Alone

It hurt

Light grey and fairy lights.

My ceiling.

That was what I saw when I opened my eyes.

My eyes flickered around my room.
I didn't get up.
Everything felt heavy as it rushed back.
The universe felt heavy on top of me once again.

I knew where I was was real, I just knew.
It broke my heart.
It hurt.

I can only describe it as that moment of silence after a gunshot when the air is heavy and trying to occupy the space.
My brain was trying to figure it all out, trying to fill the space to understand the time, grabbing for the thought of him only for my brain to tell me it wasn't real.

It was real.
I knew I had touched him, I knew how his lips felt, how his breath tasted, I knew the freckles on his face by heart. I knew I had felt his hands on me, I had felt the seawater around us, his breath on my skin, my fingers in his hair. I could still hear his laugh, see his smile.
But my brain was still trying to file it under a dream.
How could I dream within a dream? How could so much time pass? How could so many great details be remembered?

I didn't want to be here, I wanted to be with him back where we were. I wanted to watch him fall asleep against a car window, I wanted to lay with him while he played with my hair, I'd do anything.

I just began to cry as it all settled in in my mind.
I heard chatter downstairs, the voices of my family.
I just needed one more minute alone, just to process everything.

I laid in my covers sobbing, they had never seemed to smell or feel more strange to me.
Is this what heartbreak was?
It felt like my body was being crushed.
It's funny how you don't know you love something until it's violently ripped away from you.
I felt like a part of my own body was gone.

Did he know?
Was he feeling the same right now?
Or was my brain right and my instinct wrong?
Was it all just a dream?

The events seemed more blurry and unclear now, as if it was all slipping away from me.

It couldn't have been real, things like that don't happen, there was so many unexplained things that could only happen in dreams.

He had probably woken up this morning and made himself breakfast, just going on with life because it never happened for him.
The only ripple it had made was for me and my life.

I cried until I felt numb, until I was sure it was a dream.

I sat up from my bed and picked up my phone.

It was like I had never left. I was still seventeen, unable to drive, and in a world full of people who never stopped moving, who never took a moment just to be still.

I headed downstairs and smelled breakfast.

And there they were all at the table.

I took my seat silently and looked down at the pancakes and thought about how to make the American pancakes. I couldn't quite remember how to make them, but I could almost feel the burn I had gotten on my hand from trying.
It never happened.

"Amelia, are you okay?"
Familiar words.

I looked over at Callie who looked concerned.

"Yeah. Still just tired." I said. I felt like an empty shell as they chattered.

It felt like they were all moving so fast but my world was still slow. I caught a glimpse of my parents smiling at each other, it reminded me of the way Dan had looked at me which now seemed fuzzy in my mind.

"Mom, dad." I said, catching everyone's attention on accident. "I love you guys, and I'm glad you love us. I don't know where any of us would be without you." I said and watched my mom smile at me. "We love you too Amelia." My dad replied before Nate made a farting sound with his mouth making even me smile a little.

"Well, I was going to extend our little family moment but Nate just destroyed it." Callie said  "But I'll over look him being an idiot and give you this." Callie reached for something she was sitting on and held it out.

Tickets.

"Happy early birthday. I want to take you to see those two youtubers you like because I heard they were on tour." She grinned a white toothed smile.

I sat there for a moment not knowing what to say or do, or how to feel.

"One is VIP so you actually get to meet them!" She said.

I didn't know what to do.
So I just hugged her tightly.

"Thank you so much. I love you." I told her as I felt tears sting my eyes.

"I love you too Amelia." She squeezed back.

When I pulled away my family seemed shocked by my crying, and the table went quiet.

"Amelia's a cry baby!" Nate teased.

"Shut up, she's just happy." Callie said.

"Awww." My mom cooed.

"I'm just so thankful for you guys. I'm so awful to all of you and I'm such a brat all the time. I'm so sorry." I cried.

"No, you're not and even if you were we'd love you just the same." My dad said.

My head laid against the window of my mom's car that I remembered parking and leaving in the desert.

"What's up with you today chickadee?" My mum asked as she drove me to school.

"I don't know. I just woke up feeling different, older maybe." I told her making her laugh.

"As long as you're okay."

"I've been thinking." I told her.

"What about?" She asked.

"My future. I think I want to be something that has to do with the internet. I've thought about working in the YouTube headquarters in San Bruno. I think that would be what I'd love to do."

"Well remind me to take stock in YouTube then. I'm glad you're finally figuring it out and everything is starting to make sense to you." She said. She was supportive and even said maybe we should look into it, take a tour and see what jobs they offer so I can have a better understanding of what I wanted to do there. I didn't expect her to to be like this, but she understood.

School was hard to get through.
Everything and everyone buzzed like bees around me and I didn't feel like I'd get used to it.

I realized I had never wanted to be where ever I was. I didn't want to be here before the dream. I wanted to go home when I was in the dream and now I found myself wanting to go back to the dream again.
Being in that dream with Dan again though wouldn't make me happy, I'd always want to be somewhere else.
I realized that I would have to work and create something of my own to be happy, I had to take control of my life.

I went to sleep that night with the humming in my dreams, but Dan wasn't there.

I missed him.

How could you miss someone you never really met? How could they feel like a second home to you?

I changed my laptop screen from a picture of him and Phil to a picture of ocean waves.

It was hard to look at his face, it just hurt.