The Way This Feels

Chapter 2: Blank Pages

And then I wake up. For a second I am at peace, I stretch, roll over, and yawn. Ah how nice it is to sleep in late on the first real day of summer. I don't remember very much of getting home after the party. Just something about blinding darkness, and then just now, waking up in bed. Everything's good, fine, perfect. My dreams were a little odd, and I feel a little sweaty in what  might be the clothes I was wearing to the party last night. I must have been tired. Sunlight is streaming in my window, and glinting off of an ugly little ceramic pot I made in Ceramics class last semester with... 

Echo.

The events of the evening come rushing back to me, complete with my long walk alone in the total darkness, the metaphorical period that finished off a very real nightmare of a sentence. But no. No. None of that makes any sense. None of it could have happened, because Echo would never reject me. He's my friend, my best friend, best friends don't just leave you standing there... 

His headlights wash over me again, and I wince painfully. But no! No, it had to be a dream, or a misunderstanding. I rack my brains for everything he said to me after the... the event, but all I can come up with is his stuttering attempt to escape. I wince again, how harsh to be left standing alone on the dark sidewalk like that. How merciless to be made to walk home alone after such a fierce rejection. No, he couldn't have known I was going home right then. I'm in the wrong here, obviously. I must be. It wasn't his fault.

But I'm not at ease. I go outside and sit on the patio to smoke, and as I'm gazing out at the vast abyss of cornfields, I feel a deep dread rising up inside me, a heavy sensation that makes my body feel as if it's shrinking; loneliness, isolation. Would Echo have texted me by now on a normal day? I glance at my phone, empty of all texts. Wouldn't he have said good morning, asked me if I needed a ride to school? But of course, it's summer, we haven't fallen into a communication routine yet. I feel somewhat achey, my skin stingy and sensitive like I've been dragged over rough gravel, or hot cement. I breathe in shakily, and exhale a long sigh. This is that thing, that thing I always hate about summer. How lonely it is, long stretches of time go by when you never once use your voice, the swimming feeling in your mind that maybe you are the last person on earth...

I close my eyes. I need to pull it together, it's only the first day, I could have no way of knowing what the next three months will bring, I need to have a positive outlook. But positive outlooks are hard to come by when there's only three cigarettes left in my pack. Two, if I cave and smoke a second one right now. And I'm feeling so... so off!  I think I deserve another cigarette, right? But no, what could I possible deserve after kiss...no!! That's not real. That's not something I would do... I give in and smoke the second one, trying to numb the constant buzz in my own head, when suddenly my phone vibrates.

Echo: -one image-

The notification startles me, and my thumb jerks in response, inadvertently opening the text so much too soon, our messages are glaring right in my face. And it's a meme. I blink. A meme. Not a hello, or a "did you make it home ok last night?" Or a joke about how I'm surely hungover, or even an apology, not that I think he owes me one. Nothing. A meme. It's not even somehow relevant to me or him. It's just random, something about cats with laser eyes. I can't help but feel disgusted, I mean, with the way things ended last night, a meme seems completely inappropriate. Of course, this could be his attempt at breaking the tension... But all it really does is make my insides coil with even more tension.

Maybe I should respond. A simple "lol" would suffice, let him know I'm not harboring any hard feelings. Or maybe I should try to formulate some kind of apology... My fingers jerk indecisively over the keyboard but never touch the screen. There's a twisting sensation in the pit of my stomach, it constricts painfully, I can't write him back. Not even to say sorry for what I did... but what am I supposed to say, "hey, sorry for having feelings for you." I can't help that! Maybe if he'd said, "we need to talk," even, as much as that would've killed me, at least he'd be validating that something happened between us at all that needs discussed. But also, I severly don't want to be angry with him. I cannot live without him, I would have no purpose, my life might as well be made up of blank white pages. So I should just write back, hold up my end of the conversation, let him know that I am nothing but forgiving, that I will always support him first, and I will always be here for him when he needs me. I could easily pretend none of it happened, in fact, I am more than happy to accept that none of it happened, as long as it means I can keep him.