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And within the middle of it all, she was there.
Her dark hair was was tied up loosely; the rest fell freely from her shoulders, unconstrained from stress. She wisped along a gentle trail, unsure of what she was looking for but determined all the same.
She wore a long, loose tank that flowed from her straight shoulders. It was plainly simple, but comfortable, and that’s what mattered the most.
She found him, backed in a corner of space, head down.’ With the view of him right there, she felt an overwhelming sense of anger wash over her; but she grabbed a hold of herself.
I might be feeling crazy, irrational, impractical, but I need to have my voice heard.
She approached him, and for a quick second he was shocked to see her.
The first thing she said was messy, angry, abrupt, but she said what she needed to say and these things are never flawless.“For too long have you stood aside and pretended everything was ok. You said that you tried to fix things, but that wasn’t the case.”
“You can’t expect someone to be so many things at once, and not be completely overwhelmed by it all. Do you even have something to say?
As she looked at him, and the quiet expression on his face, she realized he didn’t. She went on anyway.
“Do you think you’re proud of yourself?” she began, her voice raised.
He looked angry, and was about to say something when she cut him off.
“Don’t you think I had the right to a good life?” she stressed, and he looked down towards the void of the floor, guilty.
She was quiet for a quick second, and he pounced quickly on the opportunity.
“I’m sorry, you know it’s been hard for me too-”
The initial admission of “sorry” had thrown her off, but the excuse he was attempting to weasel in had grown her frustration tenfold.
“Hard? Hard for you ?”
And she laughed. She laughed the downtrodden laugh of a thousand tired tries, tries of breaking out of the horrible cycle. She looked to him, and he realized how tired she looked.
“Do you have the slightest grasp on how exhausting this has been?”
“Of cour-”
“For me?” and she was confronted with his deafened silence.
“How much hurt I’ve been forced to deal with?”
She turned to the cosmos that surrounded her; it was beautiful, in its own way.
“You know, this was something that was completely unasked for on my end.”
“I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true.”
She looked straight at him, razor sharp.
“And no one, I mean no one, deserves this.”
He tried, softly this time, to have a word in, but she deflected him again. But this time her resolve began to weaken, and she felt herself falter.
“Everything I did, I did for you-” he managed to say.
“No, you did it for yourself.”
“Was there really a difference?”
She was about to say something else, when she suddenly stopped herself.
I’ve been going about this all wrong, she thought.
It seems like I’ve been trying to get closure for someone who doesn’t really seem to care.
Sure, he may act and maybe even feel ashamed, but can I take it as the truth?
How many times have I been made to feel guilt? The guilt of what had been allowed to happen, even if the lines were blurred between what was in and out of control. The collective shame of so many other people. Hadn’t she already felt the weight of the world upon her shoulders?
You always went on about how impossible things seemed. But you used it as an excuse to never try anything.
“The cycle was just too difficult to understand-,”
“Then break it.” she finished.
And then she left. No explanation, no withering glare, no closure.
She left to heal.
And that’s what she begun to do.