She just chatted and talked about everything and anything.
“What has gotten into you?” I blurted out, interrupting whatever she was saying.”You’re so… different!”
“Well, I can trust you 100% now. I mean, I always had my doubts. I mean, you know what they say! Don’t say the vows until you are completely sure. And even though I feel bad about saying it, I have to say, I am so glad you passed!’
I was no closer to understanding what she was saying. Sometimes I felt like a girl just deserves someone to explain what the heck is happening! “What on earth are you even talking about, Miranda?” I asked her.
The curiosity I felt around Miranda was tinged with annoyance, even though the curiosity I felt around Zoey was pure intrigue. She was a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in the most chill and hottest girl I have ever run into.
No. Come on. Rachel. Focus. No more Zoey. It’s all about Miranda.
Who is it all about? Zoe-
No!
Not even my mind listens to me about the rational side of everything.
“Well,” Miranda started. “I know you met Zoey. The perfect girl. You know, you described your perfect girl as exactly like her when we first met. I mean, I know I didn’t 100% get that I was into girls at the time, but it still really hurt to know how you are. I mean, it’s so predictable. It’s just like every single girl and dumb guy's dream. But, it still hurt to know I didn't match up to your standards. I guess it wasn't standards, though because it was more-"
“MIRANDA!” I was quickly running out of any patience with my love. I was having an awful realization of just what she may have meant. It isn’t though! It can’t! “How do you know Zoey?”
"Well, I hired her of course," Miranda replied with a roll of her eyes. She huffed. “It was easy. I just gave her money and gave her a picture of you. She was to seduce you. Don’t worry, she told me everything. You didn’t have a single moment of weakness! I love you so very much.”
“You did WHAT?!”
Chapter 7
I looked into her eyes.
She looked into mine.
Chocolate brown clashed with bright blue.
Blue eyes slowly widen and her mouth opens and closes as if she has something to say.
“I can ex-” She began, trying to defend herself.
“Don’t say a single word.” I ground out. Angrier than I have ever been. She actually believes… She can make amends for this. For not believing in us in any way?
Every moment of looking into her deep blue eyes broke something in me. Made a monster come out. Twisting something inside me and shattering it into a new form. Ruining something I used to love inside me.
I gave up a real chance at happiness.
But no… that chance was never real.
A manipulation by someone I thought loved me for me.
There was no way to fix any of this. “I never want to see you again!” I snarled, taking my suitcases and walking to Joanne and Sarah’s house. They would let me stay there. At least until I got my own house.
Honestly, It sort of hurt that she didn’t even try to fight for me.
The thought made the knife in my chest twist just a little bit more. Am I not good enough to fight for? I’m clearly not good enough to trust… but I am sure I am not quite that awful.
But on the other hand, I don’t think I could ever truly forgive her for that.
I came back to get my stuff only when I was sure she was gone and she wouldn’t be back for quite some time.
Call me a coward if you want, but I cannot help myself. She is the first real love of my life and it killed me inside to be apart from her.
I packed up all the things that were mine. When the house was stripped bare of my belongings, I sighed, walking throughout the house.
The walls were missing the art pieces that we picked up. I remember when we got them. We had first started dating years ago.
We found our walls too bare to bear, and our pockets not nearly deep enough, and so we went to the flea market.
Times were so much easier then.
She would laugh at my silliness as I danced around the booths and picked out whatever suited my fancy at the time. I would do anything to make her laugh. Even make an idiot out of myself.
With every step I took, I felt my heart get heavier and heavier. My limbs struggled to keep up with me as I gasped for breath.
I nearly collapsed onto the old couch. I almost smiled. It was a disgusting camouflage patterned brown abomination that clashed with the rest of the house. But it was comfortable and that was all that mattered to us.
So many good memories were made on that couch. The springs were worn from years of damage and it was covered in stains.
It was where we would have our date - nights, watching bad movies until the break of dawn.
The TV that we used to watch. I shoulda known we were not an actual true love couple by that. All other couples in romantic comedies were too in tune with each other to really pay attention to the television.
For us, though, it was where we would live our lives.
I had to leave!
Staying in that house was too much for me. I couldn’t breathe anymore; my vision being blurred from salty tears.
And so I did the most cowardly and infinitely pathetic thing I could have done.
I called up Sarah and Joanne to come take me home as I bawled.
Joanne had to pick me up like a little child and carry me crying into my new room. I can never show her enough gratitude for doing it without a single mocking thought.
Chapter 8
I did get the promotion I was hoping for before all this started. It feels so long ago when it wasn't even a full year left. It took a few more months. I can work from anywhere now.
If I was still with her I’d have never actually gotten it. I would have had a reason to do other things, to be with the one I love. Since the… the incident… I threw myself into my work.
If my mind is filled with numbers, I cannot hurt.
If I am too busy, my mind will win over my heart. And though the wound in my heart will fester, I shall not feel it do so.
If my soul is consumed by mathematical formulas, it cannot be consumed with a tidal wave of emotion that will slowly push me under, till I am stuck in a typhoon that will never allow me any escape or freedom.
If I feel nothing, I cannot feel pain.
It does not work that way, is what I eventually did learn.
I lost my true love and my fiancée. NO! I mean I lost my true love and my fiancée. The comma infers two people.
Miranda is the one I miss.
Why is it I still can't bring myself to really believe that?
My mind is consumed with memories of her.
Of messy blonde hair and glittery eyes. Two eyes which are fascinatingly different, yet the color doesn’t matter. One could drown in the warmth and kindness in that soul.
The lighthearted tone felt could bring a man of stone to melt into a pile of goo.
And what is a girl to do?
N…No… I meant iridescent blue eyes and striking crimson locks that-
Memories of Miranda and I at the flea market morphed into memories of Zoey and I surfing the waves.
Memories of bad movie nights were replaced by a blonde haired angel and me people-watching and making up stories for what their lives would be.
The feeling of my first kiss with a girl, how it felt more right than anyone before, were blown away. Overtaken with memories of an electrified current that made my heart beat way too loud in my ears, my stomach clench and butterflies flutter all over.
Pink chapped lips were replaced by the softest ruby red lips anyone had ever had the honor of tasting.
Fine. I admit it.
At least to myself.
I cannot lie to myself.
The one I truly miss… is Zoey.
Realizing this hits me with another tidal wave of emotion that I don't have the time, nor
the patience to explore fully. How does a normal human process so many conflicting thoughts and emotions?
It is impossible.
Against the laws of nature, impossible.
Against the natural law of the world.
To love so much, so hard, and so fast.
That isn't how love is supposed to be. A tide that slowly recedes until you feel safe wading into the water. The second you are in deep enough, it crashes into you. Your lungs fill with the emotion so much that you cannot breathe and you try and escape, but it just pushes you even further under.
Then… it spits you out. But it doesn’t really. It’s changed you forever and it would never truly leave, but parts just left… leaving an emptiness that you had never noticed before it happened.
An aching, soul-crushing emptiness that can only be fixed by the person who caused it in the first place.
Passion so fiery that it left my flesh scarred when it was done with.
Forgetting it…
I don’t even think I physically can do it.
But… I must.
I have to.
Chapter 9
Joanne sometimes says things that hit just… too close to home. She looked me in the eye after Sarah asked me to come back to the vacation. It cut me deep.
Sarah came to my room. I was planning on going on that vacation around the world. Exploring all it has to offer me.
Sarah and Joanne said they wouldn’t mind coming along. That I was someone who needed the company. I couldn’t truly be happy if I was to be alone.
They both care about me so much, and I can’t even imagine where I would be without their love and support. They were more like parents to me than my real parents were.
I’ll tell the truth, they might have been right about my need for companionship. I don’t do well on my own. I’m always busy, always finding a new thing to occupy my time and my mind.
“Raa-chel.” Sarah sang as she flung herself into my bed after bursting through my bedroom door, seemingly randomly. She throws herself around so much that if she were not twig thin and shorter than any grown woman ought to be, she would destroy everything around her.
“Yes, Sarah?” I questioned as I looked up. I was making a list of places we have to go and trying to rearrange them in order of when-
Why is Australia on that list?!
I didn’t want to go to Australia.
Australia is where-
Australia is now off the list and I am not thinking about it anymore.
Quickly deleting it as I listened to Sarah babble, about something or other. Can anyone believe it? It has been a year, and still, that awful woman whose every word to me was naught but a fib made to ensnare my senses still plagues my every thought.
And I’m still thinking in poetry. Greeat.
“What do you think?” She questioned me, looking expectantly at me.
“About what?” I was lost. It occurs to me that I have gotten into a bad habit of doing this a lot.
“Come back to California with us. And then we can start on the world tour!” She declared.
I stiffened, before forcing myself to relax. Zoey most likely won’t be there. Miranda hired her. She wasn’t even… real.
I nodded tersely. "Okay, let me pack," I told her as I tried to ignore the voice in the back of my head. Telling me that I was being unreasonable. Maybe, Zoey actually loved me? It is entirely possible. Sarah says I am more lovable than “the world’s fluffiest kitten”.
Joanne was staring at me as she thought. “I just have one question for you,” Her voice was like a whisper, but that may have just been my imagination. “When you take away all your gadgets, all your shows, all your math… when you spend time by yourself, and yourself alone… do you truly like the company you are keeping? Are you distracting yourself from the world… or from yourself?”
The question was harsh, and it froze me in my tracks. The look on Joanne's face, though, that shattered my heart in a way that neither Zoey nor Miranda could get to. The concern and hurt of a friend who knew that someone she cared about wasn’t making the best choices for herself.
“No,” I whispered, hands shaking. My eyes blurred with tears that I refused to let fall. The word fell from my lips with a choked noise, a pained taboo. I didn’t love the person I was, and I don’t know how to change that. So, I distract myself. Maybe that’s what all of this was, one huge distraction. Miranda… Zoey… romance.
“Focus on that, then. Not your love life, not your future…” She looked at me, and I felt naked for once. As if she could see into my bare soul. “You need to fix your perception of yourself. Because you are much more than you give yourself credit for.”
My heart swelled, and I felt more care for my friend than I even knew what to do with. She knew exactly what to say to make me feel like the whole world is on my side.
I threw my arms around her, burying my face in her shoulder as I began to sob.
She shushed me. Trying to calm me down.
Less than a week later, we were off to California once again. This time, with a new mission on my mind.
I will find myself. The person I am beneath everything I use to distance myself from her and figure out who I want to be. Figure out how to like her.
That was probably why it took so long for me to first see her. Because I didn’t go to the bar. I walked along the beach and watched the sunset. I finally understand the romanticism of moments like this.
I feel at peace, and I could heal finally. I don’t think that I really ever loved Zoey. I loved the idea of Zoey. Her freedom and peace with who she is. Her calm, cool disposition.
Of course, I was proven wrong the second my brown eyes met a pair of mismatched, shining eyes on the coast of the beach. She was offering surfboard courses.
Abruptly, I came to multiple realizations. They didn’t happen simultaneously, but the few seconds between each one felt like an eternity and no time all at once.
So Miranda wasn’t lying. Neither was Zoey. Zoey is a native.
What else was Zoey telling the truth about? I spent a year assuming everything was a lie. But what was the truth?
I shoulda seen this coming. Why would I have assumed that the ‘Would you like to learn how to surf?’ was her form of getting me on a date? Obviously, she asks everyone.
Absence does make the heart grow fonder.
I was lying to myself when I said I didn’t love her.
My final abrupt realization was that she was walking over to me. And so I did the only sensible thing a girl in my position could do. I high-tailed it the other direction in order to escape this madness.
I might have gone crazy had I listened when she started talking.
Her lips formed my name. It was a pained whimper. Her voice breathlessly begging. ‘Please,’ the tone seemed to cry, ‘Listen to me. I need to speak to you…’
“No.” It was harsher than I intended, motivated by my need to leave.
"You seem spooked. Did you see another scary bug?!" Sarah yelled when she saw me push the door open too hard it banged into the wall, throwing myself onto the couch, and covering myself with the blankets.
“Bugs are the thing you are scared of.” Drawled Joanne. "Rachel is much more sensible than that."
For a second there, I thought Joanne might actually be on my side. I was, of course, proven wrong by the smirk that slowly crawled its way onto her face.
“Rachel is only afraid of her own feelings!” Joanne purred, always ready for some good romance and gossip about someone else’s love life. Joanne is sometimes, just the worst person I know. She knows it too. That’s the worst part. “So, what did she sa-ay?”
“She said nothing.” I tersely replied, my teeth grinding as my fists clenched on the blanket. “These blankets are too soft, Sarah. I hate them!”
"There is no such thing as too soft," Sarah replied, her hand on her hip and her nose in the air. Let me tell you, it is really weird when a 4”8 little sugar-n-spice girl, wearing a
shirt covered in glitter, looks down her nose at you. “And the only thing you’re really mad at right now is yourself. Don’t knock my perfectly stupendous décor.”
Joanne’s lips curled up in an amused smirk. She just loved her tiny girlfriend so much. I wish someone loved me that much.
“Just talk to her.” Joanne tried to convince me. Sometimes, she forgot that I cannot be reasoned with. “You can’t be mad at her forever.”
“Watch me!” I shouted, digging my heel into the ground, like a petulant child.
Joanne sighed. “It’s not gonna work.” She called out to me.
I could practically hear her rolling her eyes to the ceiling. “I have purple hair, and still I’m the most sensible person I know.”
I responded like any rational adult woman would.
I stomped into my room and slammed the door shut… more like a petulant teenager this time.
Chapter 10
Have I ever said how much I hate when Joanne is right? Because I really do. Every single time she is right I only get angrier and angrier.
Especially because it is all the time.
Can’t she be wrong just this once?
After multiple attempts by my friends to get me to talk to her, all it took to stop me in my tracks was a mere glance at her sad eyes.
She called out to me and when I stopped and looked backward, I was done for. I don't think any human being can say no to those pools of regret and sadness. She shouldn't look like that. She should be what she was when we first met, a beacon of hope and light and beauty.
“What do you want?” The reply may have been a touch biting, but I can’t just let her back into my life.
She had lied and stolen my heart, all for a stupid job. We shared our hopes and dreams and how we felt about the future and the past. To learn it was all a lie cut me deep.
I was just barely getting better from all of that. She couldn’t just spring this on me in the last second. It would destroy me.
She looked hurt and she seemed to gulp. “I… I just want to talk.” She sounded pitiful. “Explain a few things to you.”
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