R | Writing | Short Stories | The Real Dream

Something seemed wrong. The feeling welled up in my gut and spread through my arms, and then my legs. It created an involuntary lump in my throat as I strolled down the street.

Yeah... Everything was always calm on the outside. Especially with me. But then again, eyes are the windows to the soul but no one really bothered to look into them. Save for him.

Idly, I wondered where he was. I was used to this now; the constant worrying of if he was still alive and out of trouble, still unexplicably mine. Just as I was his. It made my heart flutter to think about him, despite the things I'd done against him, because I knew he forgave me for all of it. Yeah, we'd been having relationship problems lately but on the inside there was a feeling that everything would be alright.

I rounded the next corner, heading towards the grassy knoll that seemed to be the only safe place for me to think around here. I hated small places, especially towns with nothing to do. I wanted to go see him, but he was so far away so instead this place would have to do.

A cold wind blew, quite unusual for the summer. I tensed, held down my skirt, and pushed back my hair a little to keep it out of my face. A leaf blew against my arm, I shrugged it off and kept walking.

He was there... And there was someone else with him.

Not jealousy, nor anger or saddness. I cannot truly describe the emotion I felt. It was like despair and akin to betrayal. My muscles tightened and my jaw locked in a fierce clench. My fists were balled, the skin threatening to break. In fact, I was probably already bleeding. I didn't take any notice; all mm attention was unwillingly focused on what was before me. I didn't want to keep looking, I wanted to disappear...

He was holding her like he always held me. His lips caressed hers just like they'd always caressed mine. His hands, his warm flesh...touching her in that way that I'd always held dear when he touched me like that. Her brows were furrowed a little, her toes tensing and untensing in her euphoria.

A euphoria that used to be mine alone.

One of his hands were tangled in her hair. Not gripping, but cradling her head. I knew what that felt like because he'd done it to me so many times. I knew the shivers that must be inching down her back, I knew the way he pressed against her and the way she hurriedly touched him. I knew everything.

It didn't belong to her.

I recalled the dreams I'd had earlier.

I'd been walking the halls in school and then turned the corner to see him kissing a girl the way he would always kiss me. I froze, he saw me, and I bolted. I ran out of the school into the intersection connecting to Sundevil Drive. As I crossed, he called my name and I instinctively stopped and turned back to look at him. A car came at me. And then I woke up.

But there was no waking up from this. It was here and it was real. As were my feelings, lying in broken pieces at my feet. The feverent way in which it was all happening horrified me, tore me to bits and still the carnage didn't stop there. A thousand deaths wouldn't have eased the pain. Not even a million, or a trillion. I only had one life I wanted to take and it wasn't mine. I wanted to kill this girl, hear her scream and moan and beg to have me stop killing her. I wanted to taste her blood as it drizzled out of her body from every orifice. I wanted her to squirm like she was now, only it would be for me.

This bitch would pay.

But then, as quick as it had all happened, the anger subsided and I was left with an uncomfortably empty feeling. Nothing...

Miles and miles of nothing inside me. And that Nothing was where he used to be inside my heart.

I felt abandoned, alone, betrayed. In fact, I had been betrayed...but I had also betrayed him. No matter what I paid for those sins - sanity, happiness, blood, purity - those sins were always there. But did that mean that I had no right to be feeling what I felt?

The snob in me began to talk. "She" began talking. I had every right to feel what I felt because what was affront me was real. If I wanted I could reach out, touch it, and it still would not vanish. I could run into an intersection right then and get hit by a car to end the pain. But I didn't. I didn't do anything but take the advice my ex-boyfriend, Christian, had given me months ago.

"Someday, you should just start walking and never stop. Never look back."

And I never looked back.