Flawless: Gazelle [COMPLETE]

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

It has been two days since I pushed Liam away. My fist has been throbbing ever since.

And I have been running.

Running away, from school, from peering eyes, from words, from my life, from... from him.

Yet something rather strange, rather different, rather curious happened this time round. I found myself aching to return, to stop escaping, to, in lack of better word, chill like a normal teenage girl could.

For me, running was almost second-nature, a sport I played on a monthly basis, and I always, always dreaded returning.

However, just this once, I longed to go back. When I was this far away from my problems, it was hard to fathom a reason as to why the situation had been troublesome in the first place. Miles away on an isolated sidewalk, my fears seemed as questionable as my sanity.

A feeling, an icy pain swelling in my chest, had been nagging me insistently, persistently, not intent on surrendering. At first, I didn't acknowledge the emotion. It seemed irrelevant. Now, however, I felt obliged to figure this emotion out. I wanted to recognize this burning feeling in my heart.

Then it clicked.

Loneliness.

I have been alone my entire life, but never have I ever, not once, felt lonely. I suppose not getting attached to anything saved me from this gnawing feeling that was devouring me, coursing through me like the tendrils of a holocaust, spreading.

Some say getting attached might make you vulnerable, but travelling alone will make you weak.

The thing is, once you experience the gravitational pull of getting attached, you no longer feel the need to travel alone. Which basically means the minute your confidant leaves, you'll have nowhere to go, stuck inside a fiery inferno swallowing you up.

Trust me, I would know.

They say scars never heal. They are supposedly marked inside you forever, as if it were carved, embedded into stone, slabs and slabs continuously. But what if that were not true?

I would probably be the most scarred person you would ever meet. In fact, it wasn't even a probability. It was a truth. An inescapable fact. I had learnt to accept that truth years ago, when it dawned on me that no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't glue a broken glass back together unless you were to possess magic.

Nobody possessed that magic.

It was somewhere at that thought when I came to a screeching halt. I wasn't a compass, but I was fairly sure that I had instinctively turned, and was now running—back home.

That is, if home still existed for me. After all, I thought bitterly, the apple never falls far from the tree.

*flashback*

2008, April 25th

Wandering around the spiritless, lifeless, hollow house, I was struck with a tinge of guilt for not tidying the place up more often. Dust coated the mantel ornately and spiders settled comfortably in every nook and cranny of the attic. Feeling fidgety all of a sudden, I started unknowingly cleaning the grime covered surfaces.

Going through boxes and boxes of old memories was like getting cold water poured on my head. Throwing me to a cactus first would've softened the blow of the waves of nostalgia that hit me every time. Picking up a fallen photo frame, I swiped away any telltale tears on my face. The picture was of me, Father, and Mother when I was two. The radiance glowing off my smile blinded me, and I staggered backwards, reminiscing the time before everything went wrong. In the professionally taken picture, I sat perched on my dad's shoulders, stubby, curious fingers kneading his scalp painfully. However, the smile on his face positively glowed, as if it didn't affect him at all. My mother was staring at us wistfully, fondly, lovingly, as if we were her world and she never wanted to let us out of her sight, but also as though she knew she would be leaving us soon. The picture had been taken without warning, and had caught us all off guard. We weren't looking at the camera, barely aware of the photographer's existence, trapped in our own little bubble of joy.