The Cupid Touch

The Cupid Touch Chapter 31 - Today is the First Day of the Rest of Your Strife

So in some ways I deserve this. This feeling that's like I've had half of me ripped out. Or maybe I don't deserve any of it, but there was nothing else I could do.

I'm trying so hard to take pleasure out of the fact that he lived. I have to accept that it was what I asked for, and that something heard me. That I saved him for him, and not for me. Which I guess is what you do when you're actually in love and not just wanting to be.

It snowed last night. I can tell from the way the dawn light is rising. It has a blue-white glimmer to it that tells of snowball fights and Christmas. Or maybe just of arctic wastelands and bitter cold.

I know what I'm going to do now. Everything I thought about staying is wrong. It was founded on the stupidest hope ever: that I might actually get to keep someone.

I choose Mars, instead. I choose to leave this planet, and to be a pioneer. I choose the chance of never feeling that way about anyone ever again, and it being a blessing because I can't feel this way, either.

I'm going to call them later on. I'm going to ask whether I can join the program now, and work with them on flight paths and bioengineering. I'm going to leave this place behind.

I know that it'll mean missing people. I'll miss my Mom and Fernando like crazy if I choose another world, but the truth is they don't need me. Not with that crazy, obsessive, perfect love that I created between them.

And I'll miss people here, too. I'll miss Maria and Fiona, despite their lack of time for me. I'll miss Eva's advice and guidance as my mentor. I'll even miss Brad, my stupid ex-boyfriend.

I'm not going to let myself think about Joe. It's too much right now.

It's light, and I need to leave my room. I need to be out in the snow, even though I don't really have anywhere to go. But maybe I won't feel so empty when I'm not here, realising that I never slept with him here; never curled up around him and let him envelope me in warmth; and that I never will.

I went to campus. It wasn't a decision, really. I just walked for a while, and found myself crossing the river, trying to breathe in some of the beautiful, sun-lit and snow-whitened morning but feeling like it was nothing more than a picture. I couldn't touch it, and it couldn't touch me.

I stopped in the middle of the bridge and looked down at the flowing water. It looked gloopy, icy - deadly. It looked inviting.

But then that little sarcastic inner voice of mine piped up.

You're really living the cliche here. Are you going to wallow in self-pity for the rest of your short life, or are you going to woman the fuck up?

It was enough to make me start walking again, even though it was a half-hearted voice which didn't really sound like mine.

MIT was as empty and as pretty as a National Geographic shot. The main avenue was a gorgeous, untouched field of snow. I hesitated before starting to walk down it, thinking how sad it was to wreck it.

I guess it'll get wrecked anyway.

I began crunching through it, taking a grim satisfaction from the sound and the sheer whiteness I was walking through.

About halfway down, my cell buzzed. I glanced at it, for some reason hoping it was Joe even though I'd blocked his number to save us both from the apologetic phone-calls.