Between You and I

Chapter Thirty- One

May 20, 2012: 184 Hours After

Do you know how there’s an ‘eye’ in every storm; that one spot in the middle where everything’s alright and calm before you’re hit by the rain again. Well, tonight’s like that. I’m lying on my bed, completely worn out, but unable to sleep.

Marcelline’s arguing with my parents about something I’m too far away to hear clearly, but at one point mom yelled, “I’m already sending him to a therapist!” I’m guessing they’re arguing about me. Every joint in my hand aches and even the slightest movement sends a shock up my arm and a chocked groan in my throat.

The night wraps itself around me, like an enormous quilt, hiding me from the world. It’s concealing me from arguments, school, prying eyes, and life. I’m floating in a bubble filling to the brim with my own thoughts; my own mental mess. No fact of anything makes me jump or freak out. It’s probably because I’m too tired to, but I’m content with this state either way. For the first time- in a long time- I’m just… Calm. Even the thought of her doesn’t get me, at least, not as much as it did earlier.

Valentine. She believed that she was some sort of bad luck charm to people. As if the worst things happened with her around. Like death. So, she decided to leave me alone.

I hated her for that.

She felt like she couldn’t fix me, and she couldn’t fix anyone when some people can. Useless and without a purpose. An extra. Lies that she’s repeated to herself over, over, and over again.

I never knew she saw herself that way.

And I, being one of the greatest fuck ups to exist, pushed her over the edge.

Did I? This whole time, she’s been trying to stay away from me, as if it would help whatever happens in my life, just to find out that she was the main reason for me being so miserable. Doesn’t that mean that it’s somehow my fault? If it is, what do I even do? You can’t exactly make it up to a dead person, or apologize in a way they would hear. Well, people can try to contact spirits, but I don’t believe in that sort of thing.

After my whole episode this morning, Marcelline cooked up some food for the both of us (she was always good at cooking) while I chilled my hands with ice. The two of us were dead silent at first. I was sniffling away while she laid out her ingredients.

Something that people find completely ‘amazing’ about her and I is how we silently just… Understood each other. No explanations needed. Of course, we would still fight and claw words at each other, but it would have been about the stupid stuff like, “Who ate the last fucking cookie?”

“Relax Dan, I can bake you more, okay?”

“Can you bake now?”

“No, I’m busy-“

“But you ate the last fucking cookie!”

“With that language, you can bake your own cookies.”

Yeah. I was such a stupid kid.

The older we got, the more we relied on each other. When the friends we thought we had were gone, who else can you turn to?

So, she was cooking whatever while I breathed out the pain. After a while, she started with one question, “Why’d you run out like that?” I gave my answer. A few minutes of silence passed by again before she asked me another question.

Soon enough, there was no time in between at all. She fired question after question, and I eventually told her everything. I even told her about the laptop and all the endless trains of thoughts in my head that were off to nowhere.