On The Brightest Days
I don’t know what is worse, finding something out and being disappointed or finding out just to be unfazed because you already expected it. Sitting against the wall pressed to my bed, I wondered why I woke up that morning, why I had to go to sleep just to wake up again every day. I sat up, took a faint look through the curtain beside me and began to laugh at the world’s cynical ways of always having the brightest days when I’m at my lowest and darkest ones. The sun hurt my eyes so I shut it before really getting a grasp of any image. I heard a knock on the door, I wanted to answer but I got a bit too trapped in my head to even utter something back. My mother opened without a second knock. “God, why is it so dark in here?” she said in a tone of disgust and proceeded to walk past the pile of dirty clothes on the floor to open the window before I could even get a word out of myself. The sun landed on the white sheets at the edge of my bed illuminating each and every corner of my room, I hated having white sheets. In fact I hated my whole room for being white, the walls, the floor, the closet doors, the furniture and the bedding. It felt as if this room was designed for a mental hospital. I remained with the same blank expression I had when she came in, even though I wanted to yell at her for opening the window without a single hint of consent. She blabbered on about things I slowly shut out by getting lost in thought again. I thought about how I needed that day to be as quite and painless as it could, unlike the days before, but his return made it out to be everything but. On that day I would get out of bed, listen to his begs and doubt his every word, only to fall for him as I did many times before.
Getting out of bed felt like the hardest task I had ever put up with. Making my way down the empty hall, passing the several irritatingly cliché family pictures, I got to the bathroom and went through the usual morning routine. It always soothed me, made me feel that I was doing at least one thing right every day. This time I was interrupted with a subtle knock while I was washing my face, that startled me nonetheless getting soap in my eyes. “Amanda” my mother said as I washed my eyes thoroughly trying to reduce the pain, “he’s here” she continued with caution. I knew who she was talking about by the tone in her voice yet my disbelief lead me to ask “Who?”. “Alex” she replied, leaving me in awe; I hadn’t heard that name in a long time, yet the ache in my heart remembered it all too well. I dried my face with the towel that hung next to the mirror and looked at myself analyzing how I could feel so overwhelmed yet look so emotionless. I walked down the hall again and as I opened the front door everything crumbled inside me and from that point on all I can say is that every second felt like an hour.
He returned, he returned like an assassin going back to the scene of his crime, begging me to fall back into his unsteady arms. I listened while he proclaimed his love for me yet another time. I remember how he was wearing a white long sleeved shirt with a pair of jeans and light blue sneakers, his hair was dangling in perfect locks a bit longer than the last time I saw him and his hands were tucked in his pockets; he looked like an embodiment of the word innocence and that bothered more than anything. “Please sit with me and hear me out” he said while leading me to the stairs that laid below. He noticed my hesitation and made his movements slower to match my pace, locking his eyes with mine before beginning his rehearsed speech. His eyes began to get cloudy and in a matter of seconds, tears were running down his cheeks and in that moment he got my complete attention and compassion once more.
He made me doubt his every word. His eyes became cowards as he confessed the pain and regret he felt for leaving. I wondered why his voice was as sweet as honey yet it felt like knives through my wrists. “Was I falling for him again or had I never left the abyss he put me in? Am I dreaming?” I thought. Every single question was subconsciously leading me to believe him, but I did not know what to fear more, losing the boy I loved or losing myself to him once more. A drop of water landed on my cheek, making me wonder if I had started to cry too, but as I looked up at the sky I realized it turned grey in a matter of seconds and it was beginning to rain. “Is the universe really acknowledging me this time?” I thought letting out a chuckle. He brushed the drop with his finger and lead me to the balcony in which we sat many times before. We sat awkwardly on the small blue couch that laid in the center. I always sat on the right side and laid my legs on top of his, but this time I sat facing forward with my arms crossed. The nostalgia I felt from those memories made me too uneasy with the current positions. I acted tough, but deep down inside I knew I had already succumbed to his every word. He ended everything with a question, just how they taught us to do when writing a persuasive essay in English class. “Can you forgive me?”
This story has no happy ending and not a single thing was unpredictable; I was blind to his lies and an addict to the pain he caused me. There was not even a bit of hope left within me as I returned to his embrace, just the masochism of a girl who had no self respect. After two months he left again, that time for good, saying he just wasn’t ready. I remember looking out my window that day, the sky was cloudless and it was one of the brightest days I had ever seen. I closed the curtain and vowed to never give anyone the power to hurt me like that again.