Alright, this is really short, but I like to think of it more as an interlude.
Music: 'Phantom Always' by Kenna, off the album 'Make Sure They See My Face'
"Three"
She sits in her room on a Wednesday afternoon in early January.
Her roommates are gone, eating dinner or something like that. She doesn't know and she really doesn't care. She's been here for five months, but it feels like forever.
She has nothing to do, because she doesn't feel like doing anything. Her books are too boring, movies too depressing, music too painful. They only remind her of him.
She sighs and stands up and looks at the other two beds in the room. It's a large room and they have enough space, but she hates sharing.
Her first roommate is clean and tidy, small, with light hair and lighter eyes. She's quiet and keeps to herself and does her homework every night and never says anything rude.
Her second roommate is noisy and messy and obnoxious and rebellious. She dyes her hair black and darkens her eyes with makeup and tries to fail out of her classes.
The first roommate is too pitiful, the second too forceful. The first too light, the second too dark. Even the way they decorate their sides of the room is a contrast, light and dark, soft and hard, hot and cold.
She knows her side of the room should be in the middle. She knows it should feel safe and warm and… just right.
But it doesn't.
She doesn't feel right anywhere that doesn't have him.
He's been a part of her life for six years, ever since they were nine and he fell from her apple tree. She knows she must have lived before him, but she honestly doesn't remember how. She doesn't remember how to function without him, without his ever-constant presence.
Sometimes she still feels him.
She'll be sitting in class and she'll turn her head to look at him, only to find he's not there. Then she turns around and wonders why she felt him. Maybe it's because she's spent the past six years with him and it's only been five months without.
He doesn't write.
She's tried keeping in touch with him, but he's never responded. Every time she tries calling him, he keeps his voice dead and only talks when she prompts him with a question. And then his answers are only one word; yes, no, maybe, fine, good.
She's stopped trying to talk to him, but sometimes she calls just to hear him answer the phone. Then she hangs up and he never calls her back., een though he knows it's her.
She needs to hear his voice, so she picks up the phone and dials the number she knows by heart. For a minute or so, she thinks he's not there, but finally his voice comes on the line.
Hello?
It sounds like he'd been laughing, and she wonders if his sidek- if Seth's in the room. She wonders if she should say something. He doesn't speak again, because he knows it's her.
Hi, Ryan, she says softly, finally.
Taylor.
She wants to cry when she hears the life drain from his voice, the traces of laughter disappear. Because it's her. He doesn't want to talk to her.
I realized I hadn't called in a while, she continues lamely. I wanted to see how you were.
Good.
She lets the silence hang and wishes he would say something. Because if he doesn't then she'll either lose her nerve and hang up, or say something stupid.
I miss you.
Looks like she's chosen stupidity and she closes her eyes tightly, like that will make it go away. He doesn't say anything for a long while and she almost hangs up.
Yeah.
It's enough. It's one word and it's vague and general, but it's enough.
I guess I should go, she whispers. I should go eat.
Yeah.
Goodbye, Ryan.
Bye.
She hangs up and puts the phone back in the cradle and wonders why she called him. Did she think it would make her feel better? That somehow, his voice would fill the gaping hole he left in her life?
She misses him, with every breath she takes. She misses the way he would stand next to her in school and glare at guys that talked to her, the way he would lean forward and kiss her softly, the way he would get angry and upset when she did something that he deemed dangerous. She misses the way he was just always there. Silent, strong. He was her rock, her protector, her savior.
Her prince.
Not anymore.
Now she's just a girl, stuck in a place that's not her own, trying to find something, anything, that feels right.
She moves through the room and the sunlight that streams through the window makes her hair gleam gold as it curls around her shoulders and she remembers how he always liked her hair when she let it curl.
She sits back on her bed and picks up the giant brown bear he had gotten her for her eleventh birthday and she smiles, thinking back. She'd seen it on sale at a shop on the pier and fallen in love with it and he'd bought it for her.
For her twelfth birthday, he bought her another bear, because the first was lonely and she smiles as she picks it up. It's a contrast to the first. This one's white and fluffy, the first one dark brown and more masculine.
And she smiles down at the third bear, light brown, smaller than the others, that he'd won for her at a carnival when they were fourteen.
Three bears, all from him, and she hugs them tightly to her chest and lays back against her pillows.
Her bed isn't right. Sometimes it's too hard, sometimes it's too soft, but it's never right. Not like his bed was, when she used to sleep there. Not even like her bed at home, even though she hated sleeping there.
And it's definitely not right, like her bed was the night he spent with her.
Nothing's right without him.
She closes her eyes and tries to sleep, because she has nothing better to do on a Wednesday afternoon.
review