Returning Red

#5: Pancakes.

you were my lifeboat, I drowned

Isabella

Is change a good thing or a bad thing? Do we have to weigh the pros and cons of it like how teen girls these days weigh the pros and cons of choosing between two boys? Although I recently had a lot of people telling me that I have changed. I don't quite get why it is such a huge matter of concern. Everyone changes. We all wake up sweet and innocent until life happens, then all of us are just mere idiots trying to sail on the boat we chose. I have seen Grace changing. I know even my mother changed. My dad too, one day he's all young and fun, and then I see him decreasing the volume of the music in our car complaining he couldn't see with all the loud sound.

Although I mentally chuckled, it also made me wonder if change, is supposed to be termed good or bad? Of course, everyone would've changed. Eight years is a long time to lose layers of your own personality and build new ones. It takes events to change people. People change in minutes if they have to. Change is the only constant process in life and it's inevitable, may it be good or bad.

If I was still my old high school self right now, I would be drowning in my own guilt of breaking Ryder Harvey's heart by rejecting his proposal. But I know I've changed because it doesn't affect me anymore. It shouldn't. I can't feel guilty over the things I am not responsible for. I tried because he made me dream for a second that everything in the world was alright and that I could dream of spotless skies and sweet refreshing meadows again. It was always just a dream.

I woke up from that dream yesterday. The sky isn't spotless and it's definitely not a calming blue anymore. It's a dark stormy purple. The meadows are murdered and all that reeks of it are the scent of dead daisies and stale grass. I can't feel guilty for not finding the dream in my reality.

You cannot call this guilt because you never choose who you fall for. The irony is, you never choose the person who falls for you either. And it's sad that I couldn't reciprocate the love he shot my way, but I'm not guilty I couldn't.

I heard a notification from my phone which was stuck up my arm. I stopped running and I pulled it out of my arm pouch, breathing heavily. Running was a daily exercise and a defense mechanism for whenever things got out of hand. Earlier, I used to run away but now, I just run in loops. The same day, followed by the same night, and back to the same day, except, my shoulders weigh a little heavier than they did the day before.

I tap on the email that confirmed my flight tickets to Frankfurt. A small simper surpassed my lips when I realized I would be sitting on my living room couch in Frankfurt just three days later. The simper ceased because we were back to measuring the boundaries of my smile. I'd let it slip the night before and I don't need to rewind the spectacle that followed to learn my lesson again.

I took the sharp turn in the next block and rushed home, acknowledging the crew who were there on the outside of my house, cleaning and guarding the place. Everything and everybody in life was running in a loop. They just didn't know it.

I entered the house, not to my surprise, already finding some people hogging the freshly made pancakes that I could smell from the doorway. Maple syrup dominated the scent though. I saw that Layla, my cook, was back with her assistants.

"Oh, hey."

"Morning Bella."

"How was the run?"

"Pancakes?"

I looked over to the slightly roasted brown pancakes which were stacked in a basket and were quickly getting sold out. Layla's recipe for pancakes is soft and partially sweet. Of all the people I knew, Austin used to make the yummiest pancakes. He made them roasted, crunchy, and sweet. There was no need of adding maple syrup or honey when he made pancakes. They were just so mouth-watering and perfect by themselves.