach out, the way I keep checking my phone even though I've muted it. Waiting for a text that isn't going to come, not after what we said to each other. It's stupid. It's pathetic. But I can't stop. Because without her, it's like... I'm not real. I'm just existing in this limbo of nothingness.

It's been almost a week since we stopped talking. Since we had that stupid, awful fight. And I can't even remember all the things we said. I just remember the feeling of everything collapsing between us. The look in her eyes when she realized she'd pushed too far, said too much, ruined too much.

And now I'm stuck here, waiting for something to change, knowing that it won't. I can't fix this. I don't know how. And the worst part is that, even if I could, I'm not sure I'd be strong enough to. So I lie here, trapped in my own emptiness, waiting for the day when I'll finally feel whole again... if that day ever comes.

But what is coming is the showcase, whether I liked it or not. We have three more months to rehearse, which may seem like it's a lot of time, but for a show this big, three months is barely anything to get things as clean as we want them to be.

The moment it hits me that Isabel is going to be in the studio today, my chest tightens. I don't want to see her. Not today, not in this state. I don't even know what I'd say if I saw her. The thought of being in the same room, pretending to be fine, makes my stomach churn.

I go back and forth in my head, battling with myself, the weight of her presence still lingering in my mind. I can't face her right now. Not after everything we said, not after everything we've been through. It feels like if I see her, I'll unravel, and I can't afford that. Not today.