happy endings are for fairy tales // kiani au

THIRTY: WILL

while this book may be dead, i am gg to finish it (woo) in case ur still into it! one of my new year resolutions was to finish a book and here i am still trying to fulfill it :) nobody is probably interested but i moved to a new country recently and it's given me a lot more time to write so i've been powering through many chapters n everything's almost done!

in conclusion, this book ends on the 40th chapter and (hopefully) by the end of 2019! -aŁ

18 august 2017

what does someone do when alone?

when one is truly by themselves, living for the sake of themselves, making choices purely based on what they are thinking, without any input of anyone else, without any thought for anyone else. do they seek out companionship? do they accept their isolation like the death of a foreign relative, a nonchalant agreement? is it because they do not care or because there is nothing to do about it?

i have been starting to notice things after i was abandoned by my closest friends. the living room of my dorm dampened with emptiness, a growing sense of lack of warmth. my phone no longer flashes in the middle of the night to wake me up, no more late-night messages. the chair liam sat on that one day, is now a sinking pit of misunderstanding and betrayal. sometimes, when i'm in the kitchen getting a glass of water, i hear laughter, i smell chipotle. and i'm sure it is not an apparition; the scene has happened, after all. just, not anymore.

without the solace of company, i retreated into my own thoughts. i had more time to think too. nothingness seemed to follow me everywhere, empty seats next to me in class, across me in the cafeteria. and where there is nothingness, there is space to fill. whether i liked it or not, my thoughts would fill it up. is someone staring? are they talking about me right now? do i look stoic enough like i don't care? or do i look like a pathetic loser? i would tighten my frown and hope i came off as aggressive and intimidating enough not to be pitied.

but still, as much as i appeared ok to be alone, the question kept bugging me: what did i do?

zach and i had fought, but if anything, i was not in the wrong. my reaction was over-the-top, but my privacy had been breached. and all of them knew above all, that i was a very private person. what the fuck had i done to be sudden enemies with all of them? my insecurity grew stronger everyday that passed. maybe i talked too long about myself, maybe i neglected them when i was too invested in jordan, maybe it was just a small stupid thing like my habit of not listening to them properly before switching the subject.

in the past few days, i have started hating myself more. because with each day i create another reason why i was such a trashy friend, why i deserved to be left alone. i am a horrible person and i should never have been friends with them in the first place. they were worth more than that. a darkness overcast the glimmer of positivity and hope i had had for my life to turn around.

—

when i attended college, i sat down and listened to class without a word. as i walked back to my dorm, nobody waved or said goodbye, and i would enter the small apartment quietly. then i would unpack my bag and start doing revision, anything to keep me distracted from the silence.

after going through the process over the over again, it suddenly dawned on me that i had not spoken a single word for one entire week.

not voluntarily, not on a bet. i no longer had a need to talk, because i was that alienated. even the tears i shed after i found out were silent. i cried wordlessly, tears flowing down my cheeks without producing a trace of sound in a emotionless blank stare.

no matter how much i tried to deny it, i craved connection more than anything right at that instant. i didn't want to feel trapped anymore, suffocating between my relationships with jordan, liam, mitchell, sean and zach, tormented by jordan's friends.

it felt like this was a long time coming: the end of my sanity finally arriving. first, bianca departed, leaving me in what felt like a shattered world that held no more meaning with the core of it abruptly stolen just like that. jordan was soon to follow suit because i pushed him away. his friends replaced him, another push to my inevitable doom. now, the people who had once supported me through the darkest part of my life disappeared in a flash, with no explanation or no reason. once again, jordan left, but willingly this time. each one made me take one more step to the ledge, to a crevasse that would plummet me to my death as i precariously stepped across the summit.

as if it was a twisted, cruel prank, life decided to drag my agony longer than the screech of tires in car crash, or the deafening sound of gunshot. my psyche was destined to crumble from the second bianca took her last breath. ever since, it has just been a ticking time bomb.

i step out of the bathroom, towel wrapped around my body. i had been showering in cold water lately; it made me feel numb. the container lay placed on the ledge of the counter top, white cylindrical sleeping pills peeping through the orange-tinted plastic. i sigh. the time i spent staring at those pills had increased lately.

not today, i think. there was still one more person i had to check in with, the last lifeline.

the first message i have received in a long time pops up on my phone: i'll get a plane ticket. see you soon, love you!