The Last Holiday

CHAPTER TEN

CHaPTeR 10:

My lonely days stretched over, into the next year.

While everyone had been jubilating excitingly during the crossover service, I stared daggers at the back of her beautiful head throughout service, an occasional tear threatening to roll down my cheeks.

I'd wiped off two errant drops who had rolled nonchalantly down my cheeks, twice.

That was four drops.

Goddamn! I cried over to 2015, making a solemn promise to myself: never ever again, on any circumstance would I allow myself be entangled by that stupid illusion called 'love'.

Love?

"Love doesn't exist. It is a cruel summary, designed to distract you from the reality - you are still alone, no matter what. You will die alone, as you were born alone.

It might feel great for a while, but that's why its a distraction.

It'll come to an agonising end soon enough.
If it does continue, it'll be based on the fact that either you or your partner, or both of you gain something from the other, something you feel you wouldn't get so easily if you separated.

So, basically, love is selfish.

Love is a useless distraction.
Do not, under any circumstance, entangle yourself under its web, for though it is an illusion, it is made of entirely the same substance as life, and ..."

These exact words still lay in my diary, beneath my maroon cardigan shirt.

I'd scribbled them the day I'd confronted Tonia, December 31, 2014.

***   31/12/2014, 
11:46am ***

"Brother Oboms!", the voice came again, with the soft tapping.

I grumbled, tossing around painfully in bed. "What is it?"

"Your classmate is here, says he wants to see you", Orlu's voice came.

After grumbling for about five minutes, I rubbed my eyes, pushing myself into a sitting position.

"Who's the person?", I asked, still groggy from sleep.

I'd slept only two hours ago, and my pillow still sagged beneath the weight of my tears.

I resolved to tell everyone it was sweat, coupled with tears from my crying because of the pain.

Even when mom caught me thrice sobbing on my bed, or at night, scribbling lines of dark poetry across my book pages, or composing songs, I'd always told her I couldn't sleep because of the pain.

It wasn't a lie. Technically, I was in severe pain.

Only my heart hurt more than a thousand injuries.

How does one heal from a wound inflicted by one's own master, best friend and lover?

She thought me everything I knew about girls - how to love, not just her, but also myself.

She'd brought out my funny side, allowing me make a few friends, and many acquaintances too.

   She'd thought me to stop smoking, drinking and cutting myself to bits.

She'd cured  my insanity, caged up all my fears and made me a better person.

She was my first everything - first love, first kiss, first ... Everything.

We'd deflowered ourselves on her bed, and since then, we'd both become addicted to the 'sweet stuff', our code word for sex.

We usually got down thrice a week, made out everyday, and made ourselves happy.

My sister's stare broke my reverie, and I waved her off.
"Tell whoever it is to come up to my room in ten minutes."

She nodded, bouncing out my room.

With a sigh, I plopped down back to my bed.

My phone beeped, the auto reader saying I had a new text.

Before it said "...from Tonia", I already knew it was her.

After that day, she'd been calling nonstop, and while I prayed she didn't stop, I made no effort to take her call.

I powered off my phone without reading the text. That way, when I turned it back on, the text body would be cleared from the notification bar.

It hurt me to ignore her, when all I really wanted to do was rush into her arms like nothing had happened.

Like my eyes deceived me, that the recording in my phone was not what it seemed, and she could explain.

Deep down, I wanted to hear her explanation, but immaturity, (I guess, speaking from a much more perspective now though) and angry pride wouldn't let me ask for one.

I shook my head, staring at the white POP ceiling.

It had a head sculpted into it, at the middle of the room. The head looked somewhat like a crossbreed if Jesus and Medusa, with the chandelier pole emerging from its mouth.

It always fascinated me, the fact that Jesus supposedly  died for the whole world, out of love for us.

I frowned. There again, was that stupid fool.
The deceiver, the slanderer, the one behind guilty consciences - love.

I sighed. Philosophical thinking would have to wait. I had a visitor.

I shuffled off the bed to my restroom, and was just towelling when my door opened a crack, and a familiar face popped in.

A face that was etched in my Brain.
A face that had caused me innumerable pain.
The face I was thinking about.
My cheating lover, Tonia.

And the most painful thing was that her smiling face almost drew a smile from mine.

Gosh, I still loved her.

My heart bled anew.

This was too much.