36. Goodbye

Goodbye, love.

"You want to hate me, hate me. I'll accept it. I am sorry for walking out of this, someday you'll understand. I wanted to believe the lies. I'm sorry again. We're just a bit too, too different."
She heard the voice note in silence, her fingers gripping the cigarette tightly, too tightly, as if it were her only hold onto sanity.

They had broken up a month
ago, and for thirty days she hadn't seen the sun without the smoke in her eyes.
"A bit too, too different," the voice rang inside her head, crushing her heart, if anything was left of it.
Tears didn't come at all too her anymore, she had forgotten how it was to cry. The pain, that incredible pain had knocked the living air out of her, leaving nothing but lingering traces of nicotine in her bone marrow.
She laughed humorlessly at the phone.
"You can put your thoughts into a billion words but I can't," he used to get frustrated.
She wished he would pour his heart out into the silence but he didn't. She was a fool for him. An absolute fool for believing the lies he had been feeding her, and himself.
She grimaced. All their memories, shared laughter and silences clouded her mind, maybe all of that was a farce too. An illusion. If only it were so easily dismissed, she would've been free from carrying his touch on her skin.
He had clawed his way into her heart. And now he shouted at her to, "Stop."

She let out sigh. She had been screaming inside her head, she just couldn't find her voice to make it audible. She had been quite, unnecessarily quite. Her silence had disarmed her, someone who was so used to silence was left deliberating how alone she truly was. Isolated from the world, she had made a home out of two arms, and a rather optimistic smile. He had ripped himself away from her. Abandoned her, because he wasn't happy. She didn't blame him, she wasn't happy either in the relationship, but she was in love. And, he took her home away with himself, he took away the single sense of peace she had. 

The city lights glittered green into a distance. She had an application due, an application that'd remove her from this pain, from the persistent presence of his absence. She would be able to escape this city, and her boats that looked into the eyes of the sun as it dipped into the river, and bled it red. No quaint bookstore to remind her that he hated books, no visited alley where their lips had met burning her veins like acid. No sky which was clouded by the smoke of the cancer which probably has made peace with her lungs. Away from this city, which he had tainted for her. He had tainted every fucking thing she touched with hope, and then disillusioned her.  

She calmly redialled his number, she could see his warm brown eyes flickering on the phone screen before reluctantly taking the call.
"What do you want now?" her once favorite voice answered.
"I need to return your T-shirt. I can't have my wardrobe smelling like you anymore," she whispered.
"Let's meet and I'll take it from you," he replied without any hesitance.
She hung up.
"I have feelings as well, for God's sake," he had yelled at her.
She wished he had shown that he cared, it didn't matter whether he loved her not, but she wished he cared. He was the only person, she had counted on, that he would care.

The cafe she chose was an ordinary. Not one of those she had planned to drag him to. It was crowded, noisy, chaotic. Both of them hated such places. She had not washed his T-shirt, it smelled like her. She had neatly packed it.
He was sitting on a chair, and she was late as usual.
She handed him the packet, forcing a smile from the lump that had knotted itself in her stomach.
"So this is it," he glanced around.
"Yeah, I should get going," she shuffled  her feet.
"Yeah, me too," he got up.
She followed him.
"Goodbye," he said.

After eleven months of inexplicable attachment, and nights of sickening desire the word finally sunk in.

This was it. The goodbye. The final one.

He was everywhere nowadays. She couldn't listen to a song without remembering what he had said.
"I heard this song, and I thought of us," he had texted.
"I will take you to the hills, we'll spend a lot of time traveling."
"I love Mexican food as well!"
"I like my coffee strong, and I'm not a tea person."
"How can you not like dogs? They are loyal."
"I won't pull the trigger. I won't let you drown. Get woven into me, I would love nothing more."
"You are beautiful."
"It will be amazing."
"I can't believe, we're together."

And now, she couldn't believe they no longer were.

"I couldn't lie to myself anymore. I didn't feel the warmth I had expected. I didn't want to lie to you."

"It's not working anymore, between us."

She looked at him again. Wishing that she could finally find her voice to scream, to scream until her breath gave out because that's how much it hurt her.
She lit another cigarette, and exhaled slowly.

This was it.

She would soon forget how he smelled, how he sounded like, how he rolled his eyes. All his little quirks, all his daily habits of licking his lips excessively, the way he would kiss him. She flinched. He would never kiss her again. He would never miss her. He would forget about her, like time will erase him from her mind.
She didn't want that.
She looked at him, desperately this time. She stared at him, concentrating on the little details of his appearance. Engraving him in her memory. She couldn't forget him. She couldn't afford to.

She glanced at the T-shirt, regretting letting it go. Regretting losing her only part of home. She hesitated. She could take it back.
But, she wondered, would he?
No, of course not.
He was surrounded by people he loved, and those who loved him back. He was already at home. He felt important, wanted, cared for around them which was something she couldn't give to him.
No, of course he wouldn't take her back.

"Goodbye," she whispered.

Her homeland no longer belonged to her. She was a stranger, with a few memories, and remnants of what was and what could never be, again.
She thought about the scholarship application she had to send.
She would go far, far, away from the city where she would forget how the sunset looked like, how the river pushed herself gently onto the banks. She would remove herself.

You can't forget your home, you see. You can't forget where you belong.
No matter what happens, you remember the night sky of home. How you could feel stars on your naked skin, and kiss him to the first ray of sun.
You don't forget your roots, where you're anchored. Where your fears, insecurities, loneliness subside, you don't forget that. You cling to home, you know, you will come back. There's nowhere else you can go to. There's no one else you belong. And, you only have a home once.

You only lay yourself to rest at one place because the rest of the terrain doesn't satisfy you. It doesn't smell the same, it doesn't smell like him.
And now, she was alone at home all over again.
She was an outlaw. She was abandoned by her home.
And now, home wouldn't take her back anymore.