Mend Me? ➸ hemmings a.u

12. Phosphenes

After school ended I'd heard that Rose would be suspended for the whole of next week. I was more than glad to have the peaceful weekend ahead of me. I wasn't going to think about Rose, or Luke... Or Michael.

I bet you want to hear what happened after I pulled away and so rudely said 'don't', right?

"I told you," he whispered. "You'll never love me like I love you," he repeated and I shook my head. "You're my favourite human being on this planet, Michael. And I love you so much," my hands were resting on his shoulders. "Some brainless part of me thought there was a chance," he laughed sadly. "Michael," I had no idea what to say, I wanted to be in love with him. "I guess all I can ask for now is to know if you really forgive me, now that you probably fully understand why," he trailed off. "I do," I did. "I do understand and I do forgive you," I told him and the look in his eyes was unreadable. Something like disbelief or adoration, I like adoration. "When you ignored me today, it was the worst feeling in the world. But I know it can't possibly match the feeling when you found out I took the photo," more tears started to spill silently down his cheeks. "It's okay now, it's okay. It'll be like always, Michael. Like always," I smiled and he took a deep breath. "I'll be forever grateful, Ava."

So as soon as I got home I faked a smile to my parents and had to pretend everything was as normal, for their own well-being, of course. I threw my bag across my bedroom, kicked my shoes off, put on Luke's t-shirt and dove underneath the covers. I told my mind to think about anything except those three people. Go on, think about flying, just levitate out of my bed and pass through the ceiling and soar. Feel the ice cold wind nipping against my skin and the houses below me disappear into nothingness and let my eyes water in pain and the sound of silence deafen me and let the feeling of weightlessness consume me before I plunge into the ice cold water. And of course I saw Luke beside me, with those moving, reflected tattoos dancing over his skin. I opened my eyes.

I don't think I'll be able to experience that again, or experience Luke again. Knowing him, he'd be too afraid to meet me again with Rose in the picture. But Rose wouldn't be in the picture all of next week. That provided a bit of comfort. I was afraid Luke would talk to me and people would tell Rose and things would just continue spiralling into the depths of terribleness. But I'm more afraid he'll ignore me. Damn this dimension. Damn the beautiful, rich and oh so demonic Rose. It's such a tease knowing there's a dimension out there where she doesn't exist.

I then forced myself to use my technique. The drawer technique. I started to mentally file everything that was going on in the drawer of my mind. The 'Michael' folder. In that folder were subfolders titled 'my feelings about him as my best friend since ever', 'the photo incident', 'the tunnel confession' and 'the future.' Rose's had 'the bitch-slap and death of DNA', 'the hallway threat', 'next week absence' and 'the future'. Then Luke's had 'adoration', 'rebellion against the devil,' 'what he was thinking when she confronted me' and 'the possibility of future water tattoos and the implication of them.' I sealed up all these folders and organised them neatly in my mind drawer. I then shut it and stuck a note on it that read 'deal with later'.

That's when my mind was at peace, a welcoming calm washed over me and I buried my face into the softness of my pillow, ignoring the fact that my mattress was still probably the most uncomfortable mattress in human history.

You know those weird patterns and dots you see behind closed eyelids? That's what you call the Entoptic Phenomenon; when your eye creates it's own image, specifically, a phosphene, something that looks like light but is not. It doesn't exist. It's the only things you see, actually see, not imagine, that don't really exist. One theory is that the pressure of your eyelids stimulates the light-sensitive part of your eye, which is why they flash crazily when you rub it. The image you see after staring at something for a while is called a negative afterimage. Let's say you're staring at green for ages, when you close your eyes the green-seeing cells will be tired and decide to relax. But your brain still thinks there's a colour there, so cells that aren't as tired will take it's place, letting you see this image in another colour. Seeing life in different colours, I suppose.

Is our brain like our eyes? When it's not being stimulated, it thinks about and sees things that aren't really there. Most of my brain scenarios are also negative afterimages of reality. I experienced one of these afterimages in real life, though. That was the weightlessness experience with Luke. It's something that shouldn't have existed or occurred in reality, it was the phantom lights our brain sees when we close our eyes, not the real and less spectacular lights we see when our eyes are open. It was a privilege to see something meant only for the fantasies of my late-night dwellings.

And yes, I was thinking about Luke again. But I couldn't be more calm. My brain, at last, was in peace. But the 'adoration' subfolder in Luke's specific alphabetically ordered folder managed to crawl it's way out. I smiled, if these thoughts are all I have left of Luke, I guess I'll be okay. And then the final wave of calmness swept over me, I was ready to fall asleep.

That was, until, I felt my phone vibrate. I took it out of my pocket and my eyes adjusted to the real-life light passing through my retina. This light, however, didn't seem like real life at all. My heart swelled and I was out of my squeaky bed immediately.