Inferno

thirty three | the fate of us pt.1

Collecting my frozen tears and letting the hem of my coat sweep the snow, I find myself waking with no purpose. Not until I spot an isolated coffee shop with no visitors and barely any staff, seeming the perfect place to take my sorrows to. So I step in, take a reluctant seat at the bar and order myself a cappuccino that I don't really intend to drink if I'm to go by the roiling in my stomach. Head in hands, eyes burning, I think there possibly can't be a way for this turmoil to fix itself, when there's a pat on my shoulder. Shying away the first time, I bother with the second thump and find him on my side.

"Tough day, huh?"

"Tough is a small word. Unless it means losing everyone who matters the most to you, and having no one to blame even."

"I know that feeling," turning in his chair, he fakes one of those intellectual looks that always got a gag out of me and a splitting laughter next. "In fact I'm the king of having spoiled a beautiful life for an ego that said I couldn't have a problem, I'm Mitchel Gavin, star cricketer, almost valedictorian, and a piece of shit to sum it up.

Invincibility is a virtue that doesn't exist, but I learned the lesson a little too late. Don't make the same mistakes I made."

"What are you saying ?"

"That you can't ignore all the cracks just because everything looks great now. One day it'll inevitably break down and you will regret not doing anything earlier. It's hard to accept, but isn't that better than to watch the beautiful thing you have slowly turn to nothing?"

"This is about Chase, isn't it?" I look at him through a blurred gaze, his smile all the same, but the pain behind stuck like a bad memory.

"It's about you, Lei. I'm sorry I made you believe love comes at a cost, when actually all it needs is acceptance, a little of your heart and most of all, all of your happiness. That's all." The last of his words remain imprinted in my mind. drowsiness taking charge and then fading away as I realise I'd fallen asleep. The cappuccino in front doesn't look so bad now, hot and comforting like that split of a dream was.

What I do next is entirely instinct and not the best idea I've had, but it's what I need to do or regret won't ever leave and let me breathe without a hiccup. On the last step leading to his apartment, I find the door with 491 painted on the white surface open already, casting light out on the linoleum floor of the building passage. Running over, the sight welcoming me ironically isn't all that affable, but such I'm another poke away from letting my limbs turn to dust. "Chase," I slowly mutter, stumbling past all the shattered glass in the room and to him, sitting by a wall with eyes looking no where in particular. He records my presence, sidling the bottle full of pills away, blissfully unaware I'm seeing it all. "Can... can we talk?"

"Why, so you can tell me it wasn't what it looked like? I'm not stupid, Leia, I saw what I saw and I'm tired of proving you I'm good enough, alright. I've got nothing left now," he pulls out a bud lighter bottle from the side, it's contents full and spilling when he throws, the glass cracking  into a thousand little pieces on the rug down the table, staining it brown.

I flinch, scared even, all for him though. The way he's losing himself isn't a wonderful sight, never will be. "Chase, you are good enough for me. I don't know how to make you believe me, but you are," settling beside him, a cautious hand taking his, and noting how it's freezing, all I can think of is what's happened to him.

"No, I'm not," a bitter chuckle escapes him. "If I was, I wouldn't have to strive to win you over again and again and again. First you, then your old boyfriend, then this guy, it's always someone who almost gets me to get down to my knees and beg you to stay. Because I don't know what else to do," a glass this time, going flying to the wall on the other side and with it cutting a piece of my heart. Thankfully there's no more left beside him, but that's the only upside to everything right now. "What do I do, should I say I that I love you? Will that seal it? Will it?"