Beads of liquid transparency descend unrelentingly towards the roof of his house and he stands adjacent to the window in his bedroom, morose pools of brown peering into the now moist oblivion that is the outside of his house. His bedroom is dimly lit and shadows dance together against the four wall boxing him into such a melancholy state. Those tainted eyes are glued on the relentless rain cascading, faltering the glass of his window, the droplets meshing together and creating their own maze. With each breath exhaled, the image dissipated and he started all over again, warm breath sliding against the glass. He felt hidden. Hidden physically by the trucker hat fitted loosely on top of his head, allowing dark strands to fall against the lucid flesh of his forehead, and emotionally by the anguish and turmoil that his sentiments were toying with, like a cat pawing at its ball of thread. Broken. He was broken, experiencing a capacious amount of all that there was to experience and yet, he remained incomplete. Abridged, unaccomplished, and flawed. But what makes him incomplete? The resentment of regrets? The frustration of not knowing things that were possible to acknowledge? Knowing that his inconsequential pride and confidence was merely the shadow holding him back from his destiny? The burden and accountability of his dependency grew heavier with each passing day. And he was the one placing all of the extra weight on his shoulders. He was the only one left to blame.
Time only seems to pass by too quickly and nothing around him changes. Numerous hours and minutes and days and years pass, the seasons still leaving him with feelings of doubt and lament. People walk past him everyday and he watches them with solemn eyes, wondering where they will be twenty years from now. Change. There was only one thing that didn't changed. He suspected that it would never change. Love. He was still in love with her. Even after all of the heartache and despair, the caustic misery and jealousy and everything in between, he never turned his back on her. He could never deny her, or his love for her. She was irresistable. Everything about her was irresistable and he found himself falling even more in love with her by just thinking about her. By letting her smooth name roll off of the tip of his tongue like he had no other care in the world. Manny. Manny Santos. He never turned and walked away from the mess that they had created together. How could one walk away from a love that had voiced incalculable accusations and still remained the realest, purest of all? No words could ever explain what appreciation he felt blessed with whenever he was with her. Or, rather, did he already know the words? Did he already know the words that could explain his devotion to her? Had he simply denied him to save his sanity, because he already knew that their love was insane?
Exhausted, and questioning the same love that he had been craving for all of his life, he thought about her. The way she laughed, the way she tastes, the way she laughs, the way she feels. Painting the modest curves of her face and body in his mind where they would stay forever engraved and a little bit more after that. He admired her. Admired the vulnerability that she created in him and the ability to lose himself in her. Admired her heart and the way she loved him back. Admired the way her body felt beneath his as they connected, two peas in an everlasting pod. They suffered, and they bled words that convinced him they were over, and yet, they remained in each other, inevitable and destined to become who they were to become, discovering each other within the soul that they had already posessed. Briefly, he wondered if she knew that she completed him. All of the dreams he dreamed, all of the desires her desired, all of the breath he breathed in order to survive, everything lay inside of her. Manny Santos. She gave him life and the confidence to work towards those ambitions that he set for himself.
Slender fingers raised the last white cylinder of his Marlboro pack to his lips and they softly wrap around the end of it, his index finger wrapping around the top and pulling the cancer stick away from his mouth once he breathed in the deadly air. A nasty habit that he had picked up after the aftermath of Craig and Manny. The chapter of Craig and Manny, the novel of Craig and Manny. Everything of Manny and Craig. He could feel the warmth and smell the scent of tabacco as his lips parting, watching the smoke evanesce with bleary eyes shadowed with a lifetime of hurt and despair. He felt like no one. He felt crude and insufficent, like some proud son of a bitch who doesn't give a damn about anything. He felt like crumbling, falling down on his knees, whispering for forgiveness and sympathy. He felt like a complete fool for having the audacity to hide behind a cigarette. Who was he if he was nothing in her eyes? An ordinary boy? Or a boy with ambiguity and doubt buckling his entire being. He disgusted himself.
For months, he was convinced that he could live without remembering his past. He could live without remembering her. That it was something he could find in some other girl if he tried deliberately enough to do so. For months he was proud and even arrogant. For months he was selfishly without her love. As days passed, he knew that there was nothing in his power that he could do to erase the hurt in both of their lives. There was nothing he could ever do to mend the cracked heart that he shattered with his selfish ways. For months he felt useless and emotionally abused. And he knew that there was nothing else left to do other than let go. Let go of everything he once knew, let go of the love he once held so close to his heart. Let go of the one girl that was able to make him feel weak to the knees. Let go of Manny Santos. She didn't deserve what he was giving her. Confusion, agony, hurt. She deserved so much more, so much more than he could ever give her. Nothing was forever. Nothing was free. Nothing could ever be perfect and nothing could ever be planned. Nothing would be that easy to ever grasp. Time was always the answer. And he knew this now.
Because he was Craig Manning. And he wasn't sure what the hell he was doing with his life. And he looked back up to the window, and observed that it was no longer raining.