Blunt

Erza

You don't care. I care too much. You lose yourself. I lost both me and you.

I'm done hurting.

She jerked up, her breath short and erratic - as if she had done  tumbling about, searching for an exit from her nightmare. Her heart thumped loudly, echoing in the dark room - nausea invaded her head, and fear clogged her throat like it was made of thick, oozing liquid from the air she inhaled. That's not true. Her teeth chattered. He drove me out of his life.

She tried to chant it again, again, and again - yet she still believed that it is her who drove him to leave her. She was apathetic - as hard as a marble statue, standing still, waiting for his arrival, yet she did nothing when he came to her. She acted indifferent. Disappointed, even. She had hoped for him to be sort of manly - with no tears mentality and a pair of strong arms to hug her whole - but often, his manliness would stop at his carnal desire, and he was as much of a gentleman as she was as much of a good girlfriend. Yet she was jealous. Of everyone and everything he directed his attention to. She thirsts for him, and he only could satisfy her - but she hated the way he would look at her adoringly, and when he would cry when she didn't care about his feelings, and when he was rude due to the hopes and stakes he bore on his back. And she didn't lend a single hand to him; she did not. She stayed on the sideline, waiting for him to notice and be the man of her dream, sweeping her off her feet and taking every last ounce of sanity away from her mind.

Deep down, she believed she was all that. And she was angry - at him, at herself, at the nightmares coming back and forth to remind her of their dreaded breakup. She was angry at the dreams and sparkling future she thought she would have with him. No, correction - she was angry at the mere status of those dreams being just dreams.

Her arms reached out, blindly searching for her phone. Her eyes squinted in pain when the device lit up. 4:30. She had time, but also not enough to continue her sleep - and it wasn't like she had any guarantee that her sleep would be comfortable. Yet it was also an ominous time of the night, of the day whence she wouldn't want to wake up, because it brings forth all kinds of destructive thoughts she didn't need to worsen her anxiety.

The time, was it the cause of their adversary? Was it the start of their crumbling ties, was it the reason they fell apart?

Rubbing her temple, she plopped back down, her eyes skimming at the enveloping darkness.

●●○●●

She could still go to college that day, even though she felt like one wrong move would cut her open and leave her bleeding to death. Dragging her legs down the mildly crowded hall, her thumb fiddled around the volume button of her phone, adjusting the loudness coming out of her earphones. The screaming music flooded her mind, numbing the pain and brushing aside the suffocating sense of apathy inside. Weird, she sighed. I thought apathy was supposed to feel empty.

She purposely walked the long road to her class, avoiding certain spots and places which contained some of her best memories with him. She didn't even know whether he would be there or not. She just couldn't stand knowing, seeing, feeling everything - regarding him, them, the now unfamiliar happiness of the memories. She avoided all. All that was him.

Was it wrong of her to avoid? Would it be better if she were to face the monster lurking around the corner head on, knowing full well that only futility will come out of it? She didn't know - she didn't want to know.

She realized that in a way, she was just as much of a coward as he was. What they had was indeed a relationship founded on diluted toxics.

And it comforted her, at least from her uneasiness, from her temporary fear.