I stare at my own house, like I stare at museum exhibits,
Someone strikes and knocks at my door, relentlessly
While the mirror is almost just cracks, while I broke a glass,
I colored them with my own red, photos and scratched furniture
But this house tells my story, and the ones who were here before me,
My walls thin, even with my voice low, ears listen bellow,
No secrets, no lies, this house is full with sheets and knives,
A cross on the wall and music playing too loud, while the objects can't talk
With a fake smile, I open the door. Someone comes in and sees nothing at all.

Chapter 6: Almost too perfect

The first rays of the shining sun have entered in the room, but no, I wasn't on the couch, and not because this house it's not really my house, but because I wasn't able to sleep, and because it felt wrong to be calm, on my couch or on his bed.

Instead, I restlessly tried to catch a glimpse of air in the kitchen, and my sleep has been forgotten by my mind, but that doesn't mean that my eyes and my body have also forgotten about it.

The only food which I could find in his kitchen was coffee, and for the first time in my life, I felt that the black substance was all that I needed to live.

Even if I would've found food, it would seem futile for the feelings that are trying to break me in two, right now.

While sitting on the cold sandstone of the kitchen with a cup of coffee in my hands, two words have crossed through my tired mind for endless times: 'Useless' and 'Worthless'.

"No." I spoke to the silence in which this apartment is drowned with, but if someone could listen to my thoughts, that someone could understand, I try to ignore and deny all the thoughts that are in my head, that have tried to get my attention for hours.

Nevertheless, there was no one in this house but the silence, me and the cat that was sleeping on his bed, but I could swear that Felix does not sleep, if the entrance door would open, she would be there in less than a second.

On the other hand, maybe, my mind wished that the entrance door to be opened, and that the action would prove that Felix is also awake like me. And that she does not sleep peacefully on his bed, even if the sign that she sleeps on his bed and nowhere else in the house might mean that she realizes the situation.

After all, the truth is that after I was literally and practically down, with my back against the door of the entrance with Felix in my hands, with some good hours ago, the first thing at which I could think about after I picked myself up from the floor like a smashed plate was to call Celine, of course, it also hasn't been an easy mission to complete.

I didn't know her cell phone number or anything about her more than her name, so I thought about the fact that Sasuke owns a cell phone with the cell phone numbers of his friends in it, and that it felt just impossible after how close they looked like together, that the phone wouldn't have Celine's number in it.

So after I called her once, and then I received nothing more than pure and insupportable silence, the second time that I called her, she answered.

I explained the whole situation in the best way possible; I tried to sound calm so she can actually understand what I was saying, at how desperate I felt in that moment because I almost spend my whole night looking for the cell phone in the entire house, which was in the end, in the closet.

I just had to sit down for one moment, and to look for the cell phone in my mind, like the last time when I saw a cell phone, but before I calmed down enough to sit down, or before I convince myself, that I won't find it if I won't try any other way, but before that, some time has passed…

She promised that she will search for him in all the places in which she thinks that he will be, and also, she said that this isn't the first time he did this, she said this in a whisper, but I suspect that she did not want me to hear the whisper.

When I asked her about it, she refused to answer me and to put more wood in the fire, that he will answer my questions if he will want to tell me.

So here I am, but what annoys me the most is that the amount of tiredness can't even compare with the amount of uneasiness and maybe, a small, tiny amount of worry.

My thoughts have been a bit positive for a second, like: that maybe I am just making a big deal out of nothing, after all, if I wouldn't be here, then I wouldn't know about this, and he has lived all alone for a long time before. And if this isn't the first time then he has survived the last time without me just fine.

But those thoughts looked like a lie, and sadly, I could not believe in them.

When I thought that maybe he has left because of me, I've seriously gone mad. However, when I told Celine about it, she swore that she thinks for one hundred percent that this isn't my fault.

When I asked her the reason, she said that she just knew.

In the same time, my thoughts have driven on roads from my mind, which I named 'forbidden' by me.

I don't really know anything about the old man, not at all, but the fact that he was gone in a second, and his house had become mine, the fact that I've been abandoned, and every place where he stood, and each coat with his smell, and every single tiny thing in this house had been used by him, touched by him, and maybe even bought by him…

It hurt, again, the same old stab in my chest.

'I hate when people leave.' I thought, and I put the half-full cup of coffee beside me, on the sandstone.

I already know how alive a house can look when the person that lives is in it. But for example, when the person is not in it, you can see the signs that someone has been here, like the ashtrays that are everywhere, the clothes which are still hanged on the wire, on his balcony, and everything else.

Those things are dead because no one will touch them again, the action has been made, but has not been finished, and what is worse is that someone might put his nose into those things and for sure, I will have another outburst of anger again.

'Like the last time…' I thought and closed my eyes.

'I have to think clear.' I've suggested this to myself, but it feels useless 'cause I just can't think clear.

'To think about what?' It is yet another thought that made me open my eyes.

If this isn't the first time he did this, but the second or even the third time. Then we are so alike but so different. This is the third time when I have been abandoned, and this is the third time when he has abandoned.

I've smiled to myself.

'That's my luck for always finding people that have a habit for leaving, but never have a habit for staying.'

My smile has faded as my thoughts, and as I got up from the floor, I walked through the house, and even before I could make one step in the bathroom, I checked the cell phone for the tenth time, that has been in my jeans from the moment when I called her and when she told me that if she finds him or something, she will call me, but I had no missed calls or messages.

"I hate being left in the dark!" I spoke to the mirror or to my own reflection.

The first time when this happened to me, I also spoke alone, and I thought that I've gone crazy. The second time when I did it again, I didn't even commented anymore and this time, it feels quite comforting, to hear something in this silence, even if it's my own voice.

I've put my hands on the sides of the sink, and I looked at myself in the mirror. My eyes bloodshot and my whole face it's made of a frown.

I tried to smile, and I smiled just when I touched with my right hand something and when I looked what it is, I immediately recognized the familiar object.

"Ashtrays even in the bathroom, huh?"
I've asked someone, or something while I held the object in front of me, and then I looked at the mirror, my smile has spread on my face, a painful smile.

I've put the ashtray exactly as I found it, and I left from the bathroom, I didn't even wanted to take a shower, I didn't even intended to do something in the bathroom. I just entered, without a certain destination.

I sat on my couch that still had some sheets and a pillow on it, and I tried to fall asleep, but I couldn't.

Instead, I moved to the right and to the left, from an arm to another, embracing the pillow or trying not to touch it, and after not more than 2 minutes of struggling with everything that was on the couch and even the couch itself, I got up as if I would be burned.

In a way, I felt like I make everything worse than it is, like always, because after all, I confuse him with another.
But none of them has ever come back, so why would he be the only one who will?

'I guess that this scares me the most…' I thought silent, as if I hide this thought, from everybody, but without a tiny part of my mind, almost like someone else could read my thought. I hid my own thoughts from my own mind, but not well enough.

I sat down on his chair, at his desk and I stared at the computer that is asleep. I wanted to turn it on, but something stopped me, I am a curious person after all, but I wanted to read just what he wants me to read.

'This if he will ever have the chance to talk to me again.'

I got up and walked to the bookcase, and I looked at different types of books. I took one out and then another, as if I am searching for a particular book. The back of my mind already knowing the truth about my search, but I won't let that thought to come to light, not yet.

At the sixth or at the seventh book which I took out and then, I put it back, at the eighth, I found it. One small photograph which was between the last books.

The fact about having a stranger in your house is just one, no matter how crazy you are or how much you think you are when you welcome one in it with the door open is that, even if crazy, you will hide your precious things, memories, from the curious eyes of the stranger.

Even if it's a photograph, or a personal poem, maybe a letter, but no matter what it is, it's always hidden between the books of your bookcase or in an old or too new notebook, in your closet and sometimes, even in the bathroom.

But even so, I always found things like this, not because I was the one that wanted to be rude and nor did I started to look for things that should be hidden for my blue eyes, but I found them, always, just when the crazy person has left and when that dear crazy person will never come back.

When I've made the last cleaning in the house, or when I really do a search for those things like I've done now, it became an ordinary thing that has to be done after the same endless situation.

But this is the first time when I really did it while I believed that I will find it right in that place.

'He's a writer, the irony...'

However, the photograph it's ordinary, simple. It has made me smile so much that my cheeks have begun to protest, and inside of me, I already know how it might look on the outside, a small and hurt smile.

The photograph had caught a moment in time, a moment when a black haired boy with pale skin, holds in his arms a black cat, while the boy is smiling with the very small and young black cat, that's in his arms with a towel around her.

I've turned the photo to its white side, and I've found nothing wrote on it.

I've put the picture back to its place, as if he would come and yell at me for searching in his things, and I've even put the book exactly as it was before.

I've put the photograph back because I didn't need it anymore. It was in my mind. A moment caught in time.

While I looked at the wooden floor, and not in front of me, I thought until I've reached the bed, and I've collapsed on it.

'It was Sasuke when he was younger, with Felix in his arms, when she also was little.'

I've said the thought in my mind and somehow, I just didn't know what was wrong with me.
Because, maybe, he has hidden the photograph somewhere where he thought, that I won't see it, or that I won't search for it?

'No.' I thought while I put the blanket on me and also, while I disturbed Felix a little from her sleep.

What really bothers me, it's the reason. Why would someone hide a photograph like that? There was nothing wrong in that photograph; there was no one else in it, but him with Felix.

The room in which they were in that moment was this apartment, in the living room if I recall well.

And they seemed happy, Felix was there, and she didn't die, so what was the reason? Why to hide a photograph like that?

He wasn't very different than he is now, I mean, his hair is the same, even if it has grown a little now, he was still pale, of course, he was younger, but he wasn't ugly. He still isn't…

'So where's the problem?'

I've thought loud in my head, tired to think about it, too tired to find an answer.

So, I've embraced his pillow tighter and his scent has assaulted my nose, so I closed my eyes. Felix is right beside me, looking at me but also, she was about to sleep.

I embraced the pillow even tighter when I have intentionally begun to smell the pillow, and I just wanted to smell further.

I did not want to sleep, it felt wrong, but the pillow smelled just like him so it had begun to feel alright, as if he was here, in this moment, beside me.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I asked myself questions like: 'Why do you have to embrace his pillow? And do you want to smell it?'

Of course I tried to ignore them, because I already had the answer. I have gone insane after how many times people left me so now I am thinking about him like I did the last time.

I just confuse them, like the last person who has left; it's responsible for the others.

Like if that person comes back, and then the rest of them will also come back.

The logic is the reality. The rest won't, and even more, the last time I've put all my trust that the person will come back, that person never came back.

So from the moment when I saw him walking out the door, I already knew.

'I lost him.'

I realized that I opened my eyes just when I was too tired to keep them open, while I was looking at a point in the air that doesn't exist.

I closed my eyes, and I tried not to think of anything.

That is when, I finally fell asleep.

When I woke up, it was because Felix was singing at the door of the bedroom.

When I started to realize what was happening around me, the first thing I did was to look at the clock.
'Already 8 PM?'
I slept all day, and I am still feeling unable to leave the bed.

The cat, however, did not like my idea of still staying in the bed, so instead of singing to the closed door, like already knowing that she won't be able to say ' Open Sesame! ', she jumped back in the bed and came closer to me.

She was very close to my face, but I still refused to move.

One caterwaul or two she did, but at that point I already was about to close my eyes and just when I was about to close them, her delicate paw was on my face, along with her sharp nails.

Felix has scratched the right side of my nose and a bit of my cheek.

"Why did you do that?"

I was surprised more than upset, this has never happened to me before.

I just looked in her eyes, searching for a reason, for something, for guilt burning in her, but there was none. Instead, she still looks at me like she still blames me because I don't open her door.

So I just sigh, I got up from the bed, and I opened the door.

"Please pass your Majesty." I said quite ironical to Felix while she walked to the living room while I held the door for her.

Even so, when I walked to the living room, she was already on the couch, in a sleeping posture.

I've become extremely annoyed just in one second, by the fact that she could have done that in the bed, like before.

Just then, I spoke while I ruffled the hair from the back of my head, and I've begun to yell:

"You spoiled this cat too much! Sas…" and I stopped.

The cat was still awake, and she was looking at me with her wide opened eyes.

And my hand has fallen to my sides, and my eyes were wide open with shock.

'Have I really gone insane?'

I thought, but I didn't dare to move an inch.

It was like I forgot what has really happened, and that he was not here, it was just like I pretended that it was all a bad dream and now that I woke up, he is here in this room.

It has happened to speak with myself out loud before, but not to call out to the missing person. For a minute, I waited for an answer.

However, I have already trembled while I'm thinking that maybe, he is here.

"Idiot! Tell me you're not dead!"

I shouted to the silence, and to the poor ears of Felix's, that ignores me while she has regained her posture.

'I confuse him, I only...'

I thought while I tried to calm down.

I spent the rest of the night while I drank the entire coffee that was in the apartment with the phone beside me along with his picture and a book.

I tried to read a book, but I didn't even read the title.
I just needed to look at something, at anything, even if I really don't see anything, and at 4 AM in the morning, I shouted:
"Who the hell doesn't have a TV these days?"

I shouted, but all that I've done with my question was to wake up Felix, and in the back of my mind, I was almost one percent sure, I am insane.

I continued to read the book, even if I had no idea what it was about, like nothing has ever happened.

I've realized that I had fallen asleep, somewhere in the morning, on the couch.

Even if it took me some minutes to realize that I am on the couch, and that I fell asleep.

My sleep has been so deep that I felt like a stone that has reached the bottom of the river, just now.

And before I could open my tired eyes, the entrance door has been opened by someone.

I refused to open my eyes just because I thought that I should pretend that I sleep, until I realize who this is.

'A thief? A serial killer?' I thought silent in my head. As if the stranger could actually hear my thoughts if I would have said them in my mind a bit louder.

The steps were closer, and my breaths were shorter and shorter. Until when I've actually realized that the stranger is right beside the couch, actually, beside me.

The hand moved slowly, and when it touched my arm was for me to rise up from the couch and almost to shout while I held his stretched hand in place.

I opened my tired blue eyes to see, black eyes.

To be continued…

Yes, a few hours later but now it's here. I hope you liked it. Until next time.