Pandora's Box

1.Blue Roses

My hands shook violently, clutching onto the jewellery box with every emotion coarsing through my head.
The neurons firing all at once were far too much and my inhales became unsteady. I was having a panic attack.

The anger swallowed me up and hurled my fist into the mirror, splattering shards of bloody glass onto the white rug in my room. In the leftover mirror, my eyes looked lost, panicked, and searching for the strength to stop the tears. Slowly, then all at once my body gave out and I slumped to the floor, I became a tangled mess, hunched over and rocking back and forth to try and stop the pain. It ripped into my heart and dragged right through my stomach, I wanted to throw up and scream and cry and die all at once. I wanted to die.

By my bleeding clenched fist a blurry picture of two happy faces smiled at me, mocking me with glee. The sun had tenderly sprinkled freckles across my nose and the salty sea had scrunched his hair into waves. His hair. The hair I played with while his head was safe in my lap, the dark strands at the mercy of my fingertips, his gleaming smile breathing life into my soul. His lips. The ones that tenderly kissed my own and whispered promises to me every night. The lips that 15 minutes ago, ripped my heart in two.

I didn't hear it when he had said it the first time, but the words froze the blood in my veins and it took everything to not collapse on the pavement.

"I'm sorry I can't be with you anymore. I'm letting you go. But it's for the best"

Whatever else he had said was just to pad out the speech. More bullshit to feed my aching brain.

My fingertips stroked the box on the floor, it's hinge had been fractured and the contents spilled out. The ring and bracelet lay dead on the floorboards. And the necklace that used to rest on my heart was buried in the white fur of my rug, the moon crescent pendant gleaming.

It's hard to describe the feeling. Nothingness.
Like everything refuses to touch you or to let you feel.

......................................♤

The next morning I awake and I'm in my bed. Covers pulled tight up to my puffy, swollen eyes.

There is a note on the end of my bed. Presumably from my best friend, whose apartment isn't far from mine, and as she's the only one I told about last night, I guess she was the one who fixed me up. My knuckles are currently wrapped in cloth and the mirror is miraculously re-glassed and any remnants of him are no longer in the space of my tiny, one bedroom apartment in a coastal city.

It wouldn't surprise me if Helena herself had burned his jacket, which used to lie on my clothes rack, and scattered the ashes around his bushes. She is my one and only friend, and a force not to be reckoned with is my Helena. With green eyes and ash blond hair she is a literal Greek goddess come to life, with the wrath to come with it.

Underneath my window, where the sun tickles open the curtains, is my coffee table, where the record player collects dust and sticky rims from hot drinks make their home on the wood. Along with a collection of other objects which never have made it into the bin or sink. But placed on top of the pile, a small bunch of roses rest there, inviting me to take a peek at the thick envelope clutched in their bed of thorns. Their petals are tinged turquoise, like the ocean.