Thousand Paper Cuts

Sixteen : half-deserted streets

Skye :

And so just like every heart finds peace somewhere else rather than within, she found her whole warm homeland in his heart.

It was 1998, and the February was fading away slowly like a child's wish. The weather today in New York was pretty sunny, promising beautiful warm afternoons of cold winter. Skye and Mia were busy selling fresh flowers, and their pastille like scent was better than any other. While Skye was watering lilies, her phone rang.

"Hey" she said, "Adam, how are you?"
His reply came after a long second, and she spoke,
"Okay, I'll be there within few minutes. I ......I also need to tell you something."
She ended the call and turned to Mia,
"He's calling me at his apartment right now. I'll be back within an hour."
Mia sighed and replied,
"Tell him everything today. Okay?"
A lump formed in her throat, and she closed her eyes, saying,
"Okay, I'll tell him I'm no longer in love with him, or maybe I never was. I'll tell him I've just met Mark few weeks back, but I love him more than any summer sky. I'll tell him this, and break his heart into pieces."
Mia looked through the window. The cool breeze blew, carrying scent of daffodils, as she spoke,
"Skye, it's the right thing to do, even if it'll hurt him. Not knowing all this will be so unfair."
"Okay", Skye said, "okay. Afterall, my best friend says that hearts are meant to be broken", she mimicked Mia's voice and smiled, as if it was all so damn easy.

When she reached his apartment on her yellow bicycle (she didn't know how to drive, hah lucky Blue Citrus), the door was partially opened.
She found Adam lying on the couch, his eyes staring wide at the ceiling.
When she forged closer, she saw tears falling on his red cheeks.
"Adam!!", she almost shouted, "what happened?"
He wiped his tears, stood up, and hugged her tightly, kissing her on the lips. He held her so tight that she couldn't breathe.
Few weeks ago, she would have hugged him back too. She would have kissed him the moment he would stop. She remembered the first time they'd met :

Christmas eve of 1994. Outside it was so cold, but inside of his house was warm enough. He had thrown a big party, and right after it started to snow, he sang a beautiful song. In his dark blue-black coat he got from his grandma. Skye had known him just as a school fellow, and so she didn't refrain from going to the party.  She remembered how it all started. Skye wasn't wearing any coat at the moment, and she was shivering. She was looking out at the deep deep snow. Someone had put a shawl around her, and when she turned around, it was Adam. "It's cold, girl", was the first thing he had said. Moments and moments later, she would always catch him seeing her. That was when she started to wonder, and with her little mug in her warm hands, she had walked over to him at the end of her last drink, and had asked, "why are you staring at me?", and he'd said, "because I like you." That was it. Both of them ran outside with other friends in the snow, and they stuck out their tongues at snowflakes. And that was when he'd kissed her. In front of all. She remembered touching his warm face, and later that night, his warm body under his sweatshirt. It felt magical. All of it. Until.........

Until now. Because the way Mark felt, nobody else ever could. She could even feel him without the actual touch.
"I'm wretched, Skye. Everything's a mess", Adam said, his voice too small.
Remembering all the times they'd spent together, she wiped his tears and gestured towards the warm couch.
They both sat facing eachother, and Adam explained :
"I know it's not a big deal for you....but.....(sobbing).....my whole world is drowning. Basically....", he cried a little, "our greatest tour in the history just got cancelled due to company's prevailing loss, and then..we all had a huge fight about it....I told everyone it's gonna be okay, but Ben was losing it all. He said we could do tour on our own, which is not possible. So...we had this big fight and he.....he just left few minutes ago. Others are after him to calm him down. I was so sad that I didn't go after him. Skye, Ben is an important member, and we can't bear to lose him..we'll fall off our career, and you know how much music is my passion. It's what I was born for. The music and the lyrics define my life."
She wiped his tears again with the back of her hand, and said,
"It's gonna be fine. Ben is such a nice guy, but right now he's little ferocious. He'll be fine. And about the tour? I believe your band will pull this off. Everything has ups and downs, like the waves of ocean."
He forced his best smile, and she thought how perfectly pretty he was, like the Autumn tree. But not like Mark. Never like Mark. If Adam was beautiful like an Autumn tree, then Mark was himself Autumn; so beautiful, and making everything beautiful even if broken.