Raw [#Wattys2015]

Chapter 14

My lungs are burning as thick, humid air is pulled in and pushed out of them. Using long strides, I run through the parking garage and down the stairs towards the airport entrance.

My slip-on ballet flats are making it painful to continue running, so I balance myself on one foot, removing them from my feet. Holding the shoes in my hands, I inhale deeply through my nose and continue sprinting towards the front entryway.

Once inside, I located the flight status board after fighting my way through the crowd of people who are all walking slow enough for it to be illegal. I quickly scan the board, seeing that the direct flight from Warren to Montana has departed. Frozen, I stand there reading and rereading the words through the glassy blur of my tears, then fall to my knees amidst the sea of people walking around me. Before I can settle back on my heels, two arms wrap around me pulling me tightly against a curtain of coconut scented, chocolate hair.

"It's okay. You're okay, Rory. Take a breath."

Without having the emotional capacity left to appreciate how she beat me here, or how humbling it is to be leaning the weight of my entire world on her shoulders I allow myself to do exactly as she says and take a breath. Except it's more than a breath, it's the prelude to a humiliating, broken-down, raspy wail, thrusting me painfully into a heaving, chest-tightening sob.

This is the first time knowingly let myself become this broken, this despaired and so full of anguish that I am unable to stop the scene I am making. For the first time, I ignored the flashing signs of caution and accepted the risk of getting my heart broken again. My past heartbreaks were ones that I didn't see coming. I couldn't have anticipated my mother walking out on us or Belle's cancer. I couldn't have known that the night my virginity was taken would end with my broken heart and a traumatic outpatient procedure or that meeting Jeremy would end with a restraining order and bruised ribs. Those heartbreaks blindsided me and broken me when I wasn't looking. Somehow, it almost feels as though being sucker-punched with a surprise heartbreak is easier to overcome than one you clearly saw coming, but did nothing to move out of it's way. I saw the fist of this heartbreak winding up and pulling back, getting ready to let go and knock me to pieces, but like a love-drunk idiot I stood there ready to face it, consequentially getting smashed in the chest by the hardest blow I've ever felt.

Maggie holds me tightly against her lean frame with my face buried in her thick hair, as I come apart. She is once again being the only thing that is keeping me from falling to the floor in a heap of my old self-pity.

The embarrassing portion of all this is the acknowledgement of my weakness, of the darkness that settles around me when I'm upset like this which makes every part of who I am rendered useless and frozen.

When my mother left, after I collapsed in a tantrum-fueled fit of tears, I cried out everything left inside of me then remained motionless for an undetermined length of time. Eating, sleeping, and talking was foreign to me. It was like my body shut down in an effort to defend itself from the pain. Maggie was the first person I spoke to after eight days of being mute. She would come to my house after school and talk to me, even though I refused to talk back. The day she braided my hair is the day I uttered my first words since watching my mother leave. I thanked her, then cried so hard that I fell asleep.

Since then, my body has repeatedly coped using this torturous method, pushing me back into a dark, silent state of mind which seems to temporarily numb the pain I'm feeling. It's very counterproductive to healing my heart or repairing my devastated mind, but it has never been within my control. It just happens, just like it is now.

Another arm wraps around my back and underneath my knees, lifting me off the floor and out of Maggie's arms. My body tenses, all my muscles transform suddenly from limp to rigid and I gasp.