Breathe in,
Breathe out.
Cold breaths are visible on such a cold day as they slip through a pair of pale, dry lips. Purple palms wrap around each other in a small, shaky fist. The coat is no longer as warm as it used to be.
The sun is hidden behind heavy clouds that cover the world in a gray shell. Every color in the environment has lost from its hue; The grass is less green, and so are the trees; The little red grocery store across the road also took on a grayish hue.
It's pouring. The drops fall in masse, quickly and loudly, blurring the observer's field of vision.
Under the roof of the bus stop are three people - a pregnant woman, a guy, and a girl.
The girl is named Misha.
Misha's gaze is fixed forward, not sharing her attention with anything but the rain as she sits with her back straight and legs crossed, a posture that is hard to believe came naturally.
Misha did not look away for a moment - not even to take a quick look at the faces of the other two waiting with her at the bus stop.
Misha hates the rain.
Anything related to water evokes a feeling of disgust in her. Even the daily shower is a task for her. Sometimes Misha will postpone drinking water as much as possible, sometimes she will drink water once every three days. Still, her eyes do not deviate from the raindrops hitting hard on the asphalt road.
The hair on her body stood straight when she suddenly felt raindrops begin to wet her ear.
Slowly, they fill them with water, distorting her hearing.
The rain sounded duller; The passing cars; The keyboard clicks of the pregnant woman who was texting next to her. Everything is starting to sound more and more like she's covering her ears - or like she's underwater.
She hates the rain, from floods to drizzles.
The drops are invasive. Penetrating everywhere and flooding everything.
Finally, Misha gives in, and her hand is quickly sent to her right ear to try to wipe off the water, only to realize that the ear is completely dry.
She checks again - this time the other ear. It turns out that it is also dry.
Her gaze is still locked forward for all this time. Her hands now rest again on her thighs and the strange feeling in her ears gradually began to disappear. She feels like she's just come out of a trance.
Maybe that's really what happened.
As if on cue, the bus arrives.
The woman next to her hurries up, one hand resting under her big belly - she seems to be in the seventh or eighth month - while the other hand rests on her back for support.
The boy also gets up, a schoolbag on his back as he helps the stranger woman get on the bus out of politeness.
Misha doesn't get up. Not that she intended to ride the bus in the first place. As opposed to the luxury brands she wore, she didn't have a single penny on her.
The bus door remains open for a few more moments before the driver realizes that the girl does not intend to get on the bus and decides to drive away, leaving behind smoke that makes Misha nauseous.
Buses, another thing she hates.
She can get sick just from standing next to a bus for more than a minute. Even if she's not on the bus.
No, Misha has a private driver, one that her parents attached to her.
The same driver she's been waiting for forty minutes. In the rain.
She could have been home a long time ago if she had walked, given that her house is a 20-minute walk away from school. However, not only is it raining cats and dogs, but her body also is not in a condition suitable for long walks.
Just walking from class to the cafeteria during lunchtime was a challenge.
And now she's sitting at the bus stop, still looking at the same spot only now she's not watching the rain, her thoughts in a completely different place.
A place where they shouldn't be. A place they're been crawling to lately whenever it's quiet, but they still don't seem to have reached the place they're trying to reach.
Until this very moment.
No car passes by, no living soul walks around the area - even the rain has weakened drastically without Misha noticing.
Recently, Misha would find herself in various situations where she sees cuts appearing one by one on every piece of skin on her body that is exposed to the eye in those moments.
At first, the cuts would disappear as soon as she blinked, but as time went by, the cuts began to open after they appeared, and instead of blood, water came out of them.
She would then hurry and pinch herself.
Sometimes when she was alone she would even slap herself in the face, trying to “wake herself up”
For her, her imagination is so developed that she cannot cope with it.
But now it's the first time she's experienced what she's experiencing right now.
Now it's the first time her invasive thoughts have managed to reach a goal - a conclusion - before she has had time to repress them.
So, as soon as she hears the sound of a car approaching, even before it can be seen on the horizon, Misha gets up and walks towards the middle of the road
This is the first time she truly understands what the hallucinations she calls "developed imagination" want from her.
Lying on the road, every emotion she might have felt at that moment was swallowed up by her nearly black eyes that always left her with a hollow, empty expression.
Kill yourself.
At that moment the world was empty, almost as if it was just the approaching car and Misha praying that the driver would not notice her, at least not until it was too late.
The last time Misha prayed it was for someone to notice her.
To notice her tears.
Her bruises.
Her grief.
Her agony.
But not a single helping hand reached out for her.
Even those who saw did not bother to observe.
Even those who heard did not bother to listen.
Even the teachers turned a blind eye.
Why? Money, power, fear,
"Someone else will help her."
And here she is, all alone.
The raindrops hit her face, getting into her eyes, her nose, slipping through her lips into her mouth, down her neck like hands tightening around her throat.
The car does not slow down and Misha closes her eyes.
She can already see the light from the car's headlights penetrating her eyelids as the car gets closer to her.
That's how she leaves, without saying hello and without saying goodbye.
Then horn sounds filled her consciousness.
Everything happens so fast. Before she has time to comprehend what is happening, she feels a presence above her, then hands holding both of her arms yanking her hard, up on her legs, and then forward a few steps.
In less than a second, she stands on her feet. The car passes quickly behind her back - the driver still honks angrily.
It takes Misha a few moments to realize what is happening, her eyes open in panic and the shock clear on her face. Possibly because she did not die, or because she tried to kill herself.
She notices that the hands that pulled her up - the ones still holding onto her - belong to the guy standing in front of her.
He's the same guy who was with her at the bus stop a few minutes ago.
The anonymous boy is taller than Misha by a whole head so she must look up to meet his eyes, which look like a combination of gray and green, which at that moment were also flooded with shock.
She didn't get to look at him as he sat next to her at the bus stop.
His features are sharp and mature, every drop of rain that falls on his face only emphasizes them more.
His hair is dark, but as dark as Misha's, and sticks to his face due to all of the rain.
Misha is sure she had seen him pass by her in the hallway at least once before.
When he realizes that they are both out of danger, his expression changes and now instead of shock, anger is clear in his eyes.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?!"
Misha looks him dead in the eyes,
"Trying to kill myself."
