by Amanda Day
Diary of a Resurrection
By Amanda Day
All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2013 Amanda Day
No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the Author.
www.waffler-scribbles.blogspot.co.uk
Diary of a Resurrection
Six Months Ago…
Your Voice….
Five Months Ago….
It was You….
My Hand in Yours….
Pandora…
No More I Love Yous…
If I’d Known…..
Four Months Ago…
Is It Just Me?…
The Weight of Silence…
You Are You And I Am Me… But We Are Not A We…
The Beginning Of The End…
Three Months Ago…
The Bottom Of Hell…
The First Rung Of The Ladder…
Two Months Ago…
White Ink On A Black Page…
The Letter You Should Never Have Sent…
Splashes of Colour…
One Month Ago…
The Places You Used To Belong…
Today…
You Look An Awful Lot Like Hope…
Return Of The Future…
I saw you today. You were in the indoor market, looking at cakes, and you were with her. Your arm, which used to belong around my waist, was around her shoulders. You said something to her, right up close to her ear, and she threw her head back to laugh. I watched her blonde hair swish over her shoulders and across the skin on your forearm. The same skin that I used to run my fingertips across. You made her pretty skin flush. Your blue eyes sparkled and I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
I was better though, better than before. Better than when I thought life without you meant nothing. Better than when I thought I would never feel like myself again. Because I do. Finally.
This is the story of how I fell in love with you. How it destroyed me. And how, when I had lost all hope, I came back.
This is our story.
Six Months Ago…
Your Voice….
The first time I heard your voice I felt my skin flush. It made my cheeks rise and redden. It even made me start to sweat. It was ridiculous; I didn’t even know you. I’d never seen you. My body reacted of its own accord, without any sort of useful supporting information. It was weird and confusing, and nice.
I was at work, taking the calls to Pizza Planet. Writing down the orders whilst daydreaming about something else was practically my speciality. Until you called and something about your voice snapped me to the here and now. It wasn’t deep or soft, or any of those other corny clichés. It was just normal. You had an accent; a smile in your voice. I liked it instantly. I liked you instantly.
You talked to me about nothing in particular, the pizza, what I recommended, my day, your night. You laughed and it made everything inside my torso contract. That had never happened before. I was sorry to hang up once you were gone. But life goes on.
You called again the next night. Then again a few nights later. Every time you called, you said more and I wanted to hear you more. I joked you must really like pizza. You said it was ‘something like that’. I thought you meant talking to me. I hoped you meant me.
Soon you did call just for me. You waited until after one am when the phones were quieter and you knew I would be sitting there, waiting for something to do, an order to place, until my shift finished at three am. We talked about films, music, hopes, dreams, our families and our lives. Eventually you asked why I did it, why I worked at Pizza Planet of all the jobs. I said I had to get through college somehow. That I was a night person; I didn’t need much sleep. You said you were a day person and you liked to sleep in. I should have known. I should have known then that although we had so much in common that we could talk night after night for hours and still want more, we were also very different. So different we could only be a disaster.
You know that saying, always listen to your heart? Well I did, and look where it got me.
Five Months Ago….
It was You….
It was a Tuesday night, 1.30am. Or Wednesday morning I suppose, depending on how you look at it. Nothing exciting was happening. I was perched on my stool at work, doodling on my pad, occasionally glancing at the phone, hoping it would ring and I would hear your voice, when a rap knocked on the front window and I jumped, nearly right off my stool. When I looked up I knew it was you. I just knew it. The way your blue eyes looked at me like we were already connected. Your smile was exactly as I’d imagined; sweet, cocky and beautiful. Like you. You grinned and I cringed; my uniform is hardly a turn-on. No one looks good in a bright yellow and blue striped shirt. You crooked your finger to beckon me outside, and like a puppet already connected to your strings I danced at your whim.
“Surprise, Mina.” You grinned and it did something to my soul. It changed it. I was instantly yours.
I looked at your face and I just knew you were a one off, like lightning in a storm landing at my feet. I felt it in my bones.
“I can’t believe you came here,” I said, not sure what else to say but trying to seem unflustered. Just standing near you filled my brain with cotton wool. The air around you was intoxicating. You ran a hand through your short dark hair and laughed. I’d heard it many times on the phone, but it was so much better in real life. You shrugged with a shy half grin on your face and said nothing. I looked at you properly in the yellow Pizza Planet light that shone sickly behind me, drinking you in. I’d imagined us meeting one hundred times over the month we’d talked and there you were, so much better than I hoped, not that I would ever have given you the satisfaction of knowing it. You just stood there with your hands thrust into your jean pockets. When you moved, your leather jacket creaked, breaking the silence. I wished it had been different. I wished it could have been somewhere else. I wished I looked prettier. I wanted you to like me.
“I thought we could take a walk,” you said.
I wanted to go more than anything.
“I can’t. I still have some of my shift left,” I replied. You knew it too.
“So pretend you’re ill.” That grin of yours came again and I almost agreed.
I shook my head. “I can’t, I need the money.” It was true, but I would have blown it off for you. I just didn’t want you to know that. Not so soon.
I watched you look at me, really look at me. You scrutinised my face and then slowly my body. Up and down, unashamed and open. Then you shrugged.
“I’ll wait.”
It was the longest shift of my life.
My Hand in Yours….
Finally work ended. I brushed my hair, put on some lip gloss, and hoped it would be enough.
At five minutes past three am, I walked into the Pizza Planet car-park and found you sitting there, propped against a sleek black motorbike, tapping at your phone. Typical, I thought. Hot and cool. Which you definitely turned out to be, just not in the way I thought.
“Nice bike,” I said. “You never mentioned that you rode.”
You smiled. “You never said how good you looked in yellow and blue, so we’re probably even.”
I blushed, glad it was dark. You stood up and held a hand out to me.
“Shall we?”
I looked at it a moment, then reached out and took it. Your fingers wrapped around mine tight, holding on like we had been together for years. I was surprised because my hand fitted there perfectly and it felt right to be against your warm skin.
We walked to the park, the path lit gently by the moon. It was still sticky warm with barely
a breeze, but I had goose-bumps and, despite one being wrapped so tight in yours, my hands were cold and clammy. My heart thundered in my chest and I was afraid you would notice.
“Am I what you imagined?” you asked as we walked.
I kept stealing glances at you and maybe you had noticed.
I pretended to think on it a minute, then shook my head. “No. Not at all.” You were so much better.
You grinned; the moonlight glinted on your teeth and eyes making you look a little manic.
“What did you expect?” you asked, maybe fishing for compliments.
I shrugged and played for time. I didn’t want to appease your ego, which I knew you had the second I saw you. On the phone you had been sweet and interested. Asking me about my family and the things I did or liked. Always remembering little things I said and bringing them up again another time. In person you were something else. When I saw you, leaning against your bike, you looked like someone starring in a movie about their life. Like you believed it was a movie everyone would want to see. You smirked often; I mean who smirks apart from smug people? And your grin had an edge that seemed well practiced and like it always won you your own way. You walked with a cocky swagger; broad, long strides, controlling of the air around you. And your clothes. No one wears all black with a leather jacket, and rides a bike like that, unless they think they’re hot. And you were. I just didn’t want to say it.
“You’re paler than I thought,” was all I let you have.
You threw your head back and laughed as if I were ridiculous. “Paler?”
I shrugged. “What about me?”
You tugged on my hand. “You’re shorter than I expected.” Then you did that grin, the one that said, two can play at this game.
I let it slide, not asking any more. Not probing. I didn’t want to seem desperate for your assessment of me, but I wanted to know so badly.
Then you stopped by the gate and pulled me to lean against the wooden barrier. You snaked an arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. I could have stopped you; we barely knew each other unless you counted about thirty one-hour telephone calls. But I never. I let you pull me to your side, tucked against your jacket. I let you because the moment you extended your arm I wanted to crawl inside and curl up there. For whatever reason that I don’t understand, and may never, I felt like I belonged there. Next to you.
“You’re much prettier than I expected,” you said.
I wasn’t sure if it was actually meant to be a compliment and squinted up at you, my face somewhere between shock and outrage.
You looked down at me and roared with laughter at my expression, pulling me even tighter as you did.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” you spluttered, struggling to speak.
I pushed you away lightly. “You’re a dick.” But I couldn’t help smiling.
This time you grabbed my waist and picked me up, sitting me on the gate.
“I meant,” you said, your face serious, “that I knew you were going to be pretty, but I wasn’t prepared for you to be this pretty.”
I had nothing to say to that. I just looked at you, taking in the stranger you were, but feeling like I had known you a thousand years at the same time.
You stroked a piece of stray hair away from my face as if it was the most normal thing to do in the world and said, “I’ve never had this before. Wanting to meet someone just because I spoke to them on the phone. But I’m not mad, am I? We have something, right?”
Yours eyes were somewhere between sincere and worried, with maybe the tiniest hint of being lost. I felt like I needed to say something to help you feel found. I wanted to reassure you.
I nodded. “I think so.”
You smiled and pulled me in close, holding me against your chest. I questioned myself whether it was normal to accept such intimate gestures despite not really knowing you. For all I knew, you could have been a stalker or a murderer. But I couldn’t deny you were right, there was something there. It was there the second I heard your voice for the first time. So I let you hold me tight and said nothing else.
Pandora…
This is one of the hard parts to tell. This is the part when I cringe as I explain it because I know that this was the day I should have gotten up and walked away, and not looked back. If I had been smart enough to do that, it would have saved me so much time and heartache.
But I didn’t.
Mea culpa.
We were sitting on the grass in the park on a Tuesday afternoon. You had taken the day off work and I had skipped college for you. It was three weeks after the day you first showed up at my work, and the twelfth time that we had met. Each time I saw you, you held my hand and kept me close. We laughed and talked. We argued over your poor taste in music and my awesome taste in movies. We drank coffees and walked for miles. We met before you went to work and after I finished my shifts at Pizza Planet. Sometimes between. It was addictive, time spent with you. We never did more than cuddle or hold hands. I wanted you to kiss me so badly, but never had the courage to make the first move. I wasn’t entirely sure how you felt about me because you never said. You were sweet and interested and affectionate, but you never made it clear what we were. I tried to read your body, your words, over and over for a hint of a clue, but it got me nowhere.
I, however, was in serious trouble. I was falling for you, and I was falling horribly fast. Like someone had thrown me out of a plane without a parachute and I was tumbling towards the earth at five hundred miles an hour. I didn’t know how to stop myself; and even if I did, I can’t say I would have tried.
We were sitting on the grass, sharing a bag of popcorn and some orange juice, you were asking me about college.
“Sometimes I wonder if I missed out,” you said. “I’m not really into education, but I don’t want a shit job.”
I threw popcorn at your pretty face. A piece stuck to your hair and I reached over to take it out. “It’s never too late to go back, Drew.”
You shook your head. “Nah. I’ve chosen my path now. When I make up my mind about something, I can be pretty stubborn about changing it again.”
I lay back on the grass. Instinctively, or so it seemed, you mirrored me and offered an arm to lie in. I snuggled up close, relishing your t-shirt against my thin dress, and letting the sun warm my legs. Our shoes sat next to us, discarded on the grass, and I wiggled my toes in the summer breeze.
“Being an apprentice is just as good as being in college. You’re going to get a skill and a good career at the end, so it’s just as valid,” I said. “Being a mechanic is something you can do all over the world. It’s always going to be needed.”
You rolled over so our noses were almost touching.
“I’m not going to be just a mechanic.”
“No?”
You rubbed your nose against mine like an eskimo. My heart skipped a beat.
“Nope.”
“What are you going to be?” I asked, trying to ignore the fact my heart was practically in my throat, choking me.
“I’m going to open a chain of garages and work on supercars. Maybe even racing cars, I don’t know yet. Either way I am going to be very successful.”
I giggled. “Good luck with that then, petrol-head.”
You started to tickle me and soon I was wriggling around trying to escape your grasp, but not really wanting to back away. Before I knew it, you had me pinned and was smiling down at me, sitting across my lap. The sun was behind you and I wished I had a camera because yet again you managed to look like a film star. A beautiful film star. Not for the first time I wondered why you were bothering with me. I’m not saying I am completely horrendous; I’m not. But next to you sometimes I felt like a troll that belonged under a bridge. You were so handsome and cool. Always calm and unflappable. Intelligent and funny. You had it all. I didn’t understand what you thought I could bring to the table. I suppose part of me always knew eventually you’d realise it too.
Then you leaned down and the sun sho
ne into my eyes, blinding me. I squeezed them tight, about to protest, when I felt your lips brush mine. It was soft and light. My words died in my chest and I froze; a rabbit in the headlights. If my heart had been in my throat before, it practically jumped into my brain at your kiss.
Then you sat back, pulled me up to sit, wrapped one arm around my waist, wound your other hand into my hair, and kissed me again. Deeper. Harder. Gentle, but urgent, and I swear for ten seconds straight I couldn’t breathe. I wrapped my arms around you and pulled you even closer, trying to absorb every tiny atom of you and your kiss.
It pisses me off now that it was the best kiss of my life.
After, we lay back down, me back in the crook of your arm, and you said, “So I know you’re studying art, but what do you want to actually do?”
“Do?” I questioned, frowning at the clear blue sky. “I don’t want to do anything. I want to be.”
You looked down at me and half smiled, your ocean blue eyes searching my face.
“OK, Miss Mina. Beautiful girl. Amazing Kisser.”
I blushed.
“Who,” you continued, “do you want to be?”
I huffed out dramatically. “That’s a big question. It also has a big answer which is multi levelled you know.”
You laughed and trailed a finger absently down the bare skin of my arm. It distracted me for a second and I lost my thought.
“Well?” you prompted.
“Oh. Well. I want to be free. I never want to stay still or become someone only worried about cleaning her house or paying her bills. I never want to be a corporate person. I want to be the girl that travels and sees the world with all of the colour it has to offer. I want to make art from colours and tastes and feelings of the places I go. I want to always be learning and evolving. I want to be clever and wise, but reckless and spontaneous. I want to walk places barefoot and not care what people think. I want to dance in the rain and grow old having fun every day. And eventually, when I am probably like one hundred years old, I don’t want to die in a hospital bed with everyone around me crying, I want to fade to dust and blow away on the wind to somewhere new. Maybe to be someone new.”