Amentia

Chapter 70 - Being brave

Meiko came out of the portal and landed skillfully on the entrance hall of her apartment. It was night and the street lights were coming in through the living room window. It was late morning just a few minutes ago for her, so the sudden change was an odd sensation. She lied down on the floor where she landed for a moment, staring at the dimly lit ceiling as her mind spun with a million experiences collected in a rather short period of time. If it wasn't for the very tangible piece of paper in her pocket, she might have thought it all a dream. The street noise caught her off guard. How easy it had been to get used to living in a world where there was no such thing as traffic.

She took off her boots before getting up and turning the light on. When her apartment came into view, a wave of sadness hit her. This place was lifeless. There had never been true happiness inside these walls, and now she couldn't ignore it and go back to living the same half-life as before. After spending so much time in a room full of warmth and affection, returning to this apartment felt like devolving. The person who used to live here was gone; she'd had a taste of freedom and refused to go back into hiding. This familiar gilded cage had lost its shine, replaced by the devastatingly honest picture of a life lived in fear.

She plugged in her phone and turned it on. When she saw the date on the screen, she realized she'd been gone from Earth for thirty-eight days. And the only messages and calls she had were from her boss. No one had missed her. It was no surprise, but it still tasted bitter. It was further proof of the type of life she'd been leading all these years. Now that she'd had a taste of lovely friendships, her solitary life from before felt sad and unfulfilling. Suddenly she wished Anna was here.

She took out the piece of paper from her pocket and texted Anna, asking if she'd got home safely and when would be the soonest time she could visit her in Iceland. The message wasn't received right away, so Anna must still be reuniting with her dad. In the meantime, Meiko took a nice bath, eyeing the clothes on the floor. She would miss wearing those clothes, for some reason. Or maybe she would just miss the Theater, and everything and everyone that came with it. At least she had the comfort of knowing she could go back to visit one day.

In the silence of the bathroom, as she soaked in jasmine-perfumed water, she thought about what she'd do from now on. For the first time in her life, she had no plan, no list to follow, no routine to fall back on. She knew she was going to see Anna in Iceland for a while, but that was all she knew. How long would she stay there? Would she end up living there permanently? What did life look like to her now? What were her priorities?

Her stay in Amentia had given her a certain level of preparedness for eventualities that she didn't have before, but she'd been accompanied by four other girls in the same situation there. Here, she was on her own. And she had never been good with uncertainty on her own.

She closed her eyes, tilting her head back on the edge of the bathtub.

Pretending nothing had happened was so tempting... it was her specialty, really. She had built such a nice comfort zone here over the years. It wasn't a cheerful life, but it was safe and easy; a life where she didn't have to worry about anything because nothing ever happened.

Except...

She opened her eyes, staring at the bathroom ceiling.

Except something huge had happened, and pretending it hadn't meant denying a lot of beautiful things to herself. It meant taking away people that had brought light into her life. And with taking that light away came the lack. She'd never felt the lack of anything before, and right now she wondered if it wouldn't destroy her. Was the safety worth that?

She sighed deeply and loudly, the sound echoing softly on the tiles of the bathroom. She'd always known what to do. And now it felt like she was standing on the edge of a precipice and she didn't know what the landing spot looked like. She didn't know if it was spiky rocks or a gentle embrace of the ocean. And she couldn't know unless she jumped. Being brave was terrifying. Anna always made it look so easy.

She got out of the bathtub and wrapped a towel around herself. She tucked her hair in another towel and looked at her face in the foggy mirror. She could choose to be nobody again, to be a blurry image of herself that didn't have to take any risks or get hurt. Or she could swipe the fogginess away and see if the image behind it had any value.

Taking it one day at a time had never been her strong suit, but perhaps it was the only thing she could do right now. Maybe once she saw Anna again, she'd know what she wanted to do. Anna was always a source of clarity for her. This didn't please her all that much: she wanted to be her own source of clarity, but for the time being it had to do. She wasn't used to leaving her comfort zone. She would need Anna's breeziness to help her through it at least in the beginning.

While she waited for Anna's reply to her text, she called her boss. It was 11 pm on a Tuesday, but he picked up as quickly as if it was the middle of the day as busy men always do. Meiko came up with a family emergency that would justify missing work for so long without notice and he accepted it, expressing relief and letting her know he had reported her missing after the first week had gone by. He would call the police to let them know she'd been alright all this time and they would probably call her to corroborate her boss' statement. After thanking him for his concern, Meiko let him know she was resigning effective immediately because she was going away and didn't know when she'd be coming back. He offered many extra benefits to keep her from quitting, but it was hopeless. He expressed genuine sadness to see her leave; she was his best employee in her department, with the highest rates of recovered patients. But her mind was made up.

A few minutes after hanging up, the police called her. It was rather sad that the only person who had reported Meiko missing had been her boss and not a member of her family. She could leave for Iceland for the rest of her life and they wouldn't even notice. But well, who wanted to be part of a family that rejected her very existence and had driven her to deny her own existence to herself for half her life? She was better off without them.

Meiko cooked herself some dinner —though from her perspective of the day it was actually lunch—, checking her phone every few minutes. At around 1:30 am, Anna read her message and consequently called her. Meiko had to remember to speak in English in order to communicate with her now that the translation spell was gone. That was going to be a challenge; she knew the basics, but she wasn't very fluid and pronunciation was hard. But she tried her best and they were able to chat quite comfortably; Anna openly said she loved her accent. Meiko let her know she'd just quit her job and tomorrow would start looking for flights and hotels to stay over there. Anna insisted she'd stay at her home. Meiko kindly refused, saying she couldn't possibly irrupt into her family life like that. Anna insisted, saying her dad absolutely didn't mind and that it would be more fun that way, and they'd already lived together for a month so there wouldn't be any major surprises. Meiko ended up having to agree.