{If you leave me then I'll be afraid of everything}
Having someone cast you out of their life is tough. Having someone cut all connections with you is tougher. But having someone you believed to truly care for you and like you do these things?
Well that just takes the cake.
That was exactly what a young girl laying on her bed was thinking as she stared up at her dull, colorless ceiling. The setting sun washed the unlit room in a fading light, gray shadows forcing back the remaining rays of weak light. The hum of passing cars underneath the window all but vanished, leaving the street in a quiet still as the day came to an end, giving way to night and its cool darkness. As dusk neared closer with each passing second, the world began to shut down and prepare itself for a long slumber where for just a few hours all would be nonexistent to the rest of those who inhabited it.
The last rays of sunlight clung to the few patches of land still in reach, not ready to let go of the bright world that it once had part in, staining the clouds pink and the grass orange before the last tendrils of its luminosity was snuffed out by the overwhelming black of the night.
With the final fall of the sun below the horizon came the first fall of a warm, salted tear out of the corner of Ruby Rose's eye.
The outside world now dark, her unlit room relied on one single source of light. The blue tint of her phone shone down on the crying girl, unwilling to leave the distraught girl in peace to cry in the shadows where no one would see her tears, where there would be no light to reflect her glimmering tears as they fell freely down her face and shimmered in her eyes. However it was not the light that emanated from her phone that prevented her from hiding her tears from the world that bothered her but rather what she read on the screen that threatened heart-shattering sobs.
No new messages.
No missed calls.
In a fit of short-lived rage she threw the phone at the edge of her bed, the screen shutting off automatically after a few seconds, bathing the room in total darkness at last. Immediately after the action was done she deflated as more tears leaked from her eyes, knowing that she wasn't angry, not really. Hurt and disappointed, yes. But she stopped being angry a long time ago. And even then, it was hard to call what she was feeling anger.
A watery smile found its way to her lips whilst she was unaware and she chuckled to herself which was a gateway for a few, quiet sobs to rip from her throat. After months of the same result, she really should've expected this by now. It shouldn't have hurt as much. She had already felt all this pain and cried all of these tears. But regardless, each time the pain was renewed, the tears found their way back, and a piece of her heart chipped off and dissolved into dust. Each day she was becoming emptier and emptier but that was the part she looked forward to most.
Maybe if she finally became hollow, the pain would stop and the tears would evaporate into nonexistence. Maybe if she just stopped feeling, none of it would matter anymore and she could finally move on.
But tonight was not that night. Right now it still hurt and the tears still gathered in her eyes in an unstoppable force as her chapped lips opened and closed repeatedly, forming words without her being aware of what she was really saying. It started off quietly, not a sound to be heard, but got louder to that of a raspy whisper accompanied with a strangled sob that she desperately tried to keep within lest she be heard.
Why? Why? Why?
Come back. Come back. Come back.
Don't leave. Don't leave. Don't leave me please.
With a single deep breath, the sobs paused, the tears stopped, and the world was silent and still once more for a moment. Ruby pressed her lips together in a fine line and squeezed her eyes shut, causing a few more tears to run down her face. The crying wasn't done, not anywhere close. But for this moment, for just a minute, she was allowing herself to breathe, to think.
But in her current state, thinking was never a good thing.
Her mind wandered to a few months prior, before the long, hard summer, before graduation day, before the pain and the tears and the heartache. Back to when she smiled, genuinely, because of her. She recalled the tug of her lips whenever she greeted her in the morning, the breathlessness that came with the gut-wrenching laughter that split her sides whenever they sat together and talked with all of their friends at lunch. She remembered them, but she no longer could place the feeling of happiness that came with them. That was long gone, replaced with the feeling of...well...not feeling.
She could remember when the heat of the sun on a warm spring day felt like heaven on her skin, but all this summer she could only feel its wrath as it burned her, punishing her for screwing everything up. Because ultimately it was her fault. It had to be. It always was. It always would be. It wouldn't be fair to blame anyone else when she knew that she was the root of the problem. She'd definitely looked back on the situation enough to realize her mistakes.
Ruby's lip trembled as the painful memories were brought to the forefront of her mind, the same ones that played in her mind practically every waking moment, the ones that haunted her dreams.
Frail hands clutched desperately at her bedsheets as her breath hitched and her teeth dug into her lower lip as her entire body began to tremble. The pain hit her full force like a freight train, the tears following soon after. Her raspy breaths turned into pants, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she hyperventilated. She wanted to stop breathing. She wanted to stop hurting.
It was her that drove her away. She was too clingy, relying on her for everything. She was too annoying, not knowing her limits and running them over without a second thought. She was too mean, pulling all of those awful pranks and teasing her so much. She was too plain, nothing close in comparison to any of the other great people out there who would've been a better suited friend.
The hyperventilation stopped where the sobs began, wracking her small frame with them as she brought her hands to her mouth to stifle them. She couldn't be too loud. She'd disturb other people. This was her problem. It was her pain. She would have to suffer alone because that's what she deserved.
Besides, it's not like anyone else understood.
She tried going to Yang, honestly she had. She loved her sister and trusted her advice. Yet when she had voiced her concern at the distance suddenly displayed between her and her best friend, Yang had only told her to give it time.
"She'll come around eventually, Rubes. She's probably just busy with all that fancy college stuff her dad set up for her. It's a lot to get used to I imagine. You guys'll be talking just like you used to again in no time!"
It wasn't bad advice. Yang wasn't capable of giving out bad advice. She was Yang. But still, after months of waiting, of being patient like Yang told her to be, of trying to be a good girl that would make her admirable again, it produced no fruit. Months later she was still alone. The pain only got worse. The nights between each crying fit lessened. Eventually they became nonexistent. It was almost hard to remember what it was like not crying herself to sleep.
Ruby sat up as the tears stopped again, sniffling as she hugged her pillow tightly against her chest. She tried being patient. She tried to forget. She tried to be good. But as time passed by slowly and gave her nothing to do but look forward to the day when she would be able to talk to Weiss again, it gave her time to think.
Maybe Weiss didn't even want to talk to her anymore.
Maybe Weiss was better off not talking to her at all.
Maybe Weiss finally realized that she was a train wreck and escaped before she suffered just like she was.
And Ruby couldn't blame her. To go through this kind of pain...it wasn't something she wished on anyone. Not even her enemies.
The only person she wished it on...was herself. Because she deserved it. There was a reason Weiss left, and she was it.
Ruby sniffled again and wiped her eyes with her sleeve, glancing out of her eye to the window where the moon hung high in the sky, illuminating everything in a bright, white light. However it didn't seem able to reach her room, leaving it in darkness.
Her mind emptied of all thoughts as she stared up at the magnificence of the moon. Her breathing calmed and slowed. Her last few tears fell, leaving her face feeling raw and stiff with the sticky wetness. Her deadweight in her heart lifted briefly for a few moments, but not her spirits. Instead she felt hollow, unfeeling. She knew, overtime, that the deadweight feeling would return, a few minutes at the latest, but for now she reveled in this emptiness for it was the only time she was relieved of any of her pain.
Without much consideration, Ruby lifted herself off of her bed and walked out of her dark room into the dimly lit hallway. Her feet were carrying her away from the stifling negativity filling her room and infecting her and she let them, not caring where they were taking her as long as it was away. She found herself at the front door, slipping on her shoes and throwing on her red hoodie before emerging from the house into the cool night. The chilled breeze hit her tearstained cheeks and she tugged on her hood in response before stuffing her hands in her pockets.
And without another thought she began to walk, down the sidewalk, down the street, without a set destination in mind. The dark of the night welcomed her into its embrace, hiding her from the world, rendering her life nonexistent, even if only just for a little while.
{And when I wake up, let me breathe}
A/N:
So I don't care if this makes sense to anyone this is something I've been wanting to write for a long time so I finally did and I also don't care about the quality of writing I just needed to get this down after months of thinking about it.
I'm also not going to explain this story to anyone because if you don't understand it then there's no way I can make you.
On a side note, this is the second story I've written in a row to a song by The Neighbourhood. Except I like this song way more. For reasons.
Anyway, take from this what you will.