An Imperfect Perfectionist
Chapter Seven
~.~
Thanks for the reviews, everyone! They mean mucho to me for this one.
Aaand, I don't remember who my other Jack's Mannequin fan was out there, but here's some more lyrics for ya :)
~.~
I'm finally numb, so please
Don't get me rescued...
I'll be strong, but whatever you do
Please don't get me rescued...
'Cause I'm feeling like
I might need to be near you
And I feel alright, so please
Don't get me rescued
-Rescued, Jack's Mannequin
~.~
The second the door slammed shut, Monica collapsed onto her bed, crying. Silent tears unaccompanied by sobs that shook her entire body, ones that she couldn't stop once they started. She reached for her pillow, throwing it as hard as she could across the room in frustration, knocking a picture frame off of her dresser in the process. She then balled up her fists, punching her mattress over and over, attempting to take her anger and frustration out on it, but getting nowhere. She then kicked her bedspread off of her bed to the floor, clinging to the sheet beneath it for her life as she began sobbing, almost hyperventilating, to the point that her chest hurt when she breathed, her head pounding with every attempted breath.
And then, after an amount of time that she couldn't be sure if it had been five minutes or fifty minutes, she stopped. She sat up, wiping the few remaining tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand as she tried to return her breathing to normal. And when she was done throwing the biggest temper tantrum she'd thrown since she was about three-years-old, she found a moment of clarity.
Chandler was right.
She had always been incredibly passionate about everything. And she missed it. She missed hanging out with her friends. She missed cooking. She missed laughing. She missed caring.
She missed living.
If she continued down this path in life, she was going to die. It was a fact. She knew it as well as anyone else knew it. So, she could either passively accept dying, or…
She could actively decide to live.
Standing up, she decided to momentarily ignore the mess she'd just made in her room, heading over to Chandler and Joey's. Opening the door, she noted that Chandler's bedroom door was closed and headed straight for it, not even knocking before opening it. What she saw made her own tears well up again in her eyes.
He was crying. He was laying on his bed, face in his pillow, crying. When the door opened, he jumped, moving to a sitting position, and was relieved to find it was Monica on the other side, eyes still red from crying herself. As Chandler stood up, Monica took a couple of steps closer as well.
Nodding her head, she smiled. A real, genuine smile, and, god, did Chandler miss her smile. It had been so long since he'd seen her smile, but when she did, he could almost see the real Monica inside of the empty shell of a person she had become.
"Okay," she finally meekly choked out, and Chandler immediately wrapped his arms around her in relief, holding her as tightly as possible, afraid that if he were to let go, she might change her mind, and he would again lose this small glimpse of the real Monica he'd been waiting so long to see.