Hey, Mister In Denial (BxB)

Chapter 27: Text and Phone Calls

Chapter 27
Text and Phone Calls

It's been a week already, and Mémère is now being buried six feet down the ground. All of the relatives and I are wearing white. Tears don't well up in my eyes. I wish they do. I wish I could cry. But it feels like I've cried enough. And it also feels like tears are not enough. We are all silent; we're not speaking any words, our lips are tightly sealed.

Deep inside me I want to trudge my way there, yank my Mémère out of the polished brown coffin that she's lying in, and tell her to wake up and yell at me for being a stupid teenager. But she's not like that. Mémère was sweet and gentle and calm. She would talk to me, hug me tight, and tell me random things. She would tell me a random story until I forget my problem. Then after that, she would remind me of my problem or issue and then she'd give me an advice. Then she would tell me: Will you be hunted or will you be the one to hunt it? Whichever you prefer, it's alright with me.

"I miss you so much, Mémère." I tell her, barely above a whisper. My hands turn into a fist, so hard that it turns white. My mother, seeing and feeling how I'm struggling with my emotions, wraps her around me in a motherly manner. She kisses me on my temple – she has to tiptoe, since I'm taller than her, and I shut my eyes. I wish Mémère does that. It's not like I don't want my mother to do that, it's just that I'm wishing to feel Mémère's physical presence.

My mother hugs me, as if I'm a little kid. I hug her back, wrapping my arms tight around her and bury my chin in her shoulder. She gives me a weak smile, and there are stains of tears along her puffy and red cheeks. I brush a bead of tear that is pooling in the edge of her left eye and smile sadly at her.

Cousins and aunts and uncles, they are all crying. I'm at the back, behind me is an oak tree that is probably hundreds of years old now.

"She's all good now," says Mom as she unwraps her arms around me and stares into the guys with big shovels, starting to throw the dirt and bury my Mémère. "And probably happy."

"She is," I say. My father sees us and walks toward our direction with a sad smile tugged on his lips. Even though I'm far, I can still see the wrinkles in his forehead and the edges of his eyes, indicating how stressed he is not because of Mémère but because of seeing my mother cry several times. I have heard her cry, and it's painful to hear. "She's watching us now. Knowing Mémère, she's probably cursing in Heaven right now with God by her side." She was a tough woman, and a great Mémère to me and my cousins and my family.

The night has come. The moon is staring right at me, as if it's mocking me. When Mémère was still alive, and when we were still living in France, Mémère and I used to look at the moon; we both admired the moon's beauty and mysteriousness. Sighing, I bow down and stare at the glinting lights on the Eiffel Tower.

Mémère kept saying that it's beautiful and almost perfect.

It is.

The Eiffel Tower is almost perfect. Whenever I visit the Eiffel Tower, either by day or night, I would have this feeling that it's ugly when you get near to it. And when I'm far from it, just like now, when I stare into it, either by day or night, I see its beauty. Sometimes I'm fucked up. And I'm fucked up now.

My phone rings in my hand; my phone has been in my hand for almost a day now, not putting it down. The only time I put it down is when I needed to pee. I'm surprised the battery hasn't run down yet.

When I take a look at the screen, my breath hitches when I see the number I've been hoping to see on my phone ever since we broke-up. But now I'm not even sure if I want to answer the phone call or not. My thumb hovers on the answer button, but it just lingers there. The phone keeps ringing, keeps vibrating. I want to hear his voice, badly. My ears crave for it. The phone stops ringing.

And then it rings again.

And then again.

And then again.

Again and again.

Until it just stops finally.

And I receive a message instead.

It reads: please talk to me. please.pleaseplease.please

I'm tired of getting hurt, to get my heart broken, to be broken. The pain is still there; it still hurts. But the more I think of being together again with Dale, the more stressing it becomes for me. I'm not even sure if he wants to get back together with me.

There's another message that makes my phone vibrate. This time it's not from Dale but from Dustin. I feel something inside me stir, so I immediately open the message and it says: Dale found out that your grandma passed away. Sorry. I know that you didn't want him to know about what you're going through right now.

The second day after we arrived here in France, that morning, I messaged Dustin through the Facebook Messenger; I requested him to not tell Dale where I am, just in case, and then made him tell my friends, even the deans and school teachers and the principal to not let Dale know. Later that day, I received a message from Dustin, saying that he had told my friends and the professors to not tell Dale where I've been, and they asked why. Dustin told me he had to make a reason, so he told them that Dale was harassing me always, which got him into a deeper mess. Dustin, being Dustin, made another reason that I "didn't want to make a legal action yet" and when the professors asked why, he told them that it's just the way I was — very forgiving and wanting to always give the person another chance. They believed it. They actually bought it. I guess he used his charms.

My other friends grilled up because they don't know that I've been with the supposed-to-be-straight-and-not-curious Robert Dale Waites.

Anyways, I should not be thinking of him right now.

Hell, he shouldn't even be texting or calling me right now.

For all I know, we are over. There's nothing left to save. Worse, I don't know if I want to be healed again. Perhaps if I'm left broken, I would have nothing to lose anymore. Perhaps if I'm left broken, I would be in a much safer state. Perhaps if I'm left broken, I would become numb of everything.

My phone vibrates again. It's from Dale. It reads: please please please please please

I shut my phone off completely.

There's a different feeling brewing inside me when I wake up as the sun streams through the curtained windows. With a great view of the Eiffel Tower, I immediately feel a smile curling up in my lips then it becomes straight when I remember last night. I woke up happy, then suddenly I feel heavy and sad and lonely.

"I'm not really over it," I mutter to myself. "I'm not really over him. I feel like I will never be." I admit to myself. It's going to be a torture. "I'm watching myself bleed every day but still I will never be over him."

I swing my feet off the bed and stare into a distance. Though I'm clearly at myself in the mirror – hair sticking up in every direction, half-hooded eyes, and sagged shoulders: I'm such a mess, my mind is wandering somewhere else. There's a stain of dried drool just below my lips, and I look at myself in shame, face turning red. Despite the fact that no one knows I drool (except my parents, who have probably caught me – and taken a picture of me with a drool on my chin – drooling while sleeping), or no one has seen me drool today, I feel ashamed.

Reaching my phone and turning it back on, once it opens, my phone begins to make sounds, indicating that I've received voicemails, text messages, and missed calls. A lot from Dale, less from Dustin.

My heart clenches again at the sight of Dale's number. Even just looking at the things he owns, or anything that comes from him, or that is related to him, it hurts to see. Even by thinking of him, it hurts me. My heart continues to clench, and while thinking of Dale, my heart feels like it's being stabbed a million times. I feel like I'm bleeding. I feel like I'm bleeding to death, and I can't do anything about him.

Two days from now, I will be back to America.

I wish I would never.

Because that means I will have to see Dale again.

And that means I will get broken again, though I'm already broken.