Open Heart: Second Year {On Halt}

Chapter 35- Come Strike me Thunder

Lighting cracked in the sky, a long silver streak spanning miles and miles which cleaved the blackened clouds with seething illumination. A second later, the sound of thunder followed—a rolling boom which echoed across Boston and made me flinch. Two more streaks succeeded, joined by the barrage which forced to me stick closer to apartments rather than running in open.

I was running , holding everything with me compact as my feet dashed upon still-desiccated pavements. There was not a single soul in vicinity of Allston. It has always been a quiet neighbourhood but now it simply was deserted with apartments and concrete structures hiding eyes of people who took refuse inside. The only thing which watched me was the storm above, from its ruthless violent vortex. It was so, so dark with low ominous black hanging every corner which rendered visibility to be solely dependent on streetlights. I didn't know where I was going but I just wanted to go away. Any direction. Anywhere my feet led me to. Anywhere away from here.

It was adrenaline which ran in your veins during fight or flight but I have no support from it right now. That wasn't what coursing through my blood, rushing and guzzling near my ear and filling my head with pools of gaunt distraught. The alcohol was still in my system and it clouded me vision now and then, launching an irritating buzz. Maybe I wasn't even running. Maybe I was just jaunting incoherently on same place because few lapses in my head happened—blurring the world and forced me to stop and shake my head to clear it out.

My body clattered like my lips with emendable movements, one trying to run past everything and the other trying to speak those words of disbelief. I couldn't process or think or imagine or know or acknowledge that such havoc had just wrecked in my life—in one single freaking day. In one single freaking day, I lost my balance, I lost my control and I felt like I was losing myself as well just like these rustling dead leaves which stood absolutely nothing against the wind.

Focus. Focus. Get out of here.

The wind. The wind was powerful. Really forceful. Slamming me in all directions and billowing my hair as if it was trying to uproot it as uprooting a tree from earth. It tried to uproot my strength I was trying to save as well.

I halted again when my consciousness lulled dim. Taking a few enduring pints of storm-dusty air, I grabbed the strap of my bag and peeked over my shoulders to see if I was being followed or not. If Bryce was following me or not.

There wasn't anybody behind me. Or in front. Or beside. Or anyside.

It was just me with a cracked heart and cracked mind and cracked friendship, searching for some tread to keep them all together before they broke apart. Or maybe they have broken already. Goddamn it.

I have been broken once. Ten years ago. Broken so bad that I wasn't able to walk. And this one? I don't know if it was anywhere close to that level but it certainly feel as a different kind of being broken. Being broken from that trust, that faith, that truth, that bond, that promise—that freaking friendship from someone who knew a tiny bit about how you were and consented to keep it that way. Someone who loved you as friend and supported...till very end...I-I, no, that wasn't supposed to happen today, was it? How did it ever come to that?

Everything was freaking not right and I was trying to make it fine but in the end, I made it worse. How it did even happened? Who made it happen? Why...why me?

Wind howled near my ear, spitting debris from road to my face. The trees—they danced together with fright, leaves whispering panicky songs against the gale. Their low rasping was nothing compared to the predatory growl of this zephyr which suppressed every noise in the city, crying and baying over them all.

Get out. Keep going.

I was fairly outskirts of Allston when rain finally announced its entrance with a vociferous clap of thunder and three consecutive violet-coloured lightnings which tore the sky as steel cuts through flesh. I covered my ears at reverting thunderous booms which felt as if the world was being turned upside down. Panning close to whatever building I could find, I wobbly navigated my way in this weather. There wasn't a damn shop in this area—how the heck was that even possible?! Where the heck was I even going in first place?