It feels like I’m close to meeting insanity.

As a child, you’re filled with so much wonder. You dream big. You dream of a future where you’re on top of the world, where life is just as you imagined. Where you’re surrounded by only the things you want. You dream because you have the leisure, the freedom. The naivety.

And then reality slowly catches up. This isn’t how I thought things would be, you think. Your dreams still aren’t that farfetched. You think you just need more time, that you just need to work harder. So you believe and you believe and you believe.

But you can only believe so much.

Life eventually wears you down. You start growing restless, bitter, hopeless. You hold a grudge against the universe for bringing you into this world, for choosing you out of the many other possibilities. Why do I have to do this, you think. I didn’t even ask to be here, you think. But the damage has already been done. You have to keep living.

I have to keep living. I have to get by somehow. Time won’t stop for me. I guess it’s the only thing about life that’s fair. Time stops for no one.

Even while I ball myself up in the corner of my bed, I have to keep living. But I need a break. God, I need a break. Let my body rest. Let my mind grieve. Lethargy may be an enemy of the mind, but that’s all I need right now. I need rest.

My forehead has been glued to my knees for hours now; I haven’t moved from this position since. I suspect that it will be another while before I do. But before then, I remain this way, completely still, with a mind and a body and a soul that has been worn down by life.

There’s nowhere to go except up.

I have no clue which direction that is now. But I suppose it doesn’t matter. Nothing I do matters.

So let life decide my fate. If it’s a lifelong sentence, then so be it. At least I tried. I dreamed for a little while, and it was fun while it lasted.

Once again, I have to find the strength to leave my own home. I don’t think I have any more energy left in me to complete the school year, especially now that there’s an extra semester on my plate. But I’ll find the strength. I have no idea where, but I will.

The first lecture of the day is astronomy, which is really just a filler class to fulfil my credit hours. Professor Blanco always makes it a point to let us know that he’s aware of which of us are in his class for an easy grade. I’m one of them, of course. But I should reinstate that I have an avid interest in the universe. Especially since it keeps fucking me over.

Today, he’s preaching on about black holes and their inevitable destruction. Apparently, they can be perfectly invisible, and one can never tell when they’ve been lured in, deceived, only to fall into perpetual darkness. Such is the beauty of the universe, I suppose. Even a flower comes with thorns.

As time flows, my attention shrinks. I catch specks of Professor Blanco’s lesson from time to time. But I’m drifting. I’m here but not really.

“Much like the total eclipse . . .”

The lecture is shaping up to be quite disorderly, scrambled. I can’t get my mind to steady itself.

“. . . when the moon overtakes the sun, clogging every bit of its luminosity, and the world grows dark.”

But how can I calm my mind? When all I can think about is Daniel, his hands gripping my throat, slamming me up against the dumpster. I’ve never been faced with such violence. Being so vulnerable, at the complete mercy of another human being.

I was convinced the incident was behind me. Perhaps I lied to myself.

Class ends on an empty note; my attention span still hasn’t restored itself. It will probably be that way for another while.

There’s nothing important on my phone, but I find myself scrolling through regardless. I need a form of distraction. I need something, anything. I need—

I spot it, her name. Jenny. Her phone number is still here in my contact list. I must have forgotten to get rid of it.

At times like this, she was who I went to, the comfort I sought. She was good at drying my tears, although temporarily. She was there by my side.

But the time has passed, the days are gone, and the bond is broken. I press down on her name, and with one last tap, I erase her contact from the list.

Time allows me a quick stop by the Jove Diner. Another cup of sugar. I need all the energy I can gather. So I get myself another Oreo milkshake, without the help of Colt Bradshaw.

But unsurprisingly enough, he’s here at the diner. I’ve come to realize that he hangs around the place quite often. Most students do, I guess. But I can always count on finding him here.

“Are the hours treating you any better?” he asks. 

I shrug, feeling slightly at ease from the milkshake. “More or less.”

I’m trying to be as vague as possible, to come off as lax as possible. But it really does still bother me. “What happened to Daniel?”

Colt pauses. Then he picks up his smoothie and takes a sip. “He got expelled.”

When did that happen? It’s only been three days since that night.

“Turns out he was pumping himself full with cocaine.” Colt shrugs. “He got kicked off the team. Haven’t seen him since then.”

It all makes sense now. "A yellow pouch. He said I stole it from him. That must have been his stash."

How frightening, that a drug could make one lose their senses that way.

“You can relax,” Colt tells me, still sipping. “You won’t be seeing him again.”

Right. That’s the last of Daniel, isn’t it? He’s out of my life for good now. Gone. Forever.

It’ll be fine. I promise.

I take a deep breath in. Then I let it go. That’s one less thing to worry about.

Our time ends once again with a message from Colt’s phone. Must be more football drama. Homecoming is in ten days.

And once again, Colt is adamant about leaving. Before he does, however, he leaves his phone number behind with me. In case I need anything.

“I’ll see you later.” he takes his leave.

One less thing to worry about.

___

It takes the human mind as little as an hour to forget any acquired information. For some it can take weeks, and others months. Of course, it varies depending on the significance of said information, of said memory. And so for others, it can take them their entire lives.

I can’t forget.

I can still feel it, Daniel’s grip, firm around my throat. I can feel my chest grow tighter, my head grow lighter. I can still hear him screaming, bellowing, demanding from me what he thought I stole. And the taste of death. I can still recall it quite vividly.

How do I make it go away?

My apartment feels strange. It feels somewhat bigger, which is ridiculous because it’s never been over four hundred square feet. But I know it only feels that way because of me. It feels like I’m shrinking.

Loneliness can make you feel a lot of things. Right now, it feels like I’ve grown to be the size of a bug. Maybe that way, it would be easier for life to squash me flat. After all, there’s no one here to intervene.

No one here.

I don’t know how I come up with the idea. I’m not even sure where it came from. But I grab my keys and exit the apartment, and soon I’m in my car, driving towards the same problem that started it all.

I haven’t been back home in a while. That’s the beauty of owning your own place. You get to build your own refuge so you forget about the hellhole you spawned from. But now I’m here again, in front of the beaten down apartment complex, still trying to find where I got this silly idea from.

My mother isn’t home. She must be out drinking. It’s how she used to spend her evenings when I was still here. And I remember where she used to store the house key in case she came back drunk, which was far more often than not.

Under the muddy welcome mat. The place is dark, eerily quiet, with the exception of the fridge’s hum. She makes such a stink about my place being so messy, but she’s just as terrible. I make a stop by my old room, expecting for it to be filled with my mother’s things.

But it’s blank. Completely empty.

She couldn’t even be bothered to fill my absence.

It takes an extra hour before I hear the door open. Nine P.M is a rather early time for her to be home. But she’s here, still as frail as ever, as bitter looking as ever. She doesn’t say a thing when she sees me, not even a look of surprise.

What was my purpose for this trip in the first place? I watch her move to the kitchen, filling a pot with water and placing it on the stove. I should say something, but what do I want to say?

“Mama—”

“When are you leaving?”

Right. This is my mother. My same old mother. She has not changed. She never will.

“Now.” I grab my keys. “I'm leaving now.”

I make it back for my car and slam the door shut with all the might I have left. I drove two hours only to be turned away in seconds. I could find some humor in this if I tried, but I’m not in the mood for that. I’m not in the mood for anything.

The drive back to my apartment is tedious. It’s silent and bleak and dingy. The roads are mostly empty now. I take the liberty of speeding up so the ride is shrunken down to a minimum. But of course, the universe won’t allow me have this. My car begins sputtering, the speed declining steadily, until it completely loses its momentum.

No, no, no, no!

I’m forced to pull off to the side of the road. The car’s completely dead now, no matter how many times I try bringing it back to life.

This is just perfect, isn’t it?

Just one failure after the other. One pothole after the next. I slam my head against the steering wheel repeatedly, never minding the pain. In fact, the pain is what I’m after.

Why must everything always go south?

Then I get a brand new idea. Perhaps as foolish as driving two hours to my mother’s home, but what more is there to lose?

I pull Colt’s number out and begin dialing his cell. It only takes a couple seconds before it connects.

“Hello?”

“Hey . . .”

There’s a series of silence. And then, “Dalia?”

“Yes, it is. And um . . .” I hesitate. “My car broke down and . . . I didn’t have anyone else to call.”

“Where are you?”

There’s a sign a couple feet away. “I-5, Avery Parkway. On the side of the road."

“Stay put. I’ll be there in a minute.” he ends the call.

Suffice to say, Colt’s exaggeration wasn’t totally out of the case. It wasn’t exactly a minute, but it took him far less time to meet me where I am. How fast was he going?

“Are you okay?” He asks, his face in a boatload of worry. He grabs my cheeks and begins examining my face, trying to find some issue or the other. “What happened? Why are you here? Did something happen?"

He keeps hammering me with questions I don’t answer, because my mind is somewhere else.

How come he’s always there when I need him?

I grab his face and pull him down towards my lips. Then I kiss him firmly. His lips are just as warm as his hands, just as warm as the smile he gives me. And they’re sweet, just like the promises he makes.

I let Colt go after a few seconds, and I can see him still trying to recollect himself. It makes me smile. “I love you.”

Colt looks at me, his face frozen. “What?”

“I said I love you.”

I don’t receive any response after that. He seems to be having a hard time grasping reality. He just stares at me blankly, then purses his lips as if thinking. He takes a deep, lengthy breath in and releases it slowly, still not quite assimilated with this revelation.

Finally, he squats down, running his hands through his hair. “You mean that?”

“Yes.”

“Say it again.”

And I do, with a smile far brighter. “I love you.”

That’s when it finally clicks for Colt. He’s accepted reality for what it is. The hug he gives me is delicate, his hand around my waist and the other in my hair. And the kiss he gives me is far more intimate than the one I gave him. It’s deep, lingering, conveying all the things he’s been wanting to tell me. But for some reason or the other I shut him out.

Now I’m listening. I’m giving him the opportunity to share it all with me. And he has a lot to say. God, he has a lot to say.

But I give him all my time. I give it to him free of charge.

And the world grows dark.