Shattered Hearts ✓

w o e

s h a t t e r e d h e a r t s

c h a p t e r 10

The night sky hangs so gently in the sky. I stand on the threshold with my hands holding a tight grip on the door. The air is cold, and I shiver to the bones as I stand here. I don't make any signs that I want to step inside nor that I don't want to be here. Because I want to be here. More than I can say. Not that I can even use my words. My voice is so far gone that I can't reach it any longer. But, even when it's gone I know that it's still there. It's a strange thing to be frank.

I stand there, and I don't even know what I'm doing. At the same time, I know that I want to be out here. Without a second thought I let go of the door handle and take a step into the cold world. I'm not wearing that much, and the things that I wear aren't meant to be worn outside. I don't really care about that. If I catch a cold, then maybe it will be better for me. No one would even care anyway, they don't even care that I'm out here, don't even notice.

The grass is cold and prickly once my bare toes step onto it, sending another wave of shivers down my spine. I don't stop walking and neither do I have any plan to anyway. I continue to walk towards the forest. My lips form this smallest smile in the world, but a smile nonetheless. My legs are shaking, but not just from the cold that is around me and doing all it can to bring me down, rather because my body is telling me that I should not go further. That I don't have the strength for this.

I don't listen to any of that, and I still continue on. My pace is slow, and I don't reach that far in minutes. I don't care about that. All that I care about now is being here. This place has always been my favorite one, and I love being out here. Nik may have forgotten me and the times that we had together. I suppose I will just have to keep those memories alive. I reach the forest and I walk into it. Without even looking back nor thinking about it, I head into the dark forest itself.

So many others would feel so afraid to be here in the night, I find that this is the place that I want to be and the place where I belong. No one can tell me anything, no one can tell me that this is not where I belong because I know within my heart that this is where I belong. Despite my heart being so dead inside, so broken that nothing can survive in there, it does speak to me. Reminds me that this is the place that I need to be at and the one that I can just be me in.

I use the trees to help me walk, they guide me as well. When I was a child I could have sworn that the trees could speak to me. Nik said that I was crazy to believe that I could speak to the trees. I can remember that often I would sit down and talk to them, and they would talk back to me, we'd have these conversations. Now, I don't know if the trees ever spoke to me or if I was just imagining it all. The latter is possibly the answer, since I know trees can't talk and children do have a very vivid imagination.

My eyes close as I walk in the forest. I don't have the fear that I would trip and fall and neither get lost nor anything like that. I know this forest more than anyone else. I know every single tree that lives here, and I know my way around here. I don't know how I know, I just do, and I'm not worrying about that now. All I can truly focus on is this feeling that I have inside me. A feeling that is unlike any other, for it can show me that I am where I belong.

It is able to take all of the pain away. Some of it had gone away before, but this forest is able to take away all of us, not just because there is peace here, and I'm away from everyone else. But, because I do belong here. My eyes remain closed as I allow the forest to guide me. And for the first time since I was a child, I can hear it speak to me. It speaks on a level that are not words like we do, but this is a feeling that the forest sends me through my own body.

I don't need my vision to feel where to go. Now, I find that the cold doesn't touch me any longer, the pain that was once present in my body has all been washed away from me. Leaving me free. I find that I don't have to worry about anything anymore. This night is what I needed. I breathe in the fresh, cold air and allow it to fill my lungs. It makes me feel like I'm home. And I don't mean the Pack House. Rather here home.