Technicolor Daze [Currently Being Edited]

four.

Sunday, April 13th, 2014

Disgusted.

That was how Theo felt about himself the next morning when he woke up to the sound of his phone buzzing with message notifications. They were probably from Alice interrogating him on the events of the previous night. Theo groaned into his pillow, not wanting to face her questions yet. He could barely face himself. His body felt okay, but his guilty conscience was eating him up inside.

After walking out of Flávio's building, Theo stopped in at 7-eleven to buy a pack of cigarettes, before heading home in a somewhat dazed state. He wasn't quite sure how to feel and the effects of the alcoholic beverages still lingered, muddling his emotional state even further. He sat on the balcony smoking cigarettes and drinking water until he felt sober enough to go to sleep, trying to minimize the chances of having a headache the next day. The sunrise had already painted his room pink and purple when he finally fell asleep.

It hadn't been the first time he'd felt that way after a night out. The year he started sleeping around, having decided to move on from Jason, he'd often had experiences where he completely disregarded his partners. In a way, he hadn't really moved on. He just needed a way to deal with the rage he felt about having dedicated six years of his life to an abusive partner who ended up cheating on him. He wanted to punish his partner by sleeping with as many people as he could. He didn't care about their pleasure.

Alice had sat him down once after he'd woken up one morning feeling miserable, and suggested he should seek some professional help. She could tell he was harboring a lot of negativity and needed to process it in a less self-destructive way. Theo heeded her advice and booked an appointment with a psychologist. After a couple of months, he felt better and was finally starting to move on from Jason. Once he felt like he had moved on for the most part, he stopped seeing his therapist. His little stint with Flávio had, however, proven to him that he still occasionally acted upon his self-destructive urges.

Theo got up and reached out for his phone. He had one missed call from his mom as well as two missed calls and twenty unread messages from Alice on Facebook messenger. He would call his mom after replying to Alice. Most of Alice's messages were just her asking Theo if he was already home and if he was okay. Theo sent her a couple of messages as a reply.

SUN AT 2:14 PM

Hey, just got up

Slept at home

When are you coming home?

He got up from the bed as he waited for her reply. The app soon indicated that she was typing.

SUN AT 2:16 PM

what happened last night??

are you okay??

i should be home in like 30 minutes

on the bus now

Theo didn't answer her questions, instead, he just sent a short reply.

SUN AT 2:17 PM

I'll tell you when you get here

Alice kept sending him messages, but he needed some time to gather his thoughts before facing her, so he set his phone aside and decided to have a shower. His mind always felt clearer after a shower.

Once under the soothing cascading of the water, Theo tried to forget his reckless mistake, even if only for the duration of the shower. He closed his eyes, picturing a vast desert in his mind. Some people envisioned beaches, other people mountains, but Theo always felt at peace imagining himself surrounded by millennia-old orange dunes.