Begin Again

[ 1. tailspin ]

She wore a black cocktail dress and went to the art exhibit. She wore nothing but her smile as an accessory- her lone, crooked smile she worked hard to strut. No make-up caked her face and she worried not about not wearing one.

She wore black converse sneakers and tied her hair to a messy bun. Her looks do not concern her anymore, "As if it'd change the way he looks at me."

Hailing a taxi from the sidewalk, she took a quivering breath and decided to pursue her plan for tonight.

She positioned herself in the battered cushion of the cab and fixated her eyes to the window pane. She loves riding alone, with only her thoughts talking to her, she'd sacrifice a limb in exchange for a lone trip around the world.

"I love traveling alone. It makes me think about things that I never thought are worthy of thinking." The taxi driver blurted out suddenly.

She turned her head to face the sentimental maneuvering man and decided to listen.

"It gives me the chance to listen to my own voice, gives me the opportunity to kill people I despise in my mind, stab them with an imaginary shoe or something. I can do a lot of things when I'm with myself. I find myself drowning in oblivion when I am with other people." He continued, his raspy voice resonated across the cavities of the car, age and decades of experience evident on its tone.

"So I'm drowning you then?" She replied, sifling a laugh that's attempting to breach her thin, pale lips.

"Silly girl, don't be too literal. Now shoo away and go find your own sea to drown you." The driver said whilst his smile reached his eyes as he laid out his palm to her, asking for the cab fare.

Her destination was not that far from her house, she was just too lazy to walk and plus she thought she'd look like a walrus walking in the bare street with that dress.

She fished the five dollar bill from her pocket and handed it out to the driver.

"I know how to swim." She retorted, sticking out her tongue as she shut the car door close. She saw the driver giggle briefly before it drove away.

She then refocused her attention on the ominous building that stood upon her. It was an old abandoned basilica and regardless of its age, describing it as beautiful is an understatement.

Although her purpose on coming to the exhibit carries with it protruding menace and selfishness, she was still awed by Damon's sense of appreciation on old, abandoned things.

He said to her that beauty comes in when abandoned, meaning is she a beauty now?

"How could I be abandoned if he never knew I was his in the first place? Dummy."

She went inside and saw that the outside of the basilica cannot match the beauty and grandeur it held from the inside.

It had high walls painted with gold and white round lights illuminated the space it had in abundance; its walls were basked in scarlet where several paintings dangled and the floor was the paragon of elegant. Black, long vines were tattooed on the marbled floor and it all led to the small stage where Damon stood.

She stared at him for a moment, a minute and then she decided not to count. He is more beautiful than his paintings, more than perfection allowed.

She averted her gaze and squeezed her eyes shut. "You did not come here to drool on him you fool."

Damon presented his paintings tainted with charcoal, his photographs of various old and fading homes, streets, things and people.

"And he should add himself in his canvases, for he is about to be abandoned tonight." She internally smiled.

His artwork would be no match to her exhausted heart that he has long gone abandoned- even before she could take in a breath.

She would finally leave him, for herself.

And he, not even once, has been hers.

Now how could she say goodbye if she wasn't even welcomed in his life right from the beginning? Her vision almost faded.

She has been putting ideas of him and his love in her heart and mind for two years now. And she was nothing more but a girl he knew.

After Damon presented his masterpieces, she saw from the corner of her eye, him going for the door in the far left corner of the room. She nevertheless followed him there, it was her chance, her only chance.

She careened through the thick crowd and managed to reach the door he exited from. She clutched the knob and sprung herself out from the room full of deep, scarred people seeing their lives emblazoned in a thin sheet of cloth and heaps of photo paper.

She roamed her eyes around the empty room she was in and saw Damon on the corner talking to somebody on his phone.

She waited for him to finish his business with the person on the other side of the line. She did not want any distraction when she finally says those life-threatening words of parting and goodbye.

She was about to inch the distance between them when he saw that Damon dropped his phone on the floor while he clutched his head and squeezed it hard; it was not long after a loud pained cry escaped from his lips.

Oceane stared in horror and could not believe the scenario looming in front of her.
And in a split second, Damon fell to the floor and did not show any sign of movement. She came close to his aide and checked his pulse.

And that's when she started screaming.