Budapest » [Clintasha]

Chapter Seventeen: Recalibration

I went to bed smiling that night, thoughts of James whirling around and around my head. It played on my mind like a spider in a cobweb. I felt like colour had been injected into my world; the colour of his lips, and his eyes and his skin. For so many years I had been encompassed in isolation – loveless, dejected, rejected.

Mirrors were a rare commodity in the base, but there was one in the changing rooms: a singular dingy full length mirror. Through the grime and rust; with it’s curled edges and scratched glass I would catch a look of myself: every now and then. The way I look, I’ve never liked it. The bags under my eyes that droop like a knapsack, the flab situated on my beefy thighs, my knobbly knees and ankles, the wide spacing of my eyes. My hair is always unruly, and I’ve always been too broad and plump around my chest and bottom. And that repulsive scar on my belly was just another article for a floor length list of flaws.

But James liked my flaws. He’d stroked the line of mutilated flesh like it was a divine mark of beauty. He worshipped every fault. He made me feel faultless.

It was that evening I realise I’d fallen for him. Head over heels, heart over mind. And it was doomed to fail. No one could know, no one could intrude, and every day it was a competition to stay alive.

But instead, I chased after fantasies; reliving the moments passed: lying awake in the dark, near-empty bunk room.

There's something peaceful about the dark. It's silencing. It encompasses you like a blanket. For once you don't have to see the world for the cesspit it is, the world beyond the darkness fades like white noise. It's that lack of sense, that lack of bearing, the way it dulls that disappointment of a world that your eyes provide so freely. They'd probably tell me I'm mad for revelling in it, they'd call me mental for enjoying the solace. It's hard to find quiet in a screaming world.

The next morning I woke up smiling. Smiling. My cheeks ached, I must’ve slept like it. I was a lovesick fool. Misguided, I was so misguided. As the cuffs were unlocked and I was set free for the day, I bounced off my bed full of zest, reinvigorated for the day; life breathed into me, positivity woven into my being. It was the springiness that was my undoing; I didn’t hear the flutter of the decaying delicate decades old paper flutter from my pillowcase.

I didn’t see the vulture of a girl swoop in and steal it as evidence to incriminate me. I sailed off down the corridor, half contemplating dancing or skipping. It took all of my self-restraint not to grin and bid good morning to passersby.

I flounced off to James’s quarters, still the sensation of his fingers on my lips echoing through my body. He had caused a ripple in my heart, and a tide of infatuation had swept in; engulfing all sense, drowning all patience and drenching all other emotions. I drummed my fingers merrily on the wooden door, trying to suppress the grin trying to break free.

He opened the door with a gloomy face, clearly having expected it to be one of his seniors. He was dressed down; black jeans, black t-shirt. His face sparked into a smile, cheeks glowing like a lightbulb when he saw me.

I couldn’t help but grin back; it was infectious.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” He crooned, his unwavering gaze pinned to me.

“Do I need a reason to come and visit?” I responded, lounging in the doorway, eyes begging for a ticket in.

“Never... I’d hate to deny such good company!” He stepped aside, looming close as I tottered in, and wandered close after me.

“What’s with the smile, dollface? I haven’t seen you this happy... Well, ever.” He guided me to sit on his bed, with lack of a better place to perch in his under furnished room.