Kiss Me When You're Sober (FREENBECKY)

XLII

Two days ago

"I understand." Riley said while wiping her tears using her trembling hands, "I'm sorry for kissing you." she did not talk more out of fear that her voice would crack from sobbing.

She gathers all of her remaining strength to walk away from Ren.

There's something inside her that starts to build up, both in her throat and in her chest, but she doesn't know if it is pain, disappointment, regret, or anger.

When she finally gets inside her room, she's expecting herself to cry out loud or to break down in tears, but the numbness is eating her, again. She was just standing firmly in her room.

Her knees are steady, she's breathing properly, her hands are not shaking, and there's no throbbing pain in her chest. Her tears are falling down but she feels nothing but numbness.  

Riley doesn't know for how long she had been spacing out while standing steadily in her room. Ironically, the tingling sound in her ears gives her comfort. She's digging her nails again into her palm to feel the pain but there's only numbness.

But then...

She suddenly groans because of the pain that she felt in her back. Everything seems blurry and she feels detached, but she noticed that the back of her body was pressed against the wall.

All of a sudden, she felt an excruciating pain in her head and chest. The numbness that she felt just a while ago is now manifesting its true self.

And now she's hallucinating. 

She saw Ren pinning her against the wall. Visual hallucination.

"Babe..."

She heard Ren talking in her gentle and loving voice. Auditory hallucination.

"Oh, crap." Riley cursed in her mind.

Ren is now kissing her gently. Tactile hallucination.

"Why are you not responding?"

"Because you're not real." Riley lifelessly said while staring blankly at Ren's figure who is a product of her hallucination.

She should not submit to her hallucination but...

The figure in front of her leans in again to kiss her and she immediately jerked her head away. She shut her eyes hoping that when she opened them again, the figure in front of her would disappear.

"How can I stop this hallucination?" Riley exclaimed in her mind.

This already happened two years ago when she almost died because Jasmine hit her with a car, causing her to be in a coma for four months. When she was lying on the ground, soaking in her own blood, she saw Ren at that moment, trying to save her. Riley kept that memory and that was the first thing that she said when she woke up from a coma. That Ren was there, trying to save her, when she was dying.

Everything seems so real and vivid at that time. But later on, she found out that it was just a hallucination.

"B-babe..."

Riley opened her eyes, and the figure of a woman is still there. Her eyes are full of worries, confusion, and longingness.

"Stop, please you're not real." her voice is shaking.

The woman cupped her face and lean in for a kiss. Hindi na nakaiwas si Riley. She was not responding so the woman stopped kissing her.

She held Riley's left hand and placed it on her-