Fortitude

34-Finalize

Taji

I stared at the ceiling nearly all night. When I wasn't, I was tossing and turning in bed. I was envious of how soundly Mark was sleeping, his snores filling the unoccupied part of my thoughts. The insomnia was partly due to my negligence in getting more mood stabilizers. I still didn't understand why I still had these issues after going for therapy thrice though. I literally locked my phone in Mark's bedside table. You see, when your brain is a bit more overactive than other people's, you end up doing a lot of idiotic things subconsciously. I didn't want to end up flirting inappropriately with Anita after she texted me when we stopped earlier on. So I gave my phone to Raz.

The other cause of my sleeplessness was the fact that she stumbled upon one of Anita's suggestive texts. Something inside me was screaming how stupid I was for not blocking her from the beginning. But I never thought it'd ever get out of hand. In my defence, I don't really entertain a lot of female attention, so I didn't know how to deal with it.

At around 5 am I decided to get out of bed and take a walk on the beach. I put on some beach shorts and a light blue T-shirt. It wasn't necessarily warm but I liked the cold. I always did. It's always warmer than the coldness I'd feel on the inside from time to time.

I took off my sandals when I got to the water so that I'd feel the water crashing against my skin. I didn't want to go too far into it. One, it was still kinda dark. Two, I might look buoyant but I'm not, at all. I stood there for a while as the wind brushed across my face, thinking about everything and nothing at the same time. I was snapped out of my trance by some seaweed brushing over my foot. For a minute I was afraid that it was some weird sea creature out hunting for people roaming the beach alone.

I was on my way back to sit on the sand when I spotted someone else on the beach. The purple bun illuminated from the hotel's lights notified me who she was. So I walked up to her. She must have been really deep in her thoughts as she didn't notice me approaching her. She'd folded her legs up with her arms round her knees as she stared out into the navy blue horizon.

"Do you ever sleep?" I asked as I sat next to her, startling her back to earth.

"Good morning to you too," she said with a half smile then turned her face back to the ocean. We sat in silence for quite a while before I spoke.

"What are you doing here so early?" I asked, my eyes still on the ocean.

"What are you doing here so early?" She countered.

"I asked first," I said turning to face her. She let out a sigh then replied.

"There's something seriously wrong with me."

"How so?"

"I always want everything to be perfect so I'm always trying to make sure it is. But it's frustrating when I just can't. All the bumps keep reminding me that no one actually likes me as much as they say they do," she said lowering her voice towards the end.

"If this is about Anita, I assure you, you have absolutely nothing to worry about." I said in the most sincere tone I could muster. There really wasn't anything for her to worry about but I understood where she was coming from.

"Why would she text you that then?" She asked as she turned to face me, a distressed expression on her face. My heart broke a little seeing her like that because of me. I made sure I explained everything clearly to kill every ounce of doubt creeping into her mind. I gently pulled one of her arms towards me as I readjusted my whole body to face her. I took her freezing hand in both of mine then looked straight into her eyes.