Luxury ✔️

10 | Chapter ten

Chapter 10 | Thanksgiving party

" I have  a bad habit of searching for
beauty in beasts, and forever
in temporary people. "

L U X U R Y

Have you ever felt lonely?

The type of lonely that leaves mascara running down your cheeks and stains your pillow with tears? When you gradually feel yourself fading from everything that used to make you feel alright. When you feel less you, because you have no one to share who you are with–to the point where you don't know who you were before?

Because I do.

After Larissa's driver dropped us off to my house a couple of days ago, we spent our afternoon talking and eating. They left at 6:00pm.

Then, after that, I felt that familiar wave of nothing washing upon me.

I felt lonely again.

Lonely and alone.

Then, I ate steak and mushed potatoes for dinner.

I sighed, trying to find a more comfortable position for my head on my pillow as I looked up at the black sky covered by a thick glass, no stars, just planes.

I chuckled to myself as I remembered how when I was a little kid, my grandfather used to lie to me, telling me that the planes in the sky were red comets–shooting stars.

I used to believe him. In every single word he said, there was trust. It didn't matter that he didn't have the guts to tell me that we couldn't see shooting stars from where we were, or that the pool wasn't as deep as it seemed to be.

Once, he took me to Disneyland for the weekend and didn't tell my parents. They were in a business trip in Dubai, so they wouldn't be back for at least a couple of weeks.

It was the best day of my life–I was nine.

I remembered how we stayed at the hotel next to Hollywood Studios, and how he got me vanilla ice cream for every meal.

I felt my eyes water and my chin slightly tremble as I felt my heart throb.

I missed him.

A lot.

I slowly blinked a couple of times to make the tears go away, and pressed the silvered color button in the remote for the ceiling to slide over the window on the roof.

I placed the remote on my nightstand and hugged my pillow, pulling my legs closer to my chest.

I was still wearing Larissa's joggers, but I couldn't be bothered to change.

I closed my eyes, and slowly, I fell asleep.

•

My body shot up in the bed as desperately inhaled air.

My hands flew to my forehead to wipe the small layer of sweat, then to the back of my neck. I closed my eyes, trying to remember what I was dreaming about.