5:48 [re-write 2.0]

PROLOGUE: EARL GREY [CLAIRE]

On the day I finally decided I have had enough, it seemed the Universe agreed with me so wholeheartedly that it cried for me the thunderstorm of tears I couldn't cry for myself.

And so it rained, so heavily, that when the thunder came it drowned out the "thank you" I never really meant to say out loud.

People wrapped up in raincoats huddled past me with umbrellas, trying to get on with their day despite the thunderous rain, because the rest of the world never stopped for anything -- not even when you felt like there was nothing inside of you that wanted to keep going. And so I let them keep going, and I also let myself stop. Just to stare at the rain for a little while. Because there was something eerily beautiful about the way the rain was raining so hard it forced the world to bear it, hear it, feel it.

And I wished I could cry just like that. Maybe then I'd feel something, too. Because something, I had learned, was much better than nothing -- therapists could fix somethings, but they couldn't fix nothings.

What did you really say to, "How are you feeling today, Claire?"

"Nothing."

"..."

All nothings ever got were nothings in return.

And so I did what I did to turn my nothing into something. I've had enough of nothing. So I had quit my job of four years, the job I called my "career" in the same way people who made their job their life called their job "careers," and had thought it would make me feel something.

I stood there under the rain, sheltered over some random shop's roof, looking at the building I've walked in and out of for four years, and still I felt nothing. And I guess I really shouldn't have expected it to be any other way, because my "career" was something that was never mine to begin with. How could you lose something that was never yours? It had always been a nothing that I owned, instead of a something to lose, after all.

I stood there for so long with a peaceful emptiness that only those who constantly talked to themselves could understand, especially when said self-thoughts were often loud, angry, and unforgiving. Under the rain there was no space for anything else except the rain that washed it all away, seeping into cracks in the pavements as if it were washing every miserable thought away into the earth to swallow it up whole. So I let the rain drown me out, paint me invisible, to the rest of the world and to myself, standing out there until I'm startled by something warm resting against my cheek.

The waiter from the cafe whose roof I had been taking shelter from was staring at me, styrofoam cup of something warm in his hand shoved into my personal space. My eyes snapped to the pavement automatically, uncomfortable looking people in the eye now that I needed to hide the fact that all they would see in me was a whole lot of nothing. Even with the smell of rain surrounding us I knew what he had in his hand was tea; the steam from the cup wafted to me with hints of tea leaves and bergamot, warming me up as I breathed it in. And that's when I realized that I was outside for so long that my hands already felt like ice.

The waiter must have seen me grimacing at my icy hands, so he stepped even closer, and before I could have stepped back in immediate reflex, he pushed me the cup of tea and made sure my hands were wrapped securely around it.

I wasn't sure if the warmth I felt was from his hands or from the cup.

I looked up from our hands, watched him grin a quirky little grin with eyes that crinkled at the edges, and felt so unraveled that the words started tumbling right out of my mouth.

"How much do I owe you?" I asked.

His hands withdrew then, palms facing up in surrender as he shook his head.

"I can't possibly take this for free," I insisted, because when talking to strangers the only thing I could ever say in conversation were manners and propriety.

He shoved his hands in his waiter's apron that was splattered with what seemed like different colors of paint, and then proceeded to shrug at me. He took a step back then, pointed to a sign on the shop's door, and then disappeared back inside the shop with just a quick wave goodbye.

There was an inexplicable feeling in me that he had left, which blossomed into something that spread from what seemed like deep inside my core to the very tips of my fingers, when I peered at the sign he was pointing to.

We're Hiring! Inquire Inside.

And that was the first time in a very long time someone said absolutely nothing, but made me feel an inexplicable something.

***

Author's Note:

This re-write is definitely so different that I'm sure it will spark all sorts of feelings from old readers. All I hope to write is something that reflects how both you and I have grown up and see this world a bit differently now. Some things different, some things the same, one of them being how I love hearing from you guys. So hope you could drop me a note and say hi (and some motivation to keep me writing because writer's block can only be cured by you guys really).

Hope everyone's doing okay. x