LILY WHITE

SEVENTEEN

LILLIE

Tommy comes in extremely late. I hear him walking up the stairs and shut himself back in his room, he grunts loudly after doing so.

After I had yelled into the ocean, into absolute nothingness, I went back to my room and took another shower. I felt old and aged when I got out, my skin looked like raisins or dates.

I stay in my room the rest of the day, living off fruit and my books. I finish The Bell Jar in one day and play my guitar so much that my fingertips start to hurt

It gives me something else to think about, I think I stopped crying in the shower. That still doesn't change the fact that I have a gaping hole in me. It's like anything that's positive is just filtered. I don't feel that same way I did when I played guitar. The truth is that I felt an incredible high when I played for Tommy. I played his song at least a dozen times. Every once in a while a stray tear dropped on Coco.

When I checked the clock, it was 2AM and I knew no one else would be awake. Now that I knew Tommy was secured in his room, I had the whole house to myself. I could finally go out of the room that had been suffocating me.

As I'm gathering the courage to leave, a see a note slip under my door followed by a series of footsteps and a door closing. It's the door across from mine and it's Tommys letter.

I stand there, spectacle at the piece of paper that lays on the floor by my door. Walking over to it, I'm able to read some of the words from my position above it.

I know I said before that love wasn't exactly real.
but it is, I've seen it in you. I was mistaken.
I'll never live the same because you've shown me what it's like to see it.

Before I can read the rest, I pick up the letter and crumple it up in my hands and in a way it's reliving, but it hurts me more than it should.

I don't want to think about Tommy anymore, I don't want to hear his voice or read his love letters. I don't want anything from him, I want life to be like what it was before. I want nothing but my guitar and I, nothing but lyrics and words and books. I'm sick of anything complicated.

I chuck the crumpled paper and it lands on my bed. I open my door and take Coco with me downstairs.

I place her on the kitchen island and make myself toast with a hazelnut spread, I don't finish it and throw it away in the trash.

Afterwards, I open the backdoor and the wind greets me warmly. It feels good against my face, welcoming, finally something familiar.

The grains of sand stick into my feet as I walk deeper into the sand. The beach looks different at night, it always does. It's calming, less stimulating than the day.

It's waves are slow and steady and there is no other noise than the ones of the ocean. There are no birds gawking or people talking. It's utterly silent and its comforting.

I sit down a few feet from the water, careful for my guitar not to get wet, and I start tuning.

Every once in a while I have to close my eyes, it's like a new world. It's just me now, just me and the ocean and my music. And it's simpler that way, things are better like this.

Sometimes when I close my eyes, he pops back into my head. He's always there, like some kind of itch I can't scratch. I think about how nice it would be to have him here too. But, I can't let those thoughts get to me, I made a promise to myself.

I accidentally start playing his song again, only I don't sing this time. It's like muscle memory, playing this song, like my fingers just automatically move to play it. I force myself to stop before I finish the song and start playing something else.