Displacement // Shawn Mendes

Fifteen: The Art of Falling Apart

I think it is easy to love something you've never had. It's easy because you can never comprehend the desolation that comes along with the pain, so you love until you can't love anymore, until you're stuck with a broken heart that never left your hands. It's easier to break your own heart, than to allow it to fall into the hands of someone else.

I think it's why I loved Camryn. It's why I love my father even though he has given me thousands of reasons not to.

I don't understand. I'm trying my hardest.

I'm unsure of how long we sit there, contemplating the dozens of issues handed to us on a silver platter we never asked for, trying to make sense of how we can possibly be so broken without ever being shattered.

I might've found it in me to whisper the words "I'm sorry," but my brain can hardly make the time to process them, so they slip unknowingly like warm water between my lips, and I am unsure of whether or not her own brain can comprehend them. I hope she hears me, but at the same time, I don't really care if she doesn't. The universe has pulled my consciousness from my body, and I don't think I can feel pain even if I tried. It's like I'm drifting ceaselessly in an ocean of my emotions, and I don't ever see myself hitting the shore, but I can see myself drowning as clear as the water I'm submerged in.

I can hear the murmur of the engine and the raindrops patting against the window. I don't quite remember when it began to rain, but here we are, windshields swiping, air conditioner humming, wheels turning. Everything works together without being aware of the symphony it's creating, and I begin to wonder if this is what highway hypnosis was born from. A lullaby of the industrial sounds of metal gears churning together that makes you forget you're really alive; checks you out for however long your brain needs to drift, and brings you back when you arrive at your destination. Why can't all of life be that way? Why can't we check out for indefinite amounts of time and come back for the good things? Why must we be here to live out the in-between moments, which hurt so badly they make you want to abandon your existence altogether?

I can't decide if I want to drown or check out temporarily. Are they so different after all?

"Is your phone connected?" Reyna gestures to the car stereo with her eyes, and they proceed to gaze over to my hands, which now bear white knuckles from how tightly they are wrapped around the steering wheel. I relax, and like a river, the blood instantaneously rushes to their aid, but I do not feel the difference. I nod, and she grabs my phone, unlocking it with ease. I took the password off after privacy and security caused a rift between Camryn and me, before she found out about my music and wondered why I was gone so often. Even after she found out, she never quite understood.

The tapping of the keyboard mixes in with the sound of the rain, and the water droplets turn crimson beneath the red glow of the stop light. I close my eyes as the song begins to play. It's classical. Soft and intense, weaving the bridge between silent heartache and splitting desperation, reflecting what we both feel in this moment. I can feel it quiet the tension that has been burning like a wildfire in my veins, and I think I start to breathe again.

I open my eyes, the light turns green, and I drive.

The air between us is solemn now, but it is not broken. Or, maybe it is. Maybe the air is floating with the fragments of two broken people that are learning to be okay with it. Maybe the soul begins to mend itself when you stop trying to sew together the pieces that are too stubborn to stick.

"Symphony No. 5," she says nearly three minutes into the song, with her eyes closed and head leaned against the headrest. "Mahler." Her voice is soft, and does not seem out of tune with the delicate piano that plays from my car stereo. I turn to look over at her, and I can't help but notice the way the city lights gleam against her sand colored skin, bouncing off like a reflection in a mirror. She opens her eyes and I turn away before she can meet mine. "Turn left here," she says, and closes them again.