She slowly woke up and reality came straight to her, hitting her still half-asleep mind. She bit her lower lip, frowning. The room was plunged in the darkness, a peaceful silence reigning over the flat. She looked at her watch.
3am.
She got up, carefully, and began to look for her clothes, scattered all over the room. A few minutes later she entered the bathroom, slightly pushed the door and lighted on. She immediately met with her face, in the mirror. She observed herself in silence. Still. Who was she ? What had she done ?
She didn't know and looked down when she realized it. She put on her clothes avoiding her reflection, she was confused. Too much to accept to see the person she was. She passed a hand through her hair in an attempt to brush it. At least a bit.
She couldn't help but staring at her face and sighed. She turned and left the bathroom. She prevented from hitting the bed on her right. The sudden absence of light made her movements insecure. Awkward. She grabbed her shoes and opened the door, leaving the room. She glanced at the bed a few inches away before turning in the corridor and going out the flat. In silence.
She only allowed herself to leave her guard when her feet reached the pavement in front of the building, outside. She turned on left and walked till the closest avenue where she could more easily find a cab. Sitting in the back of the yellow car, she looked at the streets passing in front of her eyes.
She remembers the peace of the city, unreal. And the cold against her body when she got off and moved till her own place. March. A simple, usual night. For most of the people. But not for her. While she was lying on her bed, lighting off, she knew her life had just tipped over. Forever.
This is how it all began. How I realized. While waking up that night, on that bed, I suddenly understood and for the first time I felt I was alive. For the first time I was able to see my life. And I had just spoiled it.
No time to enjoy it, to feel the warmness of knowing. Not even a minute to catch up a smile, a tear, a kiss. It had just begun but was already over. Because of me.
This is the story of my life. From the day I realized I was. Till now. It may be four o'clock in the morning and my eyes dangerously beginning to close, I don't care. I need to write. Now. Words knock against each other in my mind, asking for going out. This is why I'm here, anyway. Why I've gone away.
Have you never had that feeling your place was somewhere else ? That you didn't fit with the scene ? That's why I packed the next morning, just a few things. And left. I couldn't have fallen asleep after having come back at home. My brain was in turmoil and off at the same time. Lying in my bed, I was unable to think. Nor to do anything.
A bit too sober to overcome it. Like dead. My heart had got frozen a few hours earlier, prevented now any emotion from reaching it and perhaps make me come back to life. Awake me. I stayed there, fixing the ceiling. Absent-mindedly. Till the first glows of the day came into the bedroom and warmed my body.
I just said I needed a break. Few days away. Alone. I still didn't know where to go when I arrived at the airport. I let my eyes skim through the next departures and suddenly stopped on it and the machine in my head set off. There it was. Fate, coincidence, I don't know but as soon as I saw it on the board, my body seemt to regain consciouness and come back from the dead.
I knew where I was going to and how. But I was still confused about what was coming next. And how long. I needed to rest and perhaps at the end of the road, find out who I really was. Some people will tell you I was going through a crisis, an existential one. I don't know what it was and I probably will never do. But I've learned to accept things how they come. And that there's always a reason to.
The only image I had of it was the one from the movie. I was expecting that small seaside village, with the boats, the lighthouse, the fishermen. Main Street and its unique store where you could find anything. The restaurant overlooking the ocean, near from the gas station. And the unhabitants, saying hello to everyone in a friendly atmosphere. Because they all knew each other since ever.
I rent a car and drove along the coast. Free but a bit weird. I couldn't stop thinking about what I was letting behind, although only for a few days. The last view of New York going away from me whille the plane was taking off. I had left something there that I couldn't name. I just knew it had some importance in my life. Too much.
I arrived at the end of the day when the sun turns in that magic shade and lights the ocean with a thousand of glimmering stars. When it's time to sit down on a rock and enjoy the sight in a respectful silence. When we close our eyes and take a deep breath, listening to the waves, sea air taking possession of us in a peaceful embrace.
I paid for a creepy room and sat on the bed, looking at the ocean in front of me. I suddenly had that feeling I was Tippi Hedren, coming from San Francisco to visit Rod Taylor and let on his living those birds for his sister's birthday. Except the fact Melanie Daniels used to come to join the man she was in love whom while I was actually trying to escape from that, while staying there for a while.
The next day I understood I was going to need more than a few days. And so I stayed. Sometimes I barely went out and spent hours in my bed. Thinking. I felt like crying but I couldn't get it and an unbearable pain was breaking my throat. It was all my fault, I had spoiled everything. I dreaded the moment I would come back and see them. Facing their gaze, guessing their thoughts.
And some days I went out for a walk along the bay. Looking at the seagulls in the sky, children playing at school, life going on in a short. I was a part of it and I loved that. I almost felt better and alive. Smiling all the day long but still misteriously quiet. As if when I would open my mouth, tears were going to well up in my eyes and never stop then.
A week later I started to speak with them. The waiters and the owner of the restaurant where I used to have lunch, the old man who spent his whole day sitting on a bench in front of the harbor. They slowly opened the doors of their life to me. They accepted the silence about me, about my previous existence. The past I had left behind.
I was just that woman who had come up one day, from nowhere. Like a Paul Auster's character. Lost in itself. Looking for something to relieve a pain. They didn't even know my name, slightly the sound of my voice. As if they already knew, just looking at my face, reading in my eyes. And it was enough.
I had just called Jack to tell him I was okay, as I used to do, twice a week, when it came to me. I was sipping my coffee. Third table from the bar, on the right, next to the window, overlooking the ocean. As usual. Why that day more than another one ? I don't know but I suddenly grabbed a paper napkin and started writing. I only stopped at 6pm, four hours later. I ran to the store and bought this notebook to go on.
Words couldn't go out by my mouth but my hands and so I did. I spent the next week locked in my bedroom. I couldn't stop, it was coming by waves from my heart. Ink getting mixed with my tears. I had to face the truth. The truth exposed in front of my eyes in that notebook. How I had ended up here. And why.
And one day I stopped. I looked up and contemplated the ocean out of the window, in front of me. It was still early, very early in the morning. But for the first time of my life I noticed how beautiful it was. The whole things. The colors, the landscape, the boats. The least detail. As if I were born a second time and was finding out the secret of life.
I paid for the room and left. Without any good bye. The excitement of San Francisco hit me right away when I reached the city. I had been rocked by the peace of Bodega Bay for quite a while and had almost forgotten about urban life. I bought a one-way ticket and waited for the flight.
I wasn't anxious but incredibly calm. I was about to see them back. I had missed them, somehow. Grace, Jack… And Will. When the plane touched the ground of New York I couldn't help but smile. I felt safe here. And warm. Weirdly different from that woman I had been during those last weeks. A perfect stranger who helped me to find out what I was looking for.
A reason. An explanation. And myself, perhaps.
They were waiting for me just behind the doors. Jack ran over me and hugged me very tight. And all that pain that had been weighing on my heart during these weeks suddenly broke apart and I burst into tears in Grace's arms. I needed them to go on. The three of them. They were so more than mere friends.
And then I looked at Will. An awkward silence falling on us. Knowingly. I closed my eyes when I felt the warm of his body against mine. The same as that night. In March.
We have never talked about it him and I. Nor told Grace and Jack. Never spoken about my leaving in the middle of the night.
But I have no regret and will never have. Perhaps it won't be another time and it's better like that. I found out who I was, thanks to him. He's the man who made me feel alive even though it flew away so fast. Within a night, a couple of hours. A furtive time.
But still, I'm sure of that: Will is my light. I owe him my life.