Author: Gaia
[Content Warning: Strong language, Emotional distress, Abusive relationships, Implied death]
She sends me a text.
*i fucked up pls come over*
My neighbour.
I exit my apartment and knock on her door. She opens right away.
We look at each other. Tears start flooding her eyes. I enter and close the door behind me.
‘Bitch you better be joking.’
‘Can you help me?’
‘Can’t do miracles!’
She starts sobbing. She grabs her cigarettes.
‘Why would you do that?’ I point at her.
‘I don’t know!’
She puts a cigarette between her lips and lights it.
Her hands tremble in the smoke.
‘Sit down, get your shit together. I got you.’
She does as is told.
‘It’s my fault.’
‘Yes, indeed.’
She hides her face in her hands. I hand her a glass of water so she stops tormenting her hair.
‘Look, I don’t give a fuck. Right? But there’s only one thing to do.’
‘No.’
She gets up and runs into the other room.
This is going to be hard.
I follow her.
She’s sitting on the couch, a cigarette in one hand, the glass in the other.
‘I can’t.’
‘You will.’
‘No.’
‘Well, then I will. For you.’
She doesn’t answer.
When I moved here, she left a note on my door.
*hi i’m your new neighbor, this is my number, call me whenever, can’t wait to get to know you! xoxo*.
We instantly became friends. She’s alright. She’s like me but younger. A bit taller. Different eye colors.
Once, we were lying on her couch, smoking cigarettes in the dark so that mosquitos couldn’t come inside. She told me a secret.
‘My ex-boyfriend once told me to shut the fuck up in the middle of a bad argument. Girl, they had to call the police. I broke every piece of motherfucking furniture in his house.’
‘Really?’
‘Hm-hm.’
‘You was that angry?’
‘Yes, but also, I think I wanted to tell him, like, it’s either talking or this. There is no way out, you know?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I don’t know why I don’t like to talk about that.’
‘People wouldn’t understand.’
‘Yeah. But it’s pretty logic, right? I mean what should have I done? Shut the fuck up?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I think you are amazing.’
And now, look at her. This bitch is not okay.
‘Talk to me.’
She looks at me in despair. She looks helpless, small, fragile.
‘What are you thinking of?’
She puts the glass on the ground and lets the cigarette fall into the water.
She takes my hands.
‘I am afraid that I am not good enough. But, still, I don’t think I deserve this. I am afraid…’
She starts sobbing again.
‘Look, I don’t know what to do, this is too much, I can’t… I can’t handle it anymore. I’m tired. You know what? I’m tired.’
Her face is wet, tears, mucus.
I grab the sleeve of my sweater and I gently clean it.
‘You know you can do anything, right?’
She doesn’t answer.
‘Remember who you are. Make a choice. Follow it.’
She stops sobbing.
‘You already made a choice. Right?’
She nods.
‘Good. Let’s go.’
I told her a secret, too.
It was outside, in the field, at night, under the Stars.
‘So, one night, just before the sunrise, I was walking home alone after a party, right? I was still a bit drunk and I was so tired, oh my god, so tired. So I stopped to catch my breath. I look at the sky in front of me. And guess what?’
‘What?’
‘You would never guess.’
‘What?!’
I turn towards her.
‘A meteor shower.’
‘No way!’
‘Girl.’
‘How was it?’
‘Beautiful, amazing.’
‘Yes, but like, how was it?’
I stopped to think about it a bit.
‘It was… It was shiny and broken, and all the pieces were drifting away but still, it was its own thing, going somewhere. And then it disappeared, like a caress.’
‘Wow.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why is this a secret?’
‘I don’t know. There was nobody there. I turned around to see if there was somebody. But I was alone. It was just me.’
‘Oh. I see.’
We have always understood each other, since the beginning, you know? And now too, I understand her.
So I begin.
I start it for her. Just to help her a little.
But then I let her finish. She has to do it anyway. There would be no point otherwise.
So she does it, and then it’s over.
And from now on,
nothing will ever be the same.