Luke.
'Because we all need a little time to ourselves.' I finished the last sentence to my journal entry, setting my pen down between the pages and picking my phone up from next to me.
It had been approximately fifteen hours, twenty-seven minutes and thirty-seven seconds since October left - based on the timer that I downloaded just yesterday during the taxi ride. Just two-thousand nine hundred and seven more hours to go, and I'll feel better again.
I had inputted the numbers in my phone, though I was too afraid to actually dial it; I was afraid that maybe my brothers wouldn't remember me - regardless of what Aunt Whitney told me yesterday.
"Alright, Luke, you are to call them in two minutes." I ordered myself, setting another phone timer for two minutes.
The two minutes had gone by, and I hadn't kept my eye off of the Wall of Emotions - I was staying in October's apartment and will be for the next four months, since she instructed me to watch over it while she was gone - and I sighed frustratingly, setting another timer for five minutes after the last one was done, and waited patiently on her bed until it rang again.
I decided to pick up my journal and skim through the pages from the very first to the latest entry - which I had just set in today.
The sketch that October blurred through the pages as I absentmindedly flipped through the pages with my thumb, and I specifically bookmarked the page with the string from the spine, and I flip to the page and reminisce to the day when I first woke up by her side, her hair in my face and her drool on my clothes and this book in her creative hands.
I would give anything to go back to that day and re-live the awkwardly adorable moment when she asked me to be her boyfriend. I was so down for that. But all I want now is for those two-thousand nine hundred and seven hours to pass, so I could actually have her hair in my face and drool on my shirt and pins-and-needles in my arm, since October always used it as her pillow.
A page of letters and sentences caught my eye, the penmanship messy and quick - it wasn't mine. October's.
How did I not see this before? Maybe it was because I was so indulged with the one girl that I probably want to spend the rest of my life with.
'01/15/14
I HOPE WE GROW. THERE IS A MUTUAL SADNESS WHEN WE BOTH FEEL
PAIN SO I'LL TRY MY BEST TO NEVER
MAKE YOU HURT EVER AGAIN. I
KNOW I TOLD I'D STOP
HIDING THINGS; I CAN'T TELL
YOU THIS RIGHT NOW, IT'S NOT THE RIGHT
TIME FOR EITHER OF US. I'M
IN LOVE WITH YOU.
- o.w.'
January fifteenth, 2015 was when this was added; she must've sneaked it in, since I don't remember seeing the sketch with a few words written on the page above it.
I read and re-read the passage, until the words had indented into my brain and I could re-state each word. 'I can't tell you this right now, it's not the right time for either of us. I'm in love with you.'
And maybe she was right. Maybe during that time, we were both a little pained and broken and needed time as a bandage until we could peel the adhesive off and our wounds would be healed.
We both needed correcting. And in the end, she was in London in an art school and I was here, reading the last sentence of the small paragraph she wrote for me a month ago while waiting for the timer to finish until I could call my brothers again.
