i'm almost me again (she's almost you) • satzu

14

Mina,

I've met someone. She reminds me of you. She doesn't look like you, but there's so much of you in her. Your light, your kindness, your softness. And your laughs sound so different, but she laughs just like you - pure joy, loud and unabashed - and it makes me feel better just hearing it. And I'm starting to laugh like me again too. It felt like forever before I laughed for the first time since I lost you, and I almost didn't realise what had happened, only that I felt light inside.

I feel like I have some colour back in my life, as if I have a chance at happiness now. I'm healing, slowly, but when I make it to Paris, I think I'm going to be okay. No matter what the outcome, whether I find you there or not, I think I'll be okay, and today is the first time that I've felt like that since you left. That I've believed it.

I guess I thought it'd always hurt like this. And I took my anger out on you for hurting me, but I realise now that I was hurting for a long time before you broke my heart. Even now, even when it still hurts so much, I still want the best for you, regardless of what you've done to me. I just feel like for so long I haven't known how to be a person the right way, and I have time to figure that out now. It's been good for me, being stuck here on this boat on the river. I have nothing but time, and there's so much thinking to do in that time that I'm starting to understand myself a bit better.

I still miss you though.

- Tzuyu.

-

A week later, Tzuyu's boat was finally freed from the bridge, much to her bitter irritation. She'd been waiting for a couple of months now, and of course, it was after her boat had started breaking that it was finally freed. It wasn't an easy task though, and she watched from the riverbank, drinking a cup of tea with a dark look on her face as a helicopter buffeted the trees, branches and trunks creaking as they bowed beneath the force of the hurricane the propellers whipped up. It had a crane attached to it and was the only way she'd been able to arrange for her boat to be towed, with no roads leading to the riverbank and no boats small enough to fit on the river and actually be able to pull it out.

The helicopter had dragged it along the surface of the river, the water rippling against the flow of the current in a wide v at the bow, and a few men in hard hats and orange vests waited along the banks as the boat was pulled up onto the muddy bank. Water streamed from the cracks and the old boat groaned as half a dozen pairs of hands grabbed the metal railing of the stern and heaved as the helicopter hovered overhead. They'd rigged up a series of metal poles to help roll the boat towards Sana's boathouse, and Tzuyu slowly drifted alongside the workers, watching as her narrowboat was pulled through the woods and set onto a boat rack.

The old boathouse smelled of river water, mud and damp wood, an old lantern illuminating the big shed and the stacks of rowing boats and kayaks neatly shelved, while paddles were stacked nearby. It was cramped with Tzuyu's boat taking up most of the space in the middle, and the doors couldn't be closed as the bow stuck out a few feet, but Sana had assured her it was fine.

It was a relief to have the boat removed, even if Tzuyu didn't feel any better about it. The archway beneath the bridge looked oddly empty, and the helicopter and crane had been expensive, although Tzuyu had written the cheque as if was nothing, yet it felt like she was doing something to move forward. It felt like she was less stuck now, although she was essentially still just as trapped as she had been when she'd gotten herself into this mess. At least now Tzuyu could work towards fixing up the boat and getting to Paris.

After deliberation, she'd decided to fix it herself. The chances of anyone in the rural countryside being a master boat builder were slim enough to deter Tzuyu from even trying, and after weighing the decision to pay an expert an exorbitant amount to spend weeks on end in the small town, she'd decided that it was hypothetically within her capabilities to do it herself. Tzuyu had been learning carpentry since she was a child, learning how to strip bark from freshly chopped planks of wood, how to sand it smooth and which polish or varnish to finish it with. How to join pieces together at a perfect angle, how to carve patterns to replace rotten or splintered parts of antiques, how to age the wood to match perfectly. And she knew the basics of electrics too, having worked with intricate electrical clocks and antique lamps.