𝐈𝐍𝐊 - JAMIE CAMPBELL BOWER

22

This was some risky business you had just gotten yourself into. What kind of telenovela had you just jumped into? What kind of fantasy drama had just leaked into your life? In all honesty, you didn't think you'd ever been as happy as you had been frustrated at the same time.

Not that you were frustrated about your confession to Jamie. You'd been replaying that moment in your head every second for the past six days. That's right. Six. And you were pretty sure you were still soaring a hundred feet above the ground.

Yet, even the thrill of that wore off after a while, and you were forced to return to earth where the real world was. Your problems poked through the ground like thorns through a rose. You saw the life you wanted, so pure and full of beauty, but to hold it in your hands---to ever grasp it---was like reaching for a stem of thorns.

You'd had a lot of time to yourself by now. After your outing with Jamie, you had returned him to Tom's house for just a few more days, as you'd promised. Until you got this sorted out, you'd said.

And thankfully, Tom seemed happy to take him. Jamie and Tom were becoming quite the pair, despite your doubts at first. The two enjoyed each other's presence.

So, for the past six days, you have been living in a basic, one-room hotel. At the moment, you were browsing the television channels, but you couldn't care less about the titles on the screen. You had been thinking about the same thing all day. You had been thinking about the same thing for six days straight. The fact that you didn't know who you were anymore.

It was amusing how simple it was to become unacquainted with yourself. How fast your mind could become a stranger when you left it in the hands of someone else. How broken you could become when you forgot who you were, your ambitions, your dreams, and your fears. The suffocating feeling that follows when you allow your life to become a mirror, a projection of another's. Or rather, in your case, a mosaic of everyone else's.

The more the days went on, the faster this period of much-needed isolation grew tedious. The irony in that statement was the fact that you had brought this isolation upon yourself. You needed time alone, this you knew, but you didn't know how much longer of it you could take.

Healing was an indefinite process.

You sifted through your mind as the hours passed, and gradually, the saltish pain fell away like dust, uncovering past memories, dreams, and realizations like the most precious of gems.

Even after meeting these small but significant checkpoints, there was still the piece of your mind that pounded and gnawed away at your self-confidence. The main thing that stabbed at your heart was this simple question:

Why would you allow yourself to be taken advantage of for so long?

The truth was, you didn't know, and you didn't know because you didn't realize.

Wasn't that something?

Even from abroad, Tom acted as a strong shoulder for you to lean on. Of course, you couldn't have spent the entirety of this period of isolation alone. Tom and you frequently had ranting sessions with each other, and this just happened to be your week of ranting.

The motif of Tom's responses often stayed the same or, at least, closely related. You repeated the words of wisdom again and again in your head. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. You repeated them until you fully believed them. You were still repeating them, but that was okay, because healing was an indefinite process.

Another day passes of this time alone and then you are talking to Jamie over the phone. You could hear him smiling through his words. You were smiling too, loving the fact that the two of you were always happy to talk to each other as if you hadn't just called the day before.