Somewhere in Time
Notes: This is inspired by real life events. Depression, suicide, and substance abuse is very real and very scary. If you are going through a difficult time, do not take matters into your own hands. Help is there for you. One of the scariest things is waking up in a psychiatric ward.
01
Glass shattered rather dramatically. There was a crack and then everything fell into pieces onto the linoleum floor. Clang, clash, screech. The pieces of the mirror fell in every which way and in all different types of pieces. Some were rather large chunks the size of a fist; others were rather tiny, perhaps tinier than the size of a pinky nail. All these pieces now laid in an intricate pattern on the linoleum floor all around a young woman. Her path was blocked by the array of glass from the oversized mirror that she had been moving.
Instead of sweeping the broken shards into a dustpan and throwing them in the rubbish bin, the young woman backed herself up against the cupboards of her tiny kitchen and slowly slid herself down to a sitting position on the floor. Her sweater she had been wearing bunched up in the back at her actions, but she made no effort to correct her exposed skin. Alternatively she wrapped her lean arms around her knees and placed her head on her bent knees at the juncture of where the two pairs met. She pulled her legs closer to her body and started to shake. At first her eyes were dry, lifeless, emotionless and dull. Over the course of a few seconds though once she settled herself into a rocking pattern they became warm and flushed. Pools of water gathered in the inner ducts of her eyes and spread rapidly outward until a steady stream of salty liquid poured over onto her cheeks.
Each piece of broken glass on the floor felt as though it had sprung legs and plunged itself into her flesh. Each sharp piece felt as though it was digging itself deeper and deeper wounds. She pulled herself inward even more now, burying her face now into her knees with eyes shut so tight it hurt. The buildup of tears in her waterline sloshed over even more now creating small moist dots on her black leggings. It all hurt so much when it didn't need to. It all was too much and there was no way around it. No magic spells, no supportive friends nor family. All was on her shoulders, she was now completely alone in this. No way out.
Tomoyo looked at her watch and frowned. It was already past four in the afternoon and still no follow up. Her and Sakura made it a point to converse daily over the phone since The Break Up.
The Break Up, as it was called, shook their entire group of friends. Always perfect and always loving, the two at the core of their circle had parted ways two weeks and two days ago. Neither spoke of it now and neither saw one another now, but word had spread with heightened speed that the couple everyone expected to make it was now done. Over. Sakura no longer wore her engagement ring. Instead it was entrusted to Tomoyo for the time being. The ring sat in the original box now in Tomoyo's closet with a cluster of other bridal pieces. A wedding gown still unfinished, a veil, ivory colored shoes. All sat lonely now and in the dark covered up. Tomoyo did not have the heart to toss any of these things away. There was no one to give the ring back to. Syaoran was gone, phone disconnected, apartment empty. It was almost as if he was a ghost now from a dream everyone remembered. Probably for Sakura this was a nightmare. For the best Tomoyo did not push the issue and found other things to talk about now with Sakura.
She would give her friend one more call before heading out to her apartment to check on her. She took care in dialing the number correctly and pressed the receiver to her ear. The number rolled to voice mail after thirty seconds of ringing. Tomoyo frowned and disconnected the line. "Ah Sakura, it's so cold outside and you make me go out in the snow..." She wrapped herself up in her best winter coat and other cold weather paraphernalia and headed out on a small trek across the sleepy town to see her wonderfully dear friend. Sakura had probably fallen asleep and failed to have a phone nearby to hear it ring. This time of day though was no time to be sleeping.
Tomoyo rang the doorbell once before she turned the doorknob open. It really was dangerous for her to keep her door open like that. Lately her routine of locking the door had slacked greatly. This was not the first time Tomoyo had discovered Sakura's failure to lock her front door. "Sakura! It's me! I thought you may want to go get some Oden with me!" As she spoke into the apartment she pulled her shoes off and padded her way inside.
The apartment was small and modest. There were not many decorations nor paintings on the walls. She had a few pieces of furniture in the living room: a couch, a television, a coffee table. The kitchen was just as bare with a few pots and pans hanging above the sink. "Sakura?" Tomoyo turned the corner and saw a little ball of black with brown hair sticking up from the top. All around the girl were the broken pieces of a mirror the pair had purchased the other day.
She was unsure of what to do at first, her heart all but stopped in her chest. Don't rush to conclusions. "Sakura," Tomoyo ignored the broken pieces of the mirror and collapsed onto the kitchen floor next to her precious friend. "Sakura, wake up,"
What little color Tomoyo had left in her face escaped in a fraction of a second when she failed to gain any response. She looked over her body to see if there were any surface wounds from the obvious accident that she had and then rushed to her purse to grab her phone to dial for help. There were a lot of random objects she had to shuffle through before she found her intended object. "Sakura, please be okay..." Tomoyo mumbled as the phone rang. "Please..." Tomoyo touched Sakura's cold face with the back of her hand then held her close to her own shaking body, unable to contain herself and unable to figure out what to do as she waited for help.