Heliophilia; d.m

XXIV

How long do you need to look at a person to absorb all the features of their face?
How long does it take to listen to a person to remember their voice for a lifetime?
How long does it take to hold a person for their smell to turn into your smell?
How long do you need to spend time with a person in order not to miss them for the rest of your life?

An eternity won't be enough.

—

VIOLET

Sometimes it happens that even the most powerful hurricane of emotions, the most vivid outburst of feelings, is better to eliminate before it consumes you completely, and you will have nothing left but to suffocate, and never be able to take a breath again.

I kept it in my head for many days, and I repeated it in my head a million times the day I saw him again.

He was just as I had seen him a few months ago — pale, haggard, with a dull look in his eyes, and a sharp, clenched jaw. Just like the day I told him to leave — out of my room, and out of my heart.

He was sitting on the couch, next to his mother, twirling a glass in his hands, and when his eyes met mine, for a second, just for one second, I saw the look that was always meant only for me — tender, admiring, loving.

But then — nothing. The blankness and indifference in his grey eyes, which he lowered because he didn't want to look at me. My heart was bleeding, but I kept telling myself that it was better, that it was the right thing to do, and I tried my best to put out the fire that was raging in my veins at the sight of him.

Attachment is a dangerous thing — one moment you are floating in the clouds, filled with light and warmth, and the next moment you are falling upside down, breaking into a million pieces on the ground — and nothing else but darkness reaches your eyes.

Not me, but the pieces, a million pieces of me, sat down on the chair opposite Draco's couch and looked at him expectantly as I was told that he had something to say to me.

"Well, Kristen said she was going to visit you... at your house." His voice sounded deeper than usual, but it was probably because I almost forgot that sound, "She said she also wants to give you a gift for your upcoming birthday."

Kristen would not let up, despite the fact that I ignored her letters, did not explain the reasons for such a disappearance, she still wanted to see me again and give me a gift for my upcoming birthday, which, in fact, was not approaching.

She was my best friend, my first and only friend, and she deserved an explanation from me. I should have told her the whole story and then let her go, just like the others.

I was determined to do this, to meet with her, perhaps for the last time, and after voicing my decision, I was surprised to hear,

"Do you want me to go with you?" Draco asked without looking up, and my heart, which screamed yes, and my mind, which whispered no, began to struggle.

And in the end, my mind was stronger, and muttering a barely audible "no", I hurried away from there, so as not to poke that hole inside me any more.

—

When I found myself in the middle of an empty living room, I realized how much I missed it. Even though I didn't like the house I had lived in all my life, it gave me a pleasant feeling, after months, that hurt me a little.

I was wondering if someone was home and in response to my question, I heard a noise from the kitchen. My feet carried me there, and my heart began to beat wildly in anticipation of meeting those whom I had cut out of my life.