The Green Eyed Monster

Ch. 32

When I wake up it's dark, the only light spilling into my room red-hued from the curtains. And I feel drained, and sick, and cold, and mostly, I just feel empty. I feel numb. But it's a hell of a lot better than what I was feeling before. I feel like the old me, and who knew my walls were so easy to reconstruct. I thought I'd destroyed them, but all I did was knock them over. They stayed intact, and all I had to do was pull them back up again. I hate it. But this Jade is strong, this Jade has a backbone. I'm an actress, I can pretend to be whatever I need to be, and right now, I need to be someone who can do something. I need to be someone who's okay, and I'm not, I'm really not, but I've shut that girl up. She was useless, and soft, and she was Cat's girl. Cat isn't here anymore. That girl has no place. What I need right now is to be strong. I can't wallow in my love and self pity. It's useless, it's stupid, and maybe I'm not that girl, that soft girl I became around Cat, maybe that isn't me, but this isn't me either. Maybe I'm somewhere in the middle, I don't know yet, I haven't figured it out, but at the moment, this is who I need to be. It's a character I've rehearsed to perfection. The mean girl. The girl who doesn't give a fuck about anything. The girl who doesn't feel anything.

I grab a towel, heading into the bathroom. I don't bother turning on the light. Enough spills through the frosted window so that I can see. Things are black and white and shades of grey in here. It's simple. I don't want that sterile, artificial light making everything so bright and fake. My clothes are still damp, sticking to me, my skin chilly and covered in goosebumps. And more than that, more than the cold, more than the clamminess of my skin, I feel dirty. I feel like there's this scum on me, that I need to wash off, that I need to scrub off my skin. But I don't think it's the kind of thing that comes off. It's permanent, just like a tattoo. It's all the things I've done, scrawled over my skin, and I wonder if people can see them when they look at me. I don't have Cat's hands to cover them up anymore. I strip off my sodden clothes, tossing them on the floor and stepping into the shower. I turn the water on as hot as I can stand, searing my skin with sharp needles, steam rising from the floor of the shower, drifting around me. I massage my fingers through my hair, the chill starting to fade until only that deeper cold is left, the one that's sunk into my bones.

And all I can think is; maybe this Jade is better. This Jade is logical, this Jade gets things done, and doesn't have to worry about anyone's feelings, not even her own. As terrible as my plan was to get Beck back, as many people as it hurt, the fact is, it worked. I got Beck back, I could still have him back. The Jade I was, she was a bitch, but she was smart. She didn't let little things like morals or basic human compassion get in her way, and maybe that's who I need to be to get Cat back. There's no way I'm letting her go this easily. Not after all the effort I put in, not after all the time I spent on her, I'm not gonna let all that go to waste. I'm not going to let her heart stay broken. And this Jade, this hard, emotionless thing is going to fix it. She's the one that caused all the problems with that stupid plan.

My hands, in their soaping, in their scrubbing, drift below my stomach, skating below my navel, and I pause, hands stilling. Cat. It's hard to think that... this morning, just this morning... it can't be, it must be longer, it can't be just this morning that I was happy, that she was happy. It can't be just this morning that we...

I put my hands on the insides of my thighs, spreading my legs and closing my eyes. And it's almost like I can still feel her there. My hands are where her hands were, where they feel burned into me, and I shiver despite the scorching water. How can things fall apart so quickly? How can they change so suddenly? Things are supposed to take time, you're supposed to have time to process. It's not supposed to be quick and sharp and painful. But then, my relationship with Cat was never conventional. Rules don't apply with her.

I wrench the shower taps off, my skin flushed red and soft. And that's what I've been recently. I've been soft, I've been weak. I've been a mass of quivering jelly, and I called it love. Love is meant to make you stronger, not weaker, and loving Cat made me weak. I did it wrong, and she meant too much, she still means too much. But I can feel my spine now, I can feel the steel in my bones.

I dry myself with the towel, the mirror fogging my reflection, making me a shapeless blur. I... I can't pretend I don't love her. I do, but... I let her mean too much. I relied too much on her. I leaned on her, and when she left I fell. I have to pick myself up, and... I have to get her back. Whatever lengths I take, whatever depths I stoop to, whatever it takes, I will get her back. And it's not because I love her, and it's not because she loves me. It's because I need her.

I shouldn't have let her in, I shouldn't have let her become such a part of me. It made me weak, and it made me stupid, and it made me soft and useless. But that fact is, I did. I let her become all those things, I let myself, and it was a mistake. I can't change how I feel... but I can put it away for now. I can push it down and try to focus. I will get her back. She's mine. And I can't let my emotions paralyse me.

I walk back to my room, towel wrapped around me. I can hear my mom and dad chatting softly in another room, the sound of the TV in the background. They're probably having dinner. I'm not even sure what time it is. It doesn't really matter. I'm not hungry.

I shut my door, turning my light on. It's become too dark to see, otherwise I'd leave it off. I don't feel like... that brightness. It hurts my eyes, illuminates too much of me. I don't want to see myself. I don't want to see that hardness in my face, and more... I don't want to see the pain. I don't want to acknowledge it. I... I have to be strong. I have to keep it together so I can do something. I might've built that wall back up, but some chunks are still missing. I'm not impenetrable, especially when this is so close to my heart, especially when it's already made it inside my walls.

I rifle through my underwear drawer. Black is the easiest choice, it's what there's most of. I sit on my bed after they're on, pressing my knees together, hands clasped. I need a plan. I need something to work towards besides a vague notion of getting her back. I need- My eyebrow furrows, eyes catching a glimpse of something.

I lean over, pulling a shirt away from something on the carpet. I pick up the small object, rolling it around in my fingers. It's... it's Cat's lipgloss. It must've fallen out of her bag when... when she left. I screw off the lid, holding it up to my nose and inhaling. Pineapple. She wore it today. The smell of it makes me lick my lips, as if to taste her there, but she's not, she won't be, and I take it away, putting the lid back on, my shoulders starting to shake, eyes getting hot and blurry. I can't... it's just lipgloss. I have to push it down, I can't... this isn't helping. I put my hands to my face, as if to force the tears back in, to claw them off, to do anything but admit they're there. I am strong. I'm the Jade from before. I'm making that choice. I... I don't have to be that weak girl, I don't have to be... I don't, I can... I can push it away. I don't have to. I can make myself numb. I have to. I have to tape myself together, I can't fall apart, not now. It's my own fucking fault, this whole thing-

Stop. I'm being that girl again, that girl who takes responsibility for her actions, who feels bad when she hurts people. I can't be her. I'm not her. She's useless. She's the one crying, the one making me shake and sob. The one who's making me clench so tight onto Cat's lipgloss, knuckles white. It's not my fault. None of this is my fault. I was just being myself, and everyone else fucked up. It's not my fault, it's Beck's. It's been Beck this whole time, and I push that guilty part of me down that protests to that. He's the one that's caused all the problems. If he hadn't called, if he'd just gotten over me, things would be fine, things would be perfect. And a part of me knows it's not true, a part of me knows that it's no one's fault but my own, but I need to get angry, I need to blame someone, and Beck was the catalyst. And he's gonna help me fix this. He's gonna get over his problem, he's gonna stop being a baby and fucking help me get Cat back. And why? Because I'm fucking making him.

I'm not letting her go. I'll do whatever it takes to get her back. And if I hurt more people along the way, so be it. She's what's important.