Smoking a cigarette, I stay up looking at the ceiling for an approximate three hours, twenty five minutes, thirty two seconds….thirty three…thirty four…thirty five. I still remember that number, the floor you lived on in that massive apartment complex, the number of CD’s you had stacked up in the corner of that old apartment that seemed to be the most interesting thing in it, the age your brother took his life at.
Those CD’s, they were what fueled us, weren’t they? That same Arctic Monkeys song, the one that reminded you of slow walks on the beach and a romantic night in the park for some reason. I never told you this but they reminded me not of walks or nights but of five other girls who loved that song, five other girls whose nights were shared in my company. Five other girls who I told I would never leave; but when those words escaped my mouth, they traveled through time and changed into a single word of venom and hate: LIAR.
One of their names was Rosa. Rosa, the name of a rose in the romance languages. The name of the symbol for love. The endless nights of studying two languages with her; Spanish and love; I’m fluent in one now y no es el amor. Rosa, she was like a rose too: sweet, beautiful, and dangerous, but if you knew how to handle it well, it become vulnerable. I broke her.
Weakness, that’s what Jen called it. An unavailability of strength to keep myself up for someone like her. That I couldn’t handle someone who couldn’t even handle herself. Maybe it was the rancid stench of liquor that invaded her dress, or the taste of vodka in her mouth when we kissed. Maybe it was the speech that slurred with every sentence, syllable, sequence, every small sound from her mouth came out a slobbery pile of noise that settled on the shifting ground before her.She was nice and all when sober….she was only sober once with me.
I felt bad for ending it with Alee, she was only drunk once with me, and it was four hours full of crying and weeping and screaming that made me cry as well. She projected the voices in her head, she made me feel her never ending sorrow and when I asked her what depression felt like, she said, “Its like drowning, and you know how to swim but you just cant, and everybody else swims past you and asks why you’re not swimming when you swam with them before.” And then she tried to drown me too. That was before she was given the pills and her brain turned to sour milk and her life became dull. When she smiled, it wasnt the “I have you and nothing in my brain can go wrong” smile, it was the, “look, another human being” smile. She was gone. The night I left her, there was broken glass at first, and then she took the pills and it was replaced by silence and a thin, sad smile. But I can only remember the broken glass.
Broken, that’s how they all have been. I try, i really do. But you don’t understand, sometimes…all the times…. i just cant hold it, hold them. I always let go because I’m afraid of the pain that comes with the end…whether it be death or a break up, i just don’t want the pain. Thirty five seconds passed, so did another hour and I’m still sitting here in my room, remembering how I ended it with you. How much i want you back, I’ve listened to the same song over and over, the one that reminds you of walks on the beach and romantic nights at the park. Ive listened to it enough times to evealuate every note, melody, sylabale, pitch, everything, until I’, certain that I can play it on any instrument you want and that I can sing it better than the vocalist himself. I counted every single second of the five hours ive been here because for the first time ever, I want someone back in my life…you.
My phone goes off and a text message says,“Turn on the news.” I do and the headline says: WOMAN KILLED ON 35th FLOOR OF APARTMENT COMPLEX. I know its you, the picture in the corner isnt needed, but all I can do is stare and count the seconds passing by, thirty three, thirty four…thirty five…
thirty six
