Say you'll stay - Channing Tatum

P.26

"I understand, but why-" I'm interrupted by Madison over phone, who's frantically trying to convince the universe she's right.

I managed to keep up with her story at first, about how she'd met a fine guy at a friends house and how she a week later after stalking his social media accounts found out he had a girlfriend. Every time I try to interpose with something, she starts speaking. I'm getting more convinced by the second that she has forgotten that I'm still on the phone.

"Mad, hold on a sec." I tell her and get up from my bed. Mom has her friends over and they apparently decided to have a wine evening. It's been a few hours since they started their night so there's not a sober soul in this house beside me. Not only are they playing this is how we do it by Montell Jordan on the loudest, they're singing along and I can hear them dancing.

I grab the envelope that's laying on my nightstand and close my bedroom door behind me before making my way down the hallway towards the front door. By doing so, moms best friend Charlotte dances up to me, a wineglass in her hand and a wide smile on her lips. "You wanna join?" She asks me over the music. "No thanks." I shake my head returning her smile.

In the background I notice mom standing by the kitchen table, pouring herself a new glass of wine.

"All hands up in the air, and wave them from here to there-" They all sing and do as Montell tells them to. A wide smile shapes my lips.

I grab my jacket on the way out. The just a second ago loud and clear music turn into a muffled background noice as soon as the door closes behind me.

"I'm back." I say into the phone.

I didn't expect it to be this cold outside.

A wind sweeps over me and I shiver from the cold. I quickly put my jacket on and my hands into the pockets, but I can already feel my nose falling victim to the chilliness resting in the air.

I look out over the quiet street in front of our house. It's empty.

The streetlights are warm and dim and are giving away enough light to reveal the surroundings. Looking straight at the light and breathing out causes my breath to be visible as white smoke.

"Right," I hum into the phone without knowing what I am agreeing to.

I feels nice to be outside; to breathe in the bitter air and feel the coldness biting onto my nose and cheeks. To walk down a road so lonely I seem like the only living thing. I feel alive.

It may sound strange, but I often find myself in a place where nothing really feels real. Almost like it's too far away to touch, even though it's right here, before me. I'm not completely there, and neither are the people around me. We're placed in a dream that's someone elses, making us made up characters in a nonexistent world.

I've been stuck in that place for some time, but lately I've been going in and out of it. Like switching between being the character and the creator.

I'd like to stay where I am now, but I don't know how.

I don't know what was taken away when some of my being suddenly got lost, or what was added back to get me to feel as I now do.

I walk along the edge of the road. Half of the time walking on the grass, the other half walking on the pavement. Every other step, frozen strands of grass brush against my ankle making parts of my shoe wet.

The conversation with Madison is slowly dying out. She doesn't ask me questions anymore and she talks a lot slower.

"Are you still there?" She asks and snaps me out of my thoughts.