Of course I'd wake up at four in the morning. Four to seven is my new contemplation hour. My head felt ready to burst from the lack of sleep as I tossed and turned in my bed. After about twenty minutes or so struggling to find a comfortable position, I stopped and stared up at my ceiling. My thoughts, naturally, turned to Sparks before abruptly swapping to Kaito.
In my annoyance, I threw my pillow over my face and screamed into it. Why the hell do I keep thinking about him? I asked myself. With a heavy sigh, I forced my body to get up from my bed and stretched. I let my pajamas fall onto the floor without a care and walked on over to my closet to see if I had anything to wear that could help me brace against December's harsh and bitter winds.
I forgot to mention this, but at this point it's already my last year of high school. And it still was just the four of us against everyone. Against Miku. While my lazy eyes scanned my many articles of clothing, my mother's voice came ringing in my head...
"Oh."
It was a week after my "little" outburst to Kaito that I had finally decided to tell her that our friendship was finished. I knew she'd be disappointed. So was my father, they both loved Kaito. In fact, he made me seem more approachable to them. But leave it to my mother to reconfigure a negative event in my life into something positive.
"Maybe you should look on this as a terrific opportunity to get organized!"
And she meant it. My mother started listening to this insane therapist's advice to do people's closets. But not just "do" them, but to arrange them for a special consultation, order necessary items of clothing. The combined practice of assessment, organization, and "letting go" was a profoundly individual, though universal, therapeutic process. That, she discovered, was indeed a form of therapy, and an effective one at that.
As if my mother needed any more convincing, the damn therapist bragged about it even more when she told her a success story she had dealt with. One of her patients was a middle-aged woman, an alcoholic whose husband beat her regularly. Years of therapy hadn't helped this woman, who continually returned to her husband only to have another rib broken, another tooth knocked across the kitchen floor.
But after having her closets done, a miraculous transformation occured: The woman kicked her husband out and stopped drinking. Countless therapy sessions had failed to breathe courage into this woman as the daily sight of neatly folded merino woool sweaters tucked away see-through acrylic boxes had obviously done the trick.
"There's just something about an ordered closet that says, 'I can!'" my mother explained to me. "What's the first thing you think of when you wake up? 'What am I going to wear?' But what does your closet reflect back at you? 'I'm a sloppy loser-I have no control over my life.' A well-ordered closet reflects a well-ordered sense of self and well-being. A clean closet says, 'I matter.' "
My fourteen year old self sat in silence the whole time my mother went on and on about it. Being the patient daughter that they had raised me to be, I finally took it as my chance to jump in and voice my opinion.
"No thank you, Mother."
"But you'll feel worlds better!"
"No, I'm swamped right now, anyway."
"If you invest the time now, you'll be saving it in the future."
"No thank you. Really."
Before she could say anything else, I got up from my seat and speed-walked to the stairs. My parents tried to raise a patient daughter, but I only have so much of it. Everyone has their limitations.
Now, almost four years later, I'm looking at my messy closet with a black coat in hand. I started seriously considering the advice she had given me all that time ago. But then a new thought came in mind as I realized just how silly it sounded. I mean, really, how could cleaning out my closet honestly do all of those wonders for me?
Without a second thought, I slipped on a black thermal, black leggings and sweatpants, and a pair of fuzzy fleece socks. I risked a glance at the mirror and nearly strangled myself with my hair. I really am losing it; the least I could do is attempt to wear things that did not reflect my actual mood to the public.
To ease my suicidal thoughts, I slapped on a white coat and wrapped a hot pink scarf around my neck.
There, I thought to myself, much better.
xXx
The crunchy, white powder stuck to the bottom of my pink boots that released a beautiful melody with every step I took. Snow didn't come that often enough in there so I was always happy to hear them and to feel the soft snowflakes leave gentle kisses on my frigid cheeks. The cold doesn't really bother me, rather, my body craved for it. Maybe it could be because people say it cools down my hot-headed personality. Maybe it could be because it reminded me of home. Or maybe because I wanted the cold to leave me senseless because I was so tired of feeling. I just wanted to go numb.
Whatever the reason, my mind wandered back to you-know-who and started making these letters in my head. I already knew that he'd never want to speak to me face-to-face ever again, so these letters were my way of communicating with him, or so to speak. Sometimes they would begin with something like, "Lenny Bruce once said that there's nothing sadder than an aging hipster-this statement makes me think of you,"or the more direct and the sort of style that suits me best, "Dear Asshole, how's your Asian whore? Just swell I hope."
I laughed to myself after I thought of how silly it made sound. But at the same time, I couldn't help but imagine the endless possibilities of responses he could have told me from that last statement.
I tightened my hold on my scarf against the wind. A wave of nostalgia worked its way through my body as I passed every tree, bench and restaurant that Kaito and I used to stop by.
I sighed. It's all just stories. I'm already becoming someone else's story. Leaving behind a reckless redhead would be the story of how he came to notices Miku. Of how he took the chance to ask her out and to become her boyfriend. It'll be the story he would some day tell to their indifferent, yawning grandchildren at picnics. He'd have a little too much spiked vanilla ice cream and then my visage would inexplicably surface in his mind, my image yellowing at the edges but still vivid. Still vivid in the center.
But worse, I felt as if though Kaito was becoming a story, a story to dine out on, a story to impress others with powers of wry observation. This is what a great companion is, ha ha ha.
These sorts of losses made every story you told yourself about how you got to be where you are- why you were were with this person and not the other, why you lived on this corner in this city, where you worked in that building and how you felt the way you did about all of those things- the loss suddenly made all these stories untrue. It ripped the narrative. Suddenly you had to invent a new story- a story to make sense of what happened to you- on the fly, without professional consultation. You made do, you made things and hoped for the best. There was no time for reflection. Reflection made the bottom fall out all over again, it made you stare vacantly at the cars racing across from you as you walk towards the little park you used to visit all the time as a child.
...I'm sorry, did I lose you in all of that? If I did, then again, my apologies. Just ignore it, I was just ranting, that's all.
Well, I almost didn't realize that I had walked myself over to the park, even though I was almost hit with several different cars and it wasn't until I finally decided to turn around that I finally noticed that the people were screaming profanitites at me. I showed them indifference and walked away. After all, they're okay and I'm okay. No need to make a huge fuss over it anymore.
I shivered, the cold was finally getting to me and I decided to turn back around. After all, what business did I have here at the park to even begin with? As I was turning around, I heard that sickenly sweet laughter ring in my ears, shattering my resolve and I dared myself to look behind me to see if it really was the she-wolf.
There she was, with a huge grin plastered on her face, swinging on the rusty swings with Kaito pushing her from right behind. I felt my heart lurch and twist into a painful knot. I just couldn't take it anymore. Why do I even bother leaving the safe vicinity of my home if I knew that there were things such as that that tortures me?
I gave a sharp turn and started to march forward, hot tears stinging my cheeks and I pulled my scarf over my nose, hoping that they hadn't seen me.
During the time I was internally admonishing myself for being such a freakin' masochist, I ended up bumping into something hard and fell back and a small gasp escaped me before I could stop myself. I heard somebody yell my name from the background and felt a pair of arms wrap around my waist.
I had my eyes closed the entire time, expecting to hear a crack or something from my body making contact on the iced over concrete. So you could imagine how surprised I was when I slowly opened my eyes to see a pair of jade green eyes look back at me. That wasn't the only thing I noticed, the person had light, golden blonde hair. And the accent.
"Oh my gosh! My apologies, I wasn't looking where I was going. Are you alright?"
I blinked. I was speechless. That guy sounded a lot like me. A lot like me when I actually speak to my parents in english...
"Uh, I-I'm sorry, you probably can't understand what I'm saying to you..."
I snapped out of my trance and shook my head. I can't believe I've made this guy feel bad for my own stupidity! "No, it's quite alright. I know what you're saying. Are you by any chance English?"
I startled him when he noticed that I spoke back to him in his tongue. A look of relief crossed his face as his cheeks turned pink. "I'm sorry that I assumed that you didn't know what I was saying. I do know a little bit of japanese, it's just a habit that I have since I'm not used to it... Oh and yes, I'm from the British Isles."
God, how I've missed hearing that accent. "Not a problem! I've lived here almost my whole life, so I know what you mean. Really? All the way from there?"
He looked a little confused. "All of your life? Then how can you speak english so well?"
I smiled. " I said almost because I moved here when I was four and I have an english class at school. But not like learning grammar and whatnot... Actually it is all of that but you also learn english phrases and the lot. So I still remember how, I haven't forgotten."
"Ah, I see. Are you from England as well?"
"Mhm, I'm a Purbeck native. Not as fancy as the Isles, but darn good close enough if I should say so myself."
We both laughed a little bit and he looked down on me. "So then, is it safe to ask you if you know where my school will be at?"
I nodded. "Perfectly safe. Or if I could be of any assistance. After all, I wouldn't want you to get lost, Japan can be a pretty scary place if that happens."
"And even more so with my limited knowledge of the language!"
"Precisely."
To my pleasant surprise, he was attending the same school that I was and I couldn't help but smile. "Hey, you and I go to the same school!"
He had the same look on his face. "Really? Well would you look at that! Lucky aren't we?"
I nodded in agreement. "I don't mean to sound stalkerish or anything, but which neighborhood do you reside in? If you can come out from the mouth of the entrance, then I'm positive you and I could walk each other over there until you've got the route memorized."
He laughed at my question and nodded. "I'd like that and I don't see it as stalkerish at all." he added with a playful grin.
"Then it's settled then. As of today, I, Miki Hiyama, am your personal escort to school."
He and I laughed a little more at my stupid attempt at a joke but stopped when I felt him lightly nudge my shoulder.
"Sorry, but the cold is starting to get to me. Do you know anywhere we could stay at and warm up a bit? Oh and the name is Leon, by the way."
"Sure, there's this little shop right around the corner from you. We could get something hot to drink before leaving home. And pleased to meet you, Leon."
With that in mind, we walked away from the park, away from Miku's and Kaito's speechless looks. Maybe it really isn't so bad after all, I should take more walks in the morning.
