"Li...?" I have a feeling something is wrong. I can't remember what's happened, but if Li's here it's all going to be okay.
He looks at me and turns away.
That look... as if I were something he'd rather forget. As if I were something unpleasant he'd wiped off the bottom of his shoe. It crumples me, and I sink to my knees as he walks away.
My tears are incessant, pouring down my face in a waterfall, cascading down my cheeks and neck and chest... I feel my heart ripped out for the last time and I cry out after him
"Please! Don't leave me!?" It's almost a question, but not quite. The plea goes unheeded and he slowly disappears.
The gasping half wakes me, and I roll over. Feverish, still upset. I don't bother drying my eyes. The pillow isn't too damp yet, it'll be fine. I snuggle closer to the pillow, pulling my teddy closer...
She grabs my hand and pulls me along. Excited. Party time!
Li is grinning at me. But he isn't coming with. Why?
I turn to him, wanting a hug. Something left over from before makes me need his arms round me.
If you hold me in your arms and saaaay...
But he's too far away. He waves and get's into the car, still smiling. Then drives away.
"Wait!" I call out to him as he turns to reverse out.
Luke looks back at me and I call out again "Wait!" but he's gone.
She giggles at me and turns a corner in the garden. I go to follow her, but... but she's gone. I'm stood all alone. Everyone has left me.
I sigh.
We're sat in a big room, full of comfy comfy seats. It's great - everyone's here. Well, almost everyone. School friends, DemonTV friends, loads of people. All chatting away happily. All happily ignoring me.
It's Ness who pulls me up and away from everyone. We're going somewhere important. Dan comes with.
I don't know where I am. It's like someone's jumbled everything up and the place we are isn't anywhere at all.
I turn to ask Dan, but he's suddenly not there.
I turn back to ask Ness, but - yep - you guessed it - she's gone too.
The cold sweat on my forehead as I look up from my pillow makes me want to snuggle under the covers some more.
I don't want to sleep ever again if this is the only REM I'm going to get.
I roll over again, this time onto my back.
The headache is already throbbing, and there's a slight rattle when I breath.
Joy. Is it time to get up yet?
I spend a majority of the day in bed, then curled up on the sofa with my laptop - reading. Mum fusses around me, but apart from the bad sleep I feel fine.
Okay, standing up seems to be detrimental to me staying completely conscious... and I keep coughing. But all I feel is a little tired. A little emotional too. Boo to you.
MSN is the only thing keeping me entertained eventually. Conversing with Li and Dan... and whoever else pops online really.
Eventually I'm back in bed, curled up talking to my bestest best friend (in broken French at times), discussing nothing really. Okay, so my tired brain isn't in the best of places to start a discussion about life, the universe or anything... and he's only talking on and off really. It's early in the morning. You can't blame us...
But hey.
You know what? Sometimes I just shouldn't open my big fat gob.
For some reason we've been half arguing over nothing for a majority of the conversation. I've blamed my hormones... not sure if I've been believed but hey!
And... then I have to go and bring Luke up don't I?
Questions like "Do you still love him?" come up - and without the aid of his vocal emphasis it comes across as a jealous accusation.
Logic tells me it isn't, so I just respond as honestly as I can.
He thinks I'm thinking about stuff too much...
Then some where along the line, the conversation explodes:
"STOP DWELLING!! OR I SWEAR I WILL GO DOWN THERE AND KICK YOUR ARSE TILL HALLELUJAH"
I'm already crying by this point. Have been since this part of the conversation started actually. It's easy enough for him to tell me to stop dwelling, but it's bloody hard to do. Especially when Luke isn't what I'm dwelling on.
I go for humour. Bit of truth mashed in with my attempt at 'subject change'...
"liar"
... crashes and burns.
I mean, I know he can't come down here. If he could, he'd be here already, and we wouldn't be fighting. So I got the truth bit... but the 'subject change'...?
"ok, maybe i can't... but I will in leicester... I WILL KICK YOU SO HARD YOU WONT WALK FOR DAYS"
nice turn of phrase... I actually giggle through my tears.
"then people WILL think we're having sex"
Please, please, please let that have diffused the situation. I hurt. Lots. I just want a hug and maybe a gentle (if firm) few words to get me through the night.
I miss him like crazy, and I need him right now - because I'm starting to really deal with the shit that I did and went through with Luke. I am! I'm lonely as hell right now though... sometimes family just isn't enough, you know? I need my friends - I need them.
His reply comes as a slap round the face:
"I WILL NOT TALK TO YOU"
ouch... that cut deep. The tears kick up a notch and I can barely breath.
"that just might kill me..."
He doesn't realise how true this is. Or if he does, he must be really mad at me to threaten it.
I don't handle loss all that well, and right now it feels like all I do is loose people. The dreams... the dreams don't help.
He doesn't reply for a moment, and the pain intensifies.
Loosing my best friend... loosing him...
I'm sobbing now. Full on, heart wrenching sobs.
I don't even know why he's so angry at me.
I'm about to beg him to... to what? Something... even if it's only talk to me. I've had him stop talking to me before and I barely managed the pain. Why do we argue so much lately? And why does it almost always turn out to be my fault?
The image of him walking away from me flashes before my closed eyes and I sob into my quilt a little harder.
Finally:
"so... stop dwelling... and accept what happened..."
Ultimatum.
In a way, he's telling me I have to forgive myself. Which I can't. Not yet.
Shit. I'll try if it means he isn't mad at me. I'll do anything to make him not mad at me.
"ok, just please don't leave me"
I've pulled the quilt into a bunch and am still sobbing into it. Trying to muffle the painful noises that keep coming out of my mouth unbidden.
If I weren't so upset to start with his anger would be almost bearable.
I don't do well with his anger when it's directed at me. It hurts. And it hurts that I only ever get it when he's hurting too... hurting because of some dumb shit I've done...
But I can't handle it now. Everything hurts so much right now!
I know he's right. He almost always is. I know he's saying it for my sake, and to help... but how do I stop thinking about the ex when I'm scared of bumping into him?
How am I supposed to not think about it all when I'm freaked out by Luke's girlfriend having any similarities to me... though I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe it's because of what Sarah said before we went to the wet-t-shirt competition:
"He would call one day and be all 'I really miss Lauren', then the next it was 'I really like you', then 'I really miss Lauren' again..."
I don't want him to miss me. The thought scares me in this odd way. Like that there's a possibility there of 'more than friends' happening again. That's the really scary thought.
I can see it now:
Move back to Grantham, get a lousy job while looking for something better. Get back in with the old crew. Get close with Luke again. Same circle starts up...
The idea of being with him in a relationship makes my dinner want to pop up and say hello again. My stomach is queasy just thinking about it now.
To me, he represents being trapped. He, to me, epitomises the term 'stuck in a rut'. I know it's just because of what happened between us... but I can't help that.
I like being his friend... I want to be his friend... but the idea of more is petrifying.
So the thought of him holding out some hope makes me want to run to the hills like you would not believe.
That's why her having the same top as me brought the breakfast back to the top of my oesophagus when I first saw her dancing with him.
It didn't help that I'd forgotten that it was in my wardrobe and I had this horrible image of him giving some new girl my clothes.
Like that bit in simpsons where the woman wakes up and Ned is giving her his dead wife's haircut...
Okay - OTT I know... but that was my gut reaction.
Yeah. I have serious issues there.
But I hate being accused of 'dwelling' on shit. Even though I'm pretty sure this is probably going to get me beaten with a wet fish for doing just that...
Thing is, to me, dwelling is when you can't stop thinking about something. It's when you mope around going "oh, it's all so sad, and horrid, and bad... poor me!" and are basically a pathetic piece of nothingness.
I don't think I've been like that.
Damn - is that what people have been seeing??
See, I don't know what's worse - that that's what people see, or that I might actually be doing it.
I mean, I think about it now and then.
And when I do, it kinda goes along these lines:
"You were a total bitch to him. You know it. You should have been there for him when he needed you and you weren't. You're a crap friend. You don't deserve friends you selfish bitch."
"Oh - cause he was such a fucking angel was he? And I wasn't going through anything at all was I?? He was one of the reasons I had the god damn break downs!! Don't you remember gasping for breath and crying on his living room floor after he tried to suffocate you and wouldn't stop?? Don't you remember huddling under his table and not being able to stop rocking for an hour? God damn! The boy held your hand when you cried for your dead brother - that doesn't mean he was good to you!"
"Now you're being too harsh! He was good when he tried!"
"He didn't try often enough though - did he?"
"And you did?"
"Fuck you."
"You found someone who treated you better and decided you were too good for him!"
"I am too good for him."
"Liar. You'll never be good enough for someone better. Too dirtied and crude - too much of a bitch. You run away if there's a problem anyway - who sticks by someone who wont stick by them? You're just a bitch. Admit it."
"You know what - I'd rather die than continue this pointless argument. I feel like crap now - are you happy?"
"I'm you, idiot. If you feel like crap so do I. Use your fucking brain."
"Ugh - I'm sick of not being able to think! Why can't I do maths anymore? Why can't I write essays??"
"Cause you're a useless piece of crap."
"You know what - if you hate me so much, why don't you just fuck the hell off?"
Yeah... I'm really polite when conversing with myself in my head.
But that is how polarised my views of everything have been.
It's either his fault or mine in my head. I can't seem to compromise yet and go - look, we both messed up. We both had reasons. Move on.
I mean, logically, rationally, reasonably, I know that's the truth. I know that it was just a two way thing that went wrong. I do.
So why does my heart want to blame someone?
That's what I'm dwelling on. Why am I caught up in blaming someone? And why do I want to blame myself so badly?
I agree you shouldn't dwell on stuff, but I need the answer to that question.
I need to know... I can't explain why. It's just one of those things. I feel that if I can work out why I'm wrapped up in this issue of who's fault it is, everything will fall into place and I'll be able to understand what the hell is going on inside my head.
That's what I mean when I tell people I need to dwell to deal with it.
I'm not worried about the issue itself. I'm worried about the ridiculous emotional 'issue' of blame, and why I can't let go of the idea.
I suppose I still judge myself by the worlds view of right and wrong. To me, everything is grey. There is no real right or wrong. But to the world, they're distinct. They're black and white.
So I need to know which I am.
By the worlds standards, am I black, or am I white?
Was I right, or was I wrong?
Li told me that our argument wasn't about right or wrong, it was about "what would be kind on me"
That's fine, I guess... but for the rest of the world, life is about right and wrong. The argument in my head is about it too. It's about trying to decide which is my conscience and which is my ego (super ego and id retrospectively for those pedantic psychology people). I mean, I should be able to work it out. Which are the rules that society enforces on us??
oh... that would be... neither.... helpful! Not.
Society teaches us that you should be there for people, but it also teaches us fairness and equality. It teaches us not to put up with the shit that we're given...
I mean - if I were Christian (I would have lost my mind, but that's not the point) I would believe in turning the other cheek and not hurting others and always being there for them...
But would a Christian stay in a relationship so full of abuse?
No.
I think the thing that gets me, is that voice that feels so guilty about how I acted... it's as if it's close to saying "If you'd been a better person you'd still be with him."
As you can tell, I am more inclined to say "Well, glad I was an asshole then!" when this line of thinking comes up. Until I'm really lonely that is. Then it's the thought that I might be married like my sister by now that gets me. The thought that I might be expecting a little one instead of, or as well as, her now. Those are the bits that get me. Not who, but what.
I think "You were engaged. You had someone to make a life with. Now you have to do it alone." and I go 'but I want a baby.. I want it to be my turn =('
Inpatients is a virtue...
I would get so broody sometimes last year I would ask Libor for a baby.
"It'll take nine months!" he'd say
".... Keep the receipt." I'd reply.
That baby is at least 3 months past due. I bet he never put the order in. If he did, he's lost the receipt.
Anyway, that's enough of me trying to explain away the stupid arguments that my head causes.
It was just an excuse not to go to sleep anyway.
I'll leave you with the song that Li sent me, because it's beautiful and sad. It's my link to the title of this blog.
My idea for it was to emphasise how what you let be free in the palm of your hand stays there, while what you cling onto in a fist escapes.... but have a sweet song instead.
Oh yes! Merry Christmas everyone!!
It's officially Christmas... I'll bet I've scared Santa off this year by typing. My sister says it sounds like a hail storm when I type. Though, the coughing is probably a lot louder!
Yeah, my chest is pretty bad at the minute. Think I may have gotten a chest infection for Christmas!! Yay?
It's fine. I don't feel that bad. The cough is just unexpected all the time. Until I lay down and sound like I'm trying to gargle when I'm just trying to breath...
It feels almost like drowning if I'm honest. Got a bad feeling about this one. Scary images of puncturing lungs to drain fluid... eep!
But hey! I don't feel too ill at the minute, so Christmas will pass in the good faith and energy that I've managed to muster from somewhere.
I'm cooking today with Mum.
By that, I mean her hips bad and I'm going to force her to sit down and let me do a majority of it. If she'll let me. For once.
She let me dissect the heart and lungs of the turkey last night before we boiled them up to make gravy stock. It was SO cool!! I never got to do the heart dissection thing at school. No wonder everyone goes on about it though! So interesting! I'd love to do a photography project on the interior of the heart actually.
Thinking about it, I might get up in a couple hours and put the turkey in for her actually.
Not like I'm going to get much sleep anyway. And even if I do, the nightmares will keep me waking up at nice regular intervals.
Gotta love having a high temperature sometimes. Next it'll be hallucinations! Yay!!
Anyway, Seasonal greetings and merryment to you!
May all your Christmas's be bright (if not white) ^_^
Blessed Be xx
No comments:
Post a Comment