Life in Paintings

Chapter 27 - Sleep

Chapter 27 - Sleep

I was strong before. I was strong for Gustave because I owed him that much. But he's not here anymore when I appear in the next painting and I can't keep any of this in.

I cry. I don't care where I am, or what's going on around me. All I care about is that I've left Gustave alone back in that forest and he's going to wake up without me and I'll never see him again. I'll never get to kiss him. I should have kissed him. I should have been stronger and stayed awake.

I should have stayed. I should have found a way to stay.

I never knew what heartbreak felt like before this. I think about something I had heard once, how you need to give people hope in order to really break them. I thought maybe Gustave was a sort of break from the pain. A gift. But Gustave was just a way for me to really feel love so I could have it swept under my feet.

"Someone shut her up."

"Come on, stop crying."

"We're trying to sleep here."

The complaints around me make me notice my surrounding.

I'm in an enormous bed surrounded by people. Most of them are naked and barely covered my sheets. But there's nothing sexual to this picture. It's just about sleeping and being close I guess.

But I don't care about being close to any of these strangers. I don't care about being here.

I actually shrink away from the touch of the other people around me. I don't want to feel their skin against mine. I don't want to feel anything else but Gustave.

If I close my eyes I can almost still feel him. I f I stop moving and I stop breathing and I close my eyes shut, I can imagine the way it felt when his arms were around me, his warm breath against my temple.

I cry myself to sleep, hoping to go back to him somehow.