January 17th

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You watch her walk away

and it hits you that she is an entire ocean.

And you were very wrong,

so very wrong,

because you let her go thinking she was just a girl.

- Nikita Gill


January 17th:

At the age of fifteen, Elias believed he was going to die. To seize to exist, people will forever write poetically about it, trying to inundate its darkness in the art of words. But it is really giving up forever. Not trying anymore because you have nothing to give and no room to receive. Hearing everyone talk about how beautiful the world is in color while all you see is plagued grey.

At the age of fifteen, Elias lost his voice to the demons inside his mind. Losing that shred of identity he once kept close, his mother once defined him as an imaginative kid, would then describe him as glum. Lifeless, his brown eyes sparked with no curiosity, his skin tainted with her touch, her scar.

    At the age of fifteen, Elias lost everything. But at the age of seventeen, he took a piece of it back. With help from a girl whose beauty requires a second glance, who passes through crowds on the street unnoticed, until she wreaks havoc. When his quiet chaos met her raging storm, they created their own sense of living. Frowned at by others, two pairs who would have never met otherwise.

    They were their own perfect, but complete perfection is never attainable, and happiness will eventually fade.

    He moves into the New York apartment, with a chip on his shoulder, alone. His roommate Shiloh, waiting for him behind the dented white door as he twists the key, stepping into his flat. Feeling the rush of warm air from the breaking radiator and the smile that falls on his lips, actualizing he made it, he survived.


    "Hey man, I'm going to the club. You wanna come? Figured we could pick up some girls if we tell them we're famous writers," Shiloh invites, glancing over at Elias in catechism. Shiloh is a stocky twenty-something with auburn curled hair and a crooked smile. He only reaches about Elias's shoulder. Though what in height he doesn't have, he makes up in personality.

    "I got a girl back home," Elias returns, holding up his phone and shaking it, "expecting her to call any minute."

    Because Mara eventually decided to stay home, to tarry close to home and the insight of security. She has to remember that above all, her security is head. And with bipolar, she needs a routine. Moving across the country with no credentials, no idea what she is doing is defective. She'd done it once and seen the slight stumble that resulted. So instead she takes a few college classes. Deciding that she will move out there someday in the future.

    "Right, the wife," he nods, dragging out the words. "Well, don't expect me 'til tomorrow. Maybe longer if I get waisted enough to drive down to Vegas and get married like you, or meet the president, whatever comes first."

    Elias nods solemnly, his eyes staring at the glossy black device in his large palms. He will wait for the screen to light up at the same time every day, never deviating too far from his phone. Afraid he will miss her call, that cheesy song she'd programmed, and miss an opportunity to hear her voice through the monitor, like a lovesick puppy.

    He waits for it to come, even after the door slammed shut and Shiloh retreated behind it. Elias is left with just the muffled hum of the broken refrigerator and the shuttered beat of his heart that pulses in his ears. Waiting as an hour later, she still hasn't called, still hasn't texted an excuse. The hope that she will call slowly dwindles as he sprawls out across the couch, his eyes heavy with sleep.

    It is Shiloh's sofa he brought from home, with patches holding together the tattered dark blue fabric. Propping his feet on the end of it, his head resting against the pillow as he stares upwards at the popcorn ceiling. The night outside setting upon him quicker, his eyes fall shut with the tiredness that follows.

    Soon enough, his soft snoring drowns out the ping that appears, his phone lighting up the now darkened room. He doesn't see it until morning, and even then, she doesn't see his response until later that night, the time zones and life intercepting.

Mara: Sorry, totally spaced out, and then Ryn had a mental crisis. Call?

Elias: I just saw this. Call?

It will start out slow like this, missing phone calls as life outside their bubble caught up with them. The occasional call on weekends when a moment is free, a call that lasts five minutes. And though they still love each other in their hearts, they have lives that take precedence over their total devotion to one person. Elias loses himself in words his name printed in a published paper.

And Mara loses herself in intercepting life and the struggles of her highs and lows while learning how to be by herself for the first time ever. Despite always feeling alone, she always had someone looking over her shoulder, keeping an eye out for her. She has to learn how to do it on her own, and with it comes struggles.

They aren't the type of people who can do long-distance, they know it from the start, and take a chance. When not able to see each other every day, to touch each other every day, and know of their closeness, it hurts. They are people who have to see love to understand it, not hear it through a scratchy connection.

After so many years of trusting nobody, letting a piece of themselves be shared with another is hard. And unless seeing it reciprocated, that voice in the back of their head convinces them it is too good to be true.

The more time drawls, the more they pull away to stop that hollow feeling within, filling it with the current life they live. And soon the calls would become bi-monthly, on special occasions like Valentine's day. Their love will always be there, first loves are the ones that stick, but they will move on. Nobody breaks up with the other, but they aren't together.

Because despite what all fairytales said, love doesn't always last forever.

---

Authors Note:

The next chapter is the epilogue where you all get the closure you have been hoping for.

Thoughts?

Like, comment, and follow for lots more.

- ❤ Nia D.


Edited 4/14/22


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