Run-On

Chapter 1, The Loneliest Number

I shiver, pulling the sherpa blanket tighter around me. Nothing can save me, I think to myself. I am lost in a sea of faces, a sea of thoughts, a sea of mistakes that no needle and thread can fix. All I can hear is the ringing of her voice in my ears. We are all just kids. We grew up way too fast. I am scared. I am alone. I want her near me.

I'm surrounded by discomforting silence. Hours ago, the front room was filled with the sounds of laughter, some belching by the classiest roommate I have, and the pounding in my head and the steady throb of my heart in my chest. But now the quiet is only shifted by the ticking of a rotating tower fan, otherwise everything is empty. The guys have gone home. My head is airy. And my blood feels like lead in my veins. I'm running low on life, and I can't find the means to an answer.This probably wouldn't have happened if I would have just told her. Why didn't I just tell her? I scold myself, before I realize that I'm too tired to even be angry with myself. I want to. I want to look at the mirror, feel the heat rise up to my cheeks and hate myself. Or her. Or someone. Anyone, really. All my thoughts have become redundant; I am alone and I don't feel anything besides the numbing, lingering pain of lonliness.

My thoughts travel a million miles away, and it feels good to float for a moment. I can see her light brown hair in front of me if I focus hard enough; I can hear the soft sound of her breathing steadily. It's when people are sleeping that they look like they truly should; everyone should look how they do when they sleep. I think then it'd be a lot harder to hate someone. I bet she doesn't remember how I look when I sleep, I think, and then I crash back down. I am back in my room. Staring at a ceiling, like I've been doing for the past 6 hours, like I've been doing for the past 3 weeks, and I somehow pull the strength in me to fall asleep.

I don't remember my dream. I haven't remembered having any dreams recently, it's kind of odd. I did have one, though. The night after the night after We ended. That's kind of a cold word, isn't it? Ended. It sounds like the period at the end of a run-on sentence, when it stops and nothing feels right and nothing is completed, it's like counting to ten and ending at eight, or telling them you love them and then running away. In the dream, I was shooting arrows up into the sky and praying that they wouldn't land straight on my head. One of them almost did. I breathe in the steam of my coffee, feeling the hot air open up my morning sinuses. Waking up has always been a pleasant experience. If I can count on nothing else, I can count on waking up. I have never been brave enough to die. I can live with that.

Once upon a time, I would wake up to her cinnamon scent and sunshine voice. I grin just thinking about it, bringing the scalding hot liquid into my mouth. It wakes up that part of my body. I snap my head around as two pieces of bread pop out of the toaster. I smile at a Post-It note from my sister, reading that she set it to slow toast and she'd be home soon. I make my toast and feel my teeth sink into the hard bread. I remember the moment when I knew this wasn't a game and she was going to sink her teeth into me, metaphorically. Turns out I was wrong. I slam my car door shut, then resting my arm on it, realizing I had no right to go around slamming doors or steering wheels or anything else. My classy roommate whom you met earlier has left this car a complete mess, and there's a broken stilletto and phone number crumpled together in the backseat. I have to face it; he is a high school boy stuck in a grown man's body and he did not get as lucky as he thinks he did. She is probably a crack addict trying to pay her rent in spare change and dollar bills.

Breathe in, breathe out, feel sunshine in your lungs. That's what they told me in my one meditation course. I went to a meditation class once. Mostly moms who needed some form of relaxation from trying to convince themselves their kids turned out like that and it wasn't their fault; some of them brats, some of them rebels, some of them lost. Some of them like me. I wonder if my mom ever attended a meditation class. I try, I'm breathing most certainly, but there is no substance. I am tired. I don't want to go to work, but I don't want to go back home. I don't want much anymore. This is a problem.

We were college kids, weren't we? Me and her. We were going to move to Oregon, get our medical degrees, we were going to have a family and save lives and be a normal, functioning, participating family in the American dream society. But now we are broken, apart, lost, and trying to find out what way is actually up. In my head, we're still sitting on the bench, holding the hot coffee up to our noses on the park bench. Everything cold but we were warm as we could ever be. It's a beautiful place; her arms. The jealous anger in me says no one belongs there but me, but I know that could never be true. It's far too beautiful for a beast like me.

My mom calls, and I hit ignore. You have to be a monster to ignore your mother, right? Well, that's what I'd like to be this morning. Maybe if I'm a monster I'll get the satisfaction I'm desiring. Whatever that may be. I pull my car up and parallel park between two giant SUVs, probably soccer moms and dads or kids driving their parents' cars to go about their business. I walk down the sidewalk, not bothering to lock the car doors. It doesn't mean that much to me if someone wants to take whatever's in my car, there's only tissues and empty coffee mugs. They can have at it, if they'll clean it out. I immediately regret coming here.