"Her touch still moves my hair, the smell is so faint but it must be the one. Her touch still moves my hair, my bones ache from the cold, no one could predict that I would ever get this far..."
The city dances with the colours of another Toronto night. The concrete jungle of the epicentre of Canada, such an ugly sight in the sunlight becomes radiant when the sun sets and the lights come up. A city that never sleeps, a city that chills me to the bone, the city I ran from. Or, at least, the city that holds the key to what I ran from all those years ago. A city that draws me back every so often to relive the painful memories of when I was a simple twenty year old, five years ago. This city holds my secrets, its the closet I hide my skeletons in, and its the city I flew too on a whim, a desperate whim caused by the tremor in my chest at the thought of everything that happened.
The green numbers on the alarm clock next to the bed read 4:12AM, a sight I see all too often. Its been years since I've gotten a decent nights sleep, years since I haven't seen the sunset and rise without closing my eyes in between.
Most would call it insomnia, I call it a nightmare.
Its the picture that fills my mind every time I close my eyes, its the blackness that consumes me when I lay in bed and drift to sleep. Its the reason that, no matter what I try, every time I come close to that sweet serenity of sleep, I'm jolted awake by the pain cutting through my chest and the tightness that fills my lungs in a desperate attempt to gain access to the oxygen stuck in my throat.
Its her.
My hands make their way up to my black, shaggy, unkept hair, fingers entangled in the mess of it, palms covering my eyes, pushing into my face to ease up on the pounding headache that has made its way into my sinus'.
Coffee, that's what I need, coffee.
A deep breath comes into my chest and I exhale through my nose as I push myself up from the hotel chair and shrug my arms into my black jacket. I hadn't bothered to undress from a day of travelling, so I was still clad in a pair of dark skinny jeans, white v-neck and white shoes. My fingers tug at the silver zipper of my hoodie, leaving it zipped half-way up my torso before I pocket the hotel key card and my wallet into my back pocket and slip out the door, letting it close behind me.
The hotel clerk gives me a sympathetic look as I cross the lobby, as if she thinks I'd just gotten up and was already on my way to some important meeting, or something. I dropped my eyes as I felt hers on me, pushing through the lobby doors into the cold November morning, shoving my hands into my hoodie pockets. Luckily for me, every corner in Toronto is littered with Starbucks, and most of them are open twenty-four hours. It took me all of five minutes to slip into one and pay for my triple tall extra hot vanilla latte, another two minutes later and the steaming hot liquid was sliding down my throat, burning the tip of my tongue.
The bell chimes above me as I push my way back out into the empty Toronto streets, hand wrapped around the hot, paper cup. I really had no idea where I was going, in was quarter to five in the morning and Toronto was just now beginning to wake-up, like an over-eager freshman on their first day of high school. Only the scattered person was on the streets, cars were few and far between, yet here I was, my old home, my old city, my nightmare. Here I was, walking aimlessly through every memory this place brought.
"Elijah Goldsworthy, I swear to God, if you don't give that back to me right now," she stood, hands on hips as she glared across the room at me, "you'll be so sorry."
I almost laughed, she was adorable when she was angry, "but you're so cute!"
She sighed, shaking her head, "Eli, seriously, this is embarassing."
I glanced down at the picture in my hand, a picture of her when she was only three years old, obviously excited about potty training, "I think its cute."
She rolled her beautiful blue eyes at me and stepped towards me, trying to snatch the picture out of my hands. I whipped it away from her grasp and tucked it into my back pocket, "not a chance, Edwards."
"ELI," she sounded exasperated as she lunged at me.
I caught her against my chest, my hands gripping her wrists as she attempted her attack, "just let me keep it!" She pushed harder against my chest, sending me toppling back onto her bed, her frame coming hard down against me. The struggle stopped momentarily, just our breathing keeping the room from going silent.
Then she started laughing. That laugh that intoxicated me.
"I'm so going to kill you Eli."
My chest tightened at the memory, air caught in my chest on its way down into my lungs. I groaned outwardly, frustrated. I hated the way I'd become, I hated what loving Clare Edwards had done to me, I hated that I'd hurt her, but most of all, I hated that she didn't love me anymore.
Because God knew, hell, the devil was probably informed as well - I was still hopelessly in love with Clare Edwards. And there was absolutely nothing I could do about that fact. It killed me, every single day of my life, it killed me to love her, but I couldn't stop. Because despite the slow and painful death it was putting me through, the other options were worse. I couldn't let her go, she was still the only reason I had for breathing, still the only reason I had for living. And no matter what, I couldn't let that go.
The November air bit at my face, my nose running with the start of a cold. Every single damn time I'd ended up in Toronto since I'd left for Vancouver five years ago, I'd done the same thing. Sat, torturing myself with memories in my hotel room, wandered the streets aimlessly, then without allowing anyone I'd known here know that I was here, I'd gotten back on a plane and flown back to my life in Vancouver.
I doubted this time would be any different.
It didn't matter that every time I planned on calling Adam, I planned on catching up and seeing where he'd ended up in life. It didn't matter that every time, I planned on finding Clare and apologizing. It didn't matter, because every time was the same routine, and every time I backed down from the things I intended on doing and just went back to pretending none of this existed in Vancouver.
My feet scuffled against the sidewalk as I rounded into the morning bustle of Queen St. I'd long ago finished my coffee, and once again that headache from hell decided to take a trip to my sinus'. I inhaled deep into my lungs, pulling at the door handle of yet another Starbucks. I didn't even bother to glance around the busy cafe as I joined the line behind a brunet boy, hair covered by a familiar black beanie.
The line moved quickly and I purchased another drink, this time straight espresso, three shots. The barista smiled at me, reciting her all too perky 'have a good day sir' as I turned towards the bar, eyes on the ground. I closed them, pressed my fingers against my nose, the headache worsening. Everything around me ceased to exist as I did so, willing the headache away without much success. I might as well have been catatonic.
"E-Eli...?" The voice jolted me back to reality. I dropped my hand from my face and blinked, looking up towards the voice. My drink was called on the bar, my hand reached for the bitter liquid and my former best friend stared at me as if he'd just seen a ghost. I slammed back my espresso in two quick gulps and let the cup fall from my hand into the garbage can.
I couldn't handle this.
Again my chest tightened and my lungs gasped for the air that was stuck in my throat. I opened my mouth to speak, but snapped it shut just as quickly.
"No fucking way," the boy muttered, still staring at me like he'd seen a ghost.