Midnight Walks | ✔

─10.

IN MY PERIPHERAL VIEW, the makeshift world was crumbling down into dust, bleeding into oblivion. "Laura," Liam's voice was pleading, eyes lined with concern. "Look at me."

With glossy eyes, my mind replicated the wornness of an old photograph—dismantled and torn, not knowing what to believe. I held my hands tightly clasped together, tears at brink. "I can't. . ." my shoulders felt heavy, t-shirt sticking onto me like a barrier between me and oxygen.

I was no longer bulletproof.

"What am I going to say to her, Liam? She's never going to forgive me."

I continued before he could speak. "How did she get my number? I—I remember not telling anyone about it," I looked him in the eye, "You didn't. . ."

His silence was the answer. I narrowed my eyes at him, tugging at his shirt. "Why?" I groaned. "Wasn't that the sole purpose of me changing my number, Liam?"

He sighed. "I. . .I know. Laura, please understand the situation and look at it from her point of view."

I held my face in my palms. "You don't understand Liam, you never do," I clenched my fists, "I can't, I can't. Not yet. Why don't you let me be?"

He held my shoulders. "Listen to me. She has been your closest friend for sixteen years—are you just going to throw her out of your life like that?" he paused, eyes unsure. "Do you understand what she might be going through too?"

"Can you," I sighed, hands gripping onto each other and eyes glued to the rug I had on the floor. "leave me alone for a while? I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"Take your time," he squeezed my shoulders in a hug, and then gave me a sad smile. I watched him leave, gently closing the door behind him. I had a massive headache, now, and numerous circumstances seemed to enhance it tenfold.

I missed Elizabeth. I missed the comfort of being around someone like her who stuck like superglue, smiled like the warmth of million suns combined, and felt like home. Whilst music played like a soft cacophony of tunes from my phone, my eyes fell astray.

There were only so many times paper hearts could get healed—and their undoing left nothing but scorching venom into the bloodstream.

▂

I ended up staying up wide awake at midnight.

The music seemed to hit different, stars spoke brightly, moonlight shone right through the shallow curtain blinds, and the silence was serene. I couldn't do much when havoc ruled my mind, because destruction was always known to hail. Donned in scorching velvet red and devilish smiles, chaos never summed up to anything good.

Sleep was non-existent at this point, the faint music the only tangible thing in the air. I shut my eyes for a brief second and opened them back up, because I was so terrified—so so terrified of waking up to the endless loops of my past forming a fraction of my new-found reality.