As If We're Oceans

O n e: Raindrop

He took my hand as we walked in the rain, while my other hand held a cigarette. Even though I was only 14, I didn't care.

I was a run away, I could do whatever I wanted to. So I decided I would live with Wyatt, the man of my dreams.

It was a Thursday today. It seem like only yesterday, I was sitting at home, reading a book while smoking a cigarette, hearing my parents fighting and not caring.

But that was a year ago, and tomorrow will mark the anniversary of running away. Yes, I know, it's something stupid to remember, but it was the best day if my life. Sneaking out at 4 a.m. with Wyatt to go to Ireland.

Getting away from school, from all my family and stupid fake friends who didn't give a damn. Never once did I think I would get away from them, but when my parents found me, they gave Wyatt the right to be my legal guardian.

Surprisingly, they were calm about it. So right now, I'm going to college. Yes, I know, I'm 14, but I have the highest IQ in all of Ireland. I'm very smart. I've already graduated, I left the day after graduation. I skipped 4 different grades.

And so here I am now, walking down the road with Wyatt, smoking a cigarette, going to college. He was almost as smart as me, but I was still smarter. He was 16, legally emancipated.

He had full rights over me, but he was still my boyfriend, the man I love. I've known him my whole life. We lived two different lives but still had each other.

He was there for me at all times,he kept me safe and warm, and he knew just how to keep me alive.

So, he helped into college, and here I am. I'm walking there with him, we go to the same college, and it's all good.

I'm finally happy now, after years and years of being abused, I'm out. I'm happy. I even have a small dog, named Chase. I love him a lot.

"Hey, Justice, you doing okay over there?" Wyatt asked me, as I was zoned out, looking down at the sidewalk.

"Yeah, just fine, only because I'm with you," I said in reply, even though I was the complete opposite of fine.

"You know, those drugs will wear you out. Even if it's every once in a while, they'll wear you out quick," he said, so quiet I almost didn't hear him.

"I know, I won't quit though. It's not like I'm doing real drugs, just high doses of snorting crushed up pills. Not too bad," I lied. I do more than that. I kept walking with my cigarette, not giving a damn what he thought.

I let go of his hand and started running. He didn't call me name and he didn't chase after me, he just kept walking. He knew I would have to stop somewhere, I wasn't the one to run a lot. So I stopped at the top of the end of the road, the drugs have been wearing me out just as he had said.

But I didn't care, I really didn't. They helped more than anything and I didn't give a fuck. They were my friend and my only friend. But it's not like I did cocaine or anything, I just sometimes did meth.

He finally caught up to me, he rapped his arms around me and asked me, "where does it hurt? There's a cause for you doing drugs, so it has to hurt somewhere"

I clutched my shirt, right where my heart is, as the tears streamed down my face. "It hurts right here. It only hurts here and in my mind. I'm just so tired of being sad all the time."

"Why? Why are you sad all the time? Nobody can tell if you're sad, Justice, if you only hide it with anger and fear. Are you frustrated because you can't stop being sad all the time?"

I didn't say a word. I was rethinking everything that's ever happened. I don't understand how I'm always sad. I have a perfect life, going to college at a young age because I'm so smart, I'm living with my boyfriend, and I can do whatever I want. How the hell am I always sad?

"I'm not frustrated," I said, "I'm just trying to cover up my sadness. And the only way I can do that is by turning it into fear."

"Do you want to go home? We don't have to go to school today. We can call and say we caught a cold."

"Yes, I would like that."

So we did. We walked back home, called the college and said we're sick. So we laid in bed all day, with nothing to do besides talk.

--

"How do you think people die? Is it just a stopping of your heart or does your brain just give up?"

"I don't know, Justice. All I know is that we die, and when we do, our souls go somewhere else."

"I have this theory. We die in the middle of our lives. We could have died many years later, but we died in one moment. In the middle of our story, no more words, no more 'I love you''s nothing left besides a cold, hard body and painful funerals. Everything ends in the middle of a sentence. Our lives do. We are all books full of words and things left unsaid, for other people to dig deeper and find that meaning. We are all just people who die within a sentence. And everything else stops in the middle of a sentence. Our stories never end, they just sit there peacefully waiting for someone else to pick it up. We aren't dead, we just aren't living."

But we are living, I thought, just not how we want.