September 15th

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Dedicated to theresa5nakeinmyboot, I remembered :)

And before he walked away

he whispered to me

"Just because the timing is off does not mean you and I are not destined to be.

There is no end to our story."

- Natalie Jenson


September 15th:

The rolling waves crash against the shore, performing a soft melody that soothes her eardrums. The cordial wind, blowing through her blonde hair as she sprawls across the beach, the grains of sand against her silky skin. She can feel his heat hovering above her, the overwhelming aroma of the salty ocean mixed in with blowing wind. It is perfect, a smile on her lips as the sun rises on the horizon, an orange hue cast over the glimmering water.

His lips encase her smile. She can taste the ocean water, salt, and mint on his lips. Mara arches her back as his fingertips trace her spine sensually, her arms wrap around the back of his neck, holding him to her. Afraid he may disappear if she lets go, he will sweep away with the breeze.

He pulls away from her, only to caress along her sharp collarbone in fluttering kisses. Her eyes are cast towards the warm skin in pure euphoria as the air around them grows more warm, if even possible. She is smothered, pulling him closer to her as the smell of him is so overpowering that she uses his air to breathe.

Bringing his lips back to hers in a heated kiss. The waves, crashing against the shore even more emphatic than before. So painful against her eardrums that her eyes fly open, blinking as they register the scene, unfolding before her pooling eyes.

She is in her bed, her sheets sprawled across the foot of her bed. Some of them on the floor as she had kicked them in her sleep. She is grasping onto the bear Elias had won her to her racing heartbeat, the smell of him still lingering on his fur. The sun, streams through the cracked open window, her skin glowing.

Yet all she feels is cold at the understanding that it is all a dream. That the beach, the sun, the kiss, it is all a fabrication of her imagination. Elias isn't here because she sent him away, and now she yearns for him more than ever before.

However, Mara won't pull him back to her because she understands he needed to experience life outside of the realms they devised. To live in a world that isn't obsessed with her problems.

She will, however, need to talk to someone about those said predicaments. That's why she's now lounging in the chair, her converse resting against the scuffed yellow walls, tapping in urgency. Dr. Alice, in all her grandeur, sits perched in her chair, watching Mara unwind. Like a flower, peeling back her layers until you got to the heart, the real issue.

"I think it's sexual frustration," Mara huffs, blowing a strand of blonde hair away from her face.

Dr. Alice laughs, an ardent chortle that makes its way to her dark ascetic eyes. So deep blue, they almost seem navy, pale around the edges. Her lips brushed as burning red as her wavy hair. Dr. Alice is never caught with a frown as if her world is too beautiful for it.

Not even when Mara arrived, out of breath and heaving, her words floundered over the next. Still, in her pajamas, she'd only taken a second to brush her hair and aligned white teeth before hastening towards Dr. Alice for explanations.

"We were talking about your need to create a schedule, Mara. Not your sex life," Dr. Alice sniggers. She is wearing a loose dress today. The large window in her room is open, letting in the cordial draft. Dr. Alice is particular to summer weather as it is what she grew up with as a little girl. Her red hair, whipping in the breeze as she ran within fields of blooming flowers. She is not accustomed to the chilling snow that blankets their city in the winter season.

"I just miss him, man," Mara sobs, her hands covering her grimace. She cries into her palms, tired of the feelings. It has become apparent that, after weeks of missing his warming comfort, everything she had felt was, in fact, real. The three words that she was too blind to notice then and too cautious of now.

The idea of love Mara had seen as a child was two people who couldn't stand to be in the same room as the other. Her father, Thomas, used his business trips as an excuse to take his paramour traveling the realms of their world. While her oppressive mother remains home, taking out her anguish on Mara. Whispering into the vulnerability of a little girl's ears, to never love, because men and women are not worth the heartache that would ensue.

Now she has to learn how to go on alone, battling her pride. Elias's love is her beautiful trauma, what she seeks out when everything is breaking, a toxic romance. They live off of each other's sentiments to blind out their personal mental collapse.

"We all miss someone in the world," Dr. Alice counters, "but we can't love them if we don't love ourselves first."

Mara is silent for a beat, just taking in her words. When she was five Genevieve, in a drunken stupor, had named Mara as the undesired child. While swaying her to sleep, the lullaby Mara fell asleep to, was Genevieve saying how it was wished the young girl was never conceived. Echoing how she should have gotten rid of her when she had the chance.

Though Genevieve forgot that following morning, Mara treasured each year to come. Instilled in her mind that she was to never exist, Mara truly never learned to admire herself. She could act the part, but it was shown when she stood in the middle of a buzzing highway, not caring if the cars hit her, that she thought of herself as nothing more than a speck.

Less than a speck because even flecks of dust will make an imprint on something.

"When I look at you, Mara, I see a girl who can be anything. But you are held back by your own perplexing idea of who you're allowed to be, and being with this boy isn't going to help that."

Dr. Alice understands, watching painfully by herself as someone she loves struggled with self-esteem issues. She'd observes her own dose of depression to know that if you let it prevail, eventually it will annihilate you altogether.

"But he makes me feel-" Mara sighs, looking for the word. There are a million of them racing through her mind. But none will ever be able to express what she feels when those artistic brown eyes fall on her.

"I bet he makes you feel like the water, earth, and sun all wrapped up into one," Dr. Alice answers for her, recalling her first love. First loves are the most troublesome because they are the first to take your heart in their hold. And the firsts to further have the capability to break it.

"Yeah," Mara's eyes light up, snapping her fingers. Elias made her feel like everything, like all the elements of the world. It is indescribable the fire that lit under her skin when she caught his stare.

"And what happens when he is gone, Mara? You have to learn to think of yourself like that because he won't always be there to love you when you can't love yourself. And you can't expect him to be there either."

---

She erased his number from her contacts.

It is the only way to guarantee herself that she won't call him. Not that his phone number isn't burned into her memory, but she will have to take the time to type them out individually. She hopes by the time she is done, she will have realized the idea itself is destructive.

Instead, she helps Ryn unload the moving van as they enter their new two-bedroom apartment. Cairo has gotten a job more down South as an elementary school teacher, and on a whim, Ryn urged Mara to become their needed roommate. They can't afford rent in the city by themselves, and Mara, with no college plans at the moment, decided yes.

Of course, after discussing with Dr. Alice and her doctors, they agree that it will be okay if she goes forward with the journey. As long as she remains strictly to her schedule; three meals a day and at least the necessity of 8 hours of sleep. As well, her meds will be regulated by Ryn, who realizes being damage control wasn't the best for their friendship. Cathryn Raja will become the best version of a friend to Mara she can, even if that means screaming fits.

As well, Mara will learn to love herself in the bustling city that never sleeps, where dreams are inspired at midnight. Wherever Elias was in the world, she wouldn't be far away. After all, they wished themselves on the stars, and fate would inescapably be on their side.

Right?

---

Authors Note:

I feel like I never took the time to show a little bit about Dr. Alice as she's a somewhat main character in this book, so hers a piece of her puzzle.

Any predictions?

Like, comment, and follow.

- Nia


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