Diary of an Insomniac

23 April
I glance at the clock on my bed side table, 6:57am, and wonder for the millionth time why I even bother setting the alarm when I always wake a few minutes before it is supposed to go off.

Sitting in the staff kitchen, sipping the remainders of my vanilla iced coffee and picking at what's left of my croissant, I stare out the window, at the morning traffic. I smile, glad to be here, bored, rather than sitting bumper to bumper out there in the blistering heat.The restaurant is deserted.I sit, blocking out all the noise around me and daydream. If I could make a career out of daydreaming I’d be a billionaire by now. The thing about me is that I don't have any real career goals or aspirations to speak of, though in my dreams I’m a successful person, never living the same day twice, brilliant at everything I do, which ranges from being an international superstar (singing being my talent of choice) to an air hostess.
In reality, I’m a waitress. I serve tender grilled octopus and rooster pasta six days a week at a Greek inspired restaurant in Brooklyn.I make $3.90 an hour so I rely heavily on my ability to fake a friendly smile in order to make reasonable tips. I don’t love my job.
Mostly; I dream of love.Ever since high school I’d been either in love, on the verge of being in love, or heartbroken. I was tired. And now I had gotten used to being on my own.And while I was waiting for my happy ending, I found beautiful solace in dreaming.

24 April
Number 40 Lenox Avenue has been my home for almost three years. East Orange is not the grandest of locations but it’s affordable, it’s comfortable, it's home. Connla and I moved in together after high school. We were eager to satisfy our craving for independence as soon as possible.It wasn’t much when we first moved in but over the years we’ve managed to create something quite special.
The hardwood floor and Spanish tiled bathroom are our most prized characteristics and our little garden paradise has accommodated us on many a summers evening, relaxing after a particularly laborious day with a glass or two, or three of the cheapest wine and a box of cigarettes.
My bedroom is hot pink. Hot pink, the mood I was in on that cloudless day in November. Before the cold came in. When Connla and I were painting each room and I decided I didn’t want to have another tired, almost-colour, only slightly differing from my room back home and my heart leapt at the sight of this luminousness before me, I shouted a categorical yes! And it was mine.
I was unwavering in my decision to keep the décor to an absolute minimum, despite Connla’s urging me to spruce it up. I bought a couple of lilac lamp shades for the two bed side tables and a single stainless steel photo frame for my parents’ wedding picture. It is the thing I would run to save if ever there was a fire.I also purchased a second hand dark wood shelf, for all my books, of which there were many. All unread. My closet was in keeping with my minimalist approach, accidentally. It wasn’t at all too small; I just had much less clothing than your average 24 year old.

27 April
Sitting in nothing but an old shirt, sipping red wine and watching an old romance the doorbell rings. It’s 10:01 on a Saturday night.I dash into my bedroom, throw some pants on and head for the door. I open the door.
My lips part. The bottom one hits the floor. I shut the door, I am hallucinating.
I open it again. Is this some kind of lugubrious joke. Words are swirling around inside my mouth but nothing finds its way out. I reach out. I touch him. He’s solid. I start to cry, hysterically.
He reaches out, takes my hand and pulls me close to him. As we stand in the hallway he strokes my hair while I weep. How can this be?
I said goodbye to Jake over 3 years ago. I still remember exactly where I was, what I was wearing and how I felt. It’s so easy for me to go there, even after all this time.
Still thinking I must be going insane I pull away. He’s still there. He’s still the same.
His head's still shaved.
He’s wearing tight denims and a well fitted hoodie, grey.
He looks like an angel. Is he an angel?
Am I dead too?
I was rendered still.

28 April
I open my eyes. I rub them and realize they're still wet, from tears?
It was a dream.This isn't the first time he's visited me in my sleep.
A few days after the accident I had the most vivid dream. He was so beautiful. My eyes start to water. You’d think that after 3 years the memory wouldn't still cut like it happened yesterday.
But it does.
We were dancing in the air, in a great ballroom. I remember every detail. I held onto every detail as tightly as I could. It was an old fashioned fairy tale scene, complete with the proper ballroom attire and great crystal chandelier. I used to think it was his way of saying goodbye.

06:59. I lie, staring up at the ceiling. Remembering, feelings surfacing that I’d suppressed for such a long time.

1 May
I’m standing in front of my full length mirror. I still look the same. Maybe my hair's a little longer. And lighter. I have blonde streaks now. I think of changing back to black.
I throw on my favourite Beatles t shirt and a pair of old jeans. I pull my hair back into a messy bun, grab my bag and leave. I need air. I feel like a zombie, like maybe I’m sleep walking. I feel light, like a ghost. Ghosts. Is he haunting me? Ghosts are known for their vengeance. Imprisoned on earth to take revenge on those who did them wrong. When I get home I’ll crash.
I’m sitting on a park bench. Crossed legged, smoking. Thinking.
I remember his bedroom. It was typical. Posters of hot blondes, clothes strewn across the floor, alcohol bottles lined the shelf. There was a radio. It was always on. I can't remember what music played. I wish I could.
We’d drink. We’d banter. We’d laugh and we’d kiss.

My cigarette is finished. I’m exhausted.
I start walking along the outskirts of the park and there he is. Walking towards me. In public. In broad daylight. Can anyone else see him I wonder? I look around.
My heart is about it stop. A ball rolls by his feet. He picks it up and throws it for an over eager bull terrier. He’s real. My legs won't move. I feel paralyzed.

"Are you really here, alive?"
"Here, yes, alive, no."
He says this like it actually makes some kind of sense.I reach out and touch him; I feel the woolly fabric of his sweater and the warmth that radiates through it. I slowly move my hand upwards and touch his flushed salmon cheek. Quickly, I withdraw my hand and look down at the grass.
“How are you?” He asks. I look around and wonder hurriedly if in fact anyone else can see him for fear that I might look certifiable. The park appeared to be pretty deserted so I risked it.
“I haven’t slept well, well in a while. Ever since you showed up actually.”
These words come out laggard. I continue.
“I’m grappling with the idea that you are real, tangible. Here, you know? I don’t want to be insane. I don’t want to believe you are actually standing here in front of me three years after you died. Three years after I saw you, in a coffin, being wheeled down the church aisle.”
Words to this dead person are coming easier now. He is just standing, listening while I speak, shifting his weight from left to right and back again.
“Am I an insane person Jake?” I ask this with the utmost sincerity but at the same time I’m hoping it comes across as a rhetorical question. Why is it that we are always afraid of the answers to the questions we so desperately want answered. Why do we even bother asking?
He doesn’t say anything and his silence is starting to unnerve me. I don’t like it when people are quiet too long, when it happens I start suspecting we’re not exactly on the same page anymore.
“Are you going to say anything? Jake?” I plead.
He frowns. He speaks.
“You are not insane Scarlet, you’re exhausted. Not only in the literal sense but in every sense of that word. And you have spent so much of your priceless time thinking of things that can never happen. Things that have passed. And after you got over thinking about those things you started blaming all of your circumstances on those things you think you missed out on, unfairly. And Scarlet, those things, they never belonged to you, they were never meant to be. That, that is something you need to face, admit, know.”

The truth is, I demolished our relationship. For reasons I am still quite unsure of, I crushed, and then proceeded to throw up all over the image he had of me. For some reason I began to hate him and I wanted him to hate me.
The truth is, I thought I had forever. I thought I’d always have the time; I’d always have the time to change.

“I know all of this Jake, Jesus; you did not have to come all the way back from wherever the hell you were to tell me that. I hear you, hey but I already know.”
There is no hiding the immense irritation in my voice. He turns around and walks away from me.

The funeral. It was a rainy day, which is not uncommon for late march and definitely fitting for this event.I got lost. I drove around for ages trying to find the church and part of me hoped I wouldn't. I parked the car when I eventually found it and walked towards the entrance. The first thing I saw was the coffin. It was bigger than I imagined it would be. It amazes me how quickly the funeral comes around, after someone dies.

When he died I felt bad. Sorry. I hardly knew him and all of a sudden I wanted to. My indifference, my coolness concerning him and us melted into something almost real. As if he and I had meant something more to each other than we had. Maybe we had.

4 May
Connla sees herself and likes what she sees. I cannot pretend to know what that kind of confidence feels like and I wouldn’t know where to begin looking for it. I believe that any confidence I may have felt in the past for any reason was just an illusion. A fleeting illusion.I am usually so overpowered by my stoicism it’s hard to see a light at the end of anything. It’s difficult to see any light. Jake's death did not mean the end of light, it made lights absence appear from where it was hiding and scream.
Any delusions I may have had on the simplicity and the delight of life were shattered on that day. Now it appears I have an understanding. It seems I have a truth.
It was different when my parents died. They died when I was young. They were young too. After the accident I moved in with my mother’s sister. She was a single mom with two young boys and loved me like I was her own. I don’t know why but I suppose it is because that is how it was. I didn’t know them. I don’t remember what my mother looked like; I can’t picture her face in my mind without consulting a photograph.
I don’t remember what my father’s laugh sounded like.My aunt always said it was his trademark; you would here his laughter and could not help but laugh with him, even if you had no idea why he was laughing. It was different when they died because I had not yet grasped life, let alone death. It is by no means less painful, just in separate ways.
I cry for everyone, and I cry for myself. Because life is mostly sad. There’s always the sadness, the desolation, the darkness. The question mark. It’s always in the background.
It wasn't clear until his demise. It might have been there but I didn't see it until his body was ruined.

What does he want from me now? An interview I read comes to mind. Mary Ha, a woman who claimed to have come back from the dead. She said "Evil is dead people and they're everywhere."I know that when you die that's it. Our bodies become food for other creatures. Our ashes become the rain.

11 May
Another quote I remember from my childhood, "The dead are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise." Isaiah 26:14.
I’ve never had much faith in the Bible; it's nothing I’ve ever grasped. It’s something I’ve always, to some extent, faked an understanding of.
How can I believe a book to be true that has been written and rewritten, by man, for thousands of years?
Every so often I think about if God exists, and that, if he does I’m almost definitely going to hell. I often wonder if such a place even exists.
I hate this inner debate so I usually stop it there.
If only I could just know for sure.

14 May
Dizzy is playing in the background. I’m at home. It’s Sunday evening and I know I have work tomorrow but I can’t seem to fall asleep.
“…and inside, there’s no rainbows…”
Ever since Jake died I’ve been anxious about love, too timid to feel. Because if I could cry like that for someone I liked, if I could feel that much for someone I hardly knew. Imagine.
“…and inside, I play with shadows…”
I can’t sleep anymore. It seems the reappearance of Jake has replaced it and no matter how much I want it, no matter how much I need it, I can’t find it. And I’m beginning to grow tired of looking. This is when I seriously consider medicinal assistance. I resolve to pay a visit to my doctor in the morning.

15 May
Morning comes quick. And I still feel like I’m in the middle of an eerie hallucination. But I see him standing at the foot of my bed and realize I still have to figure out a way to get rid of him and save my sanity with some sleep. This ghost. Jake. A phantom from my past that won’t leave me alone.
A sort of ex boyfriend from another life, which is so far from the life I lead now. He doesn’t fit anymore. Anyhow.
Why is he here? Why do I see him?
I ask him these very questions.
His reply. “Because you need me, to let go.
”That’s funny, because I thought I had done just that, and wouldn’t him reappearing like a phoenix kind of put the brakes on any hope of ever letting go, if I hadn’t already done so. I didn’t consider the fact that he might have been referring to something other than himself and why would I?

This is all terribly deranged. I have been in a perpetual state of perplexity and disarray, not to mention sleep deprivation, since Jake appeared at my door. I can’t go on like this. I need to see someone. Someone alive.

Joan is singing yeah, yeah god is great and I’m humming along. I remember this song.The receptionist looks impatiently in my direction and unceremoniously motions for me to enter the doctor’s office. Doctor Miller is a stern looking woman in her late forties I presume. She has honey coloured hair and a Swiss nose. She smiles.

“Scarlet, how are you today?”
I tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear and say a shy “fine, thanks.”
“What can I do for you?” she asks.

This is where I begin pouring forth words of a completely unintelligible nature. I am certain that if she cannot see I am in dire need of drugs which will induce sleep at this point she must be incredibly blind and if she refuses to prescribe the strongest medication available she is just plain cruel.
A half an hour later I breathe a sigh of relief and relish the fresh air entering my nostrils. The kind doctor, after hearing of my sleep deprivation, wanted to know what I thought the cause may be. I panicked for a moment and then I realized I could not possibly tell her the truth about why sleep had ceased. I couldn’t tell her how my sort-of ex boyfriend had left the grave he was buried in to visit me. So I calmed myself and decided to tell a half truth. I told her about Jake, changing a few details in the story. Making it falsely normal. After about fifteen minutes of half truths and half lies she opened her drawer and pulled out a prescription pad and a plucked the pen from her breast pocket and began scribbling. She explained what the three sets of pills were for, dosage and when to take each. I half listened. We exchanged a few more words but at that point I was already gone.

Anonymity. Somehow I have always found myself being torn between a desperate craving to be faceless and a veiled yearning to be the centre of it all.
It’s not easy deciding who you want to be.
Assuming I’m the latter rather than the former at this point, I’m relieved. No eyes on me now would only enhance the feeling of isolation that is currently occupying all the space in my soul.

Connla calls. She wants to have a drink, catch up. I have taken too many rain cheques so I say yes and ask where and when. Juju’s. 2 o clock.

That evening as I lay my head down, after swallowing my accessories to quiescent, I saw Him again. Him. I decided then that before I allow these pills to send me into complete comatose I would discover once and for all why Jake was really here, from six feet under to six feet from me.
I sat up and switched on the bedside lamp, squinting at the sudden light.
“So,” is where I began and end, because as soon as that word left my mouth Jake was gone. I rubbed my eyes, blinked and reopened them. No one was in the room but me. Me and Monroe, who was lethargically licking himself in his basket by the door.
If it wasn’t made clear enough to me before, it was absolutely crystalline now. It was all just a drawn out hallucination, some sort of phantasmagoria.
I lay my head back down and it sinks into the softness of my pillow and I feel entirely languish and calm.
But still; no sleep.

16 May
I see Connla strutting towards me, catwalk style, and I feel better instantaneously. I can’t explain why but the mere sight of her makes me almost forget myself. I’m in her world now, mine just fades away.
She sits down with a dramatic sigh.
“What a day.”
It seems this is the jumping off point to all or at least most, of our conversations.
We’re sitting inside a not-so-trendy-but–perfect-in-it’s-own–special-kind-of-way café downtown, Juju’s. A waiter slides over to take our drink order.
“A glass of your house white for me, scarlet?”
I consider this question for a moment, eventually deciding on iced water, with lemon. I feel dehydrated, and the thought of any particular taste on my tongue makes me want to gag.

I dive right in.
” Do you think I’m emotionally dead?” I ask.
Connla looks taken aback but still manages to throw me one of those inevitable of-course-not-honey looks, the one that seems to come so naturally to most. I ignore and plunge forward.I continue.
“Do you think I secretly don’t want to fall in love, or have any real relationships so I never give anybody a chance? Because I’m afraid? Because of Jake?”
A long pause.
Longer still.

“I think you’re an eternal pessimist. I think you secretly beg for knives in your back so you won’t have to admit you’re completely jaded.” This is my friend’s reply.

Isn’t it sweet? How my back almost secretly begs for knives.

“I think you’ve ridden jakes death to the end of the road and you’re running out of reasons to cry, and feel bad and this is worrying you.”

Risk it. Risk being told what you don’t want to hear. Being told all that you already know but have thus far refused to let anyone else get wind of your knowledge. Feign ignorance. It is, after all, bliss.

“I think you need a holiday. You’ve been working double shifts on virtually no sleep at all and you seem really stressed out. Maybe take a couple of days off and relax. Sleep late; get a massage, clear your head.”
This kind of generic advice makes me want to get sick but I smile and say I will. I say I will try and relax. Like this is easy. And while we finish up our drinks I am thinking that this person in front of me doesn’t know me from the person sitting at the table next to ours. And that I am partly, if not wholly, to blame for that.
“Are you alright?” she asks after growing slightly uncomfortable in the silence following her advice.
“Uh, sure, yeah I’m ok.” I smile. I haven’t the energy to carry on this conversation.
“I better get going,” I begin.
“Look,” Connla interrupts. “I’m sorry you’re not sleeping. I’m sorry you’re not happy. You know that right? I know that in time, when you are ready, you’ll let go of all this…stuff and live the way you are meant to live. And be happy. That is all I want for you.”
“Thanks Connie.” I get up and give her a kiss on the cheek.
The afternoons drink with Connla has deflated me a considerable amount. I want to sleep.
Work beckons.

I’ve grown so tired of living in the self induced shame of something I cannot understand. Of something so far away.
I have hidden things under the bed and everyday that they are there my shoulders slump lower under the weight of it. It’s oppressiveness; it is infinite dejection and stupidity.
Jake is no longer an issue. I haven’t seen him in days. Connla is right, he really does not have any effect on my life today, and I am just using him as something to conceal myself from the world.
Maybe I am just meant to be one of those people who are alone and that’s the way it is for them. And they like it better that way. Those people do actually exist. My boss’ brother’s girlfriend knows one so it’s not just a myth. Maybe I’m that person. It’s an avenue worth exploring at the very least.
The loss of him. What do I think I lost that November? A potentially great love affair. Possibly but highly unlikely. I don’t know how things would have turned out had Jake not been vanquished from this world. Had we had more time, would things have really turned out that much more differently?

Probably, we would have ended up slow dancing in a burning room.
I lost a sense of immortality that day. I lost the desire to do anything worthwhile because what is the point when it can all get taken away so quickly without you having anything to say about it. Gone just.like.that.
I lost a lot of important things that day which begs the question, was I really grieving for Jake or was I mourning the personal things that died with him?

4 June
Agnanti Meze is characteristically busy this evening and I am mustering every ounce of energy I have to run around introducing myself, taking drink orders, placing food orders, making drinks, taking food out and attending to bills. I have not had a proper night’s sleep in I don’t even know how long and I am literally running on empty as I haven’t been able to stomach anything solid in days. The kitchen is unbearably hot and noisy and I feel like at any moment I will just collapse into a pile of whites. I just want to sleep.
I haven’t seen Jake since our last encounter. Reminding myself of that fact calms me to some degree. I silently send up a prayer of thanks.

It’s 11:30 pm by the time the last tables begin the process of dispersing. At 11:47 pm, at last, there is only one table left, right up front, two men. Both seemed to be in their later twenties, the one facing me had dark hair and pale eyes, almost grey. The other, whose back was facing me, had thick hair on the blonde side of mousy. I hadn’t noticed them at all throughout the evening and was starting to wonder if maybe I knew them because each time I walked past they’d become silent and survey me as if they wanted to say something but thought better of it.

As I was putting my coat on and preparing to leave for the night, the dark one put his half smoked cigarette into the full metallic ashtray and stood up with a peculiar sense of urgency for so late in the evening. There was something exceptional about the way he moved across the room. An alien feeling arose in the pit of my stomach. I became suddenly aware of how hot it was inside the restaurant, I immediately wished I had at least gone to the ladies room to observe my sorry state in front of a mirror and perhaps freshen up. I realized it was too late and concluded that it wouldn’t have made much of a difference and it definitely wouldn’t matter anyway because he was probably only coming over so he could exist through the front door which I was standing right in front of and which was a perfectly common occurrence.To my utter surprise, and abhorrence, he stopped in front of me, so close I could smell his musky cologne.
“Hi, sorry to bother you, my name is Christian…” he paused. His voice was rough, gravelly.
“Hi, I’m scarlet…” I held out my hand and he took it.
“Hi scarlet, uh, I was wondering if perhaps you would like to join my friend and I for a drink, we’re on our way to Bar Baby, it’s just a few minutes’ walk from here.”
I looked around nervously. It had been such a long time since I had been approached by a stranger I wasn’t quite sure how to respond. He noticed my hesitation and spoke, this time with undeniable assertion.
“Think about. We’ll be there, probably till pretty late.” And with that he sauntered off.

Bar Baby made me feel old. Old and desperate even with the knowledge that I was in fact meeting someone rather than going to meet someone. I had no idea what to expect, all I knew was that time and life were slipping quickly away from me and if I didn’t do something about that, I would never have a chance. I needed something.

And there he was my help, in the form of Christian’s body. He didn’t seem at all surprised to see me and my irritation with that observation quickly disappeared when I noticed how happy he seemed to see me. Excited. It made me excited.

And after a few drinks I was even more excited. Smitten. Conversation came easy, the whole evening felt easy, and not at all how I remember first dates to feel. No awkwardness, just ease. Effortless and for the first time in a really long time I felt worthy. I felt like I deserved to be there, with this wonderful man. I basked in the glow of his attention, which I noticed was the envy of half the single women in the room. Drunk on more than the wine I was consuming I didn’t hesitate when he offered to take me home, which I knew to be code for him wanting to take me to his home.
“So what do you say?” he asks. He, he not being devoid of anything I am interested in.
“Sure.” Is my answer.

His apartment is clean. His apartment is white and clean and I feel dirty. He offers me a drink. Something red, something dry.
It seems impossible for me to resist the seduction of cynicism, although others have always regarded me as someone who looks for the brighter side. Finding and declaring it, and in turn neglecting the matter with today, which solves nothing.
Back to square one. How long can you stay positive for? Where do you find the energy to concern yourself with such things?
The truth is, I fake it. I feign a sense of hope that I don’t have inside myself anymore.The truth is I’m beginning to feel convinced it was never really there in the first place.

The truth.

No matter how hard I try to fight the urge to surrender to the sullen villain that is myself sometimes and demystify the way my mind works before acting out all of what I’m feeling, I can’t do it.
I get deprived of sight and fall into this obscure and well hidden pool of insecurity and hopelessness that is becoming harder and harder to drag myself up and out from.

The gorgeousness I felt so strongly not even an hour ago had, somewhere between the taxi ride home and Christian’s front door, vanished.
But I wasn’t going to give up that easily. Even if I had to fake it to really feel it again. Who ever know anyway?
We made love that night. Banishing every dating rule ever thought up. And it was good; it filled me up when I needed filling. And I resigned myself to the fact that he may or may not call. That resignation gave me some of the power.
It turns out, I didn’t need that power; he called. And called. And called. And all of a sudden I was in a couple bubble, and I thought it was quite great.

16 June
To labyrinthine my life more, I do believe I am happy. Which I realize seems absurd considering my dysphoric countenance. But what have I got to be melancholy about?
This man has nothing to do with anything from before. I can breathe and be new with him. It has taken a long time to get here, in this moment, with a companion, and I’m feeling fine. I haven’t seen Jake in a while but I haven’t slept in what feels like forever. Physically I’m down; emotionally I’m raw but healing.
I could fall in love with this man. I could let it happen. Because I’m starting to believe in happy endings. I still need sleep.

6 July
The happiness I felt in the first few weeks of this new relationship has started to dwindle, all the feelings I’d stuffed in the back of my closet to gather dust with the clothes I decided I didn’t want to wear anymore were starting to come forward again, as I knew they eventually would. You can’t hold these things down too long. Eventually they rear their ugly heads.The paralyzing insecurity.

Dear Christian

I think you’re just with me because I appeared when you were deep in loneliness and needed someone, anyone, to fill the void that was your life.
This is my biggest fear and if I ever found it to be true it would kill me.
I am an insecure creature, it comes so naturally. To question the reasons for the love you claim to have for me. I’m so afraid I’m not all that you wanted, I’m afraid you’ve just settled for me, the next best thing.
And I don’t want you to think I don’t trust you. Because I know you are a good man.I know this like I know the sun will surely rise tomorrow. I know that you don’t ever want to hurt me, and I know that you do love me. It’s so difficult to explain.

But maybe I’m not who you want. Maybe there is someone else out there that you think of when I want you to think of me. Someone else you think of when you want to think of me.
Someone you know would make you happier than I can make you.
The tears stream down my face because I know you are the only one who could light the fire inside me and keep it burning for a lifetime, without a doubt. How will I ever know if I am that person for you?
You say the words and I’m sure you want to mean them but what if you don’t.

I didn’t think it possible for me to think of only one person. But I only think of you. I only dream of you and I wish, how I wish, I knew for certain that you werethinking of me too. That you were dreaming of me too.

This is my fear.

I want to open my heart to you. But this fear is so suffocating, I’m hiding underneath the smoke in the room and I am choking.
I wonder if this is all me, my wicked imagination. Maybe I read too much into things and create this false reality that you seem completely unaware of. Do you know?
I feel like a shadow of a person hiding behind a pretty face that no one looks beyond.
The truth is I think too much. The truth is I can’t decipher between the reality of a situation and my warped interpretation of it. To me it’s one and the same thing. To me, you could leave any minute, once you realize yourself.
Don’t you see how much I want to be all the things you wish for me to be? All the things you hoped you’d find in me are there, I just can’t show them to you because of the strong barricade.

And what if I am all that you want? And all this uncertainty and this grief are for nothing? What if I ruin our relationship because I didn’t believe you? Because I don’t believe you know yourself or how you feel. Because I think I know how you feel better than you do, which I couldn’t possibly. Or could I? It would be my fault and I would be unhappy for the rest of my life knowing I had this love and thought it away.

If I sent this letter would you even still love me? If you knew how I felt would you still think me beautiful? Worthy?

What is the point of a relationship if you can’t tell your partner everything? This person is supposed to be your confidant. This person is supposed to be your ally.
This person is meant to know you.

All I want is to know your heart. I want all of your love and I want all of your attention and I want to know things I know that I can’t know, not for sure. So am I destined to be forever unsatisfied by you and what you are and aren’t willing to give to me?

Are you ever going to be mine?

Love, Scarlet

I take the Zippo from my handbag and light the letter. I can’t explain but somehow I feel better, even though Christian will never read this, or know this. I feel like it was something I had to say. It was something I had deal with, on my own.

27 July
I am still relieved I’ve not seen Jake in months, and still paranoid that he’ll pop up when I least expect it, maybe even whilst I’m having dinner with Christian, or in bed with him.I still need a good night’s sleep.


2 August
Tonight was special.
A truly wondrous moment in time, when everything stood still. Everything went quiet.As he slipped the black diamond onto my pale and sallow finger the weakness in me fell down to my toes and I believed in that moment with those eyes staring at me that this man was mine. I possessed his love. In that moment we were perfect.

9 August
I’m sitting at home. Alone. Christian, being, as it turns out, an incredibly busy and important business man was on his way to the West Coast for a rather large event and would be back “before I knew it”. I still find it hard to comprehend the fact that I am engaged, and once I relay this information to the people in my life I will not be the only one. There is so much to do, so much to plan and all I want to do is sleep. I’ve taken the day off work in the hopes that I will find myself some. So here I sit, with the bottle of Diphenhydramine hcl, Cymbalta and Wellbutrin that the good doctor prescribed for me months ago, which I have taken rather religiously since, on the bedside table next to the stainless steel photo frame of my parents on their wedding day and a glass of rose in my hand. I just want to sleep. To sleep per chance to dream.

I’ve managed to grab a few hours here and there at awkward times, and albeit awkward places on several occasions, but not nearly enough to be an actual functioning human being andthe temptation to take more than the recommended daily allowance to sleep deeper and longer is overwhelming. It’s an alluring prospect for a weakened soul and it overpowers.

I want to sleep. I take two; I take four, six, and eight, of each.
And I take more, for good measure. I can’t recall how many that is now.

I run a bath in a sedated state, swirling the water between my fingers as it pours from the tap. I step inside and my feet burn.
I lay there and drift away. I can feel myself slipping away.
I hear the song that was playing at dinner in my head, “…you were so beautiful before today…”.
And then I see him again. Jake. He looks forlorn. I feel something like relief, or acceptance.
“…and nothing felt like how it should be…”
Beautiful release.

I always wanted to fall in love with someone who would become part of me like breathing. Someone who was no one I’d ever met and everybody I loved. And I did. I did.
And sometimes time runs out.

I jerk up, suddenly aware of how the Spanish tiles seem to be closing in on me and how hot my cheeks are. They’re on fire, I’m certain of it.
I fall out of the bath, not able to lift my head at all.

Facedown on the bathroom floor, burning cheeks, wet eyes and sticky hands.
I don’t know how long I have been here. My stomach is hollow, my mind vacant.
I just want it to be quiet but I can hear the phone ringing. The sound makes me want to die.
I can’t close my eyes but I can’t keep them open. The ringing doesn’t stop.
All traces from the song in my head from before are gone. Now, I can’t even remember the melody. The words are long gone. Anomalous peace washes over me.
The ringing stops. Silence.
Sleep.