Introspective Strangers [h.s.]

Chapter 54

*** TRIGGER WARNING:

This chapter contains some pretty dark themes, mentions/insinuations of suicide and death.

There is a summary of the chapter at the end if you would like to skip it.

Please only read if you are in the right headspace and please, PLEASE remember to take care of yourself and put yourself first. <3 You are worth the entire world and deserve everything good! Remember that I am always a message away if you want to talk.

***

Chapter 54

Space.

That was always it, right?

I always internalized how alone or how isolated from the world I felt, yet when it actually finally seemed like I had someone there who made me feel less alone and less like I was taking everything on by myself, I fled. Because that was how I'd always dealt with things.

So now, here I was – doing exactly that. Choosing to flee from both Harry and Isaac rather than talk to either of them about what had happened or conclude how to possibly work past it, because I was scared more of that conversation than what could happen if I just acted like none of it ever occurred in the first place.

Unfortunately, I didn't know exactly where I was going upon stepping out of my apartment, because usually, that was where I went to wallow and feel bad for myself. In this instance, I couldn't exactly do that since I had left behind there the very person that I was trying to currently distance myself from.

Leaving Harry alone in my apartment? Why couldn't I have just told him to leave?

The tears that I had so long bottled within me were now running down my cheeks at an uncontrollable pace. I shivered in my jacket, wrapping it tighter around me, as I dug my hand deep into my pocket to retrieve the familiar box that I had sworn last week I was going to throw away.

I guess it was good that I hadn't, because my hand shook both with unrestrained emotion and the need for a familiar calm as I tucked a cigarette between my teeth and patted my jeans to find my lighter. Upon bringing it up to my lips, my heart gave an involuntary lurch as I caught sight of Harry's ring on my thumb.

"Christ," I muttered, swallowing another sob and choking out a puff of smoke. I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to acclimate myself to the nicotine headrush mingling with the rest of the alcohol still running rampant through me.

This town. This stupid, big, expansive town that I had dreamed of moving to when I went away to school suddenly seemed much too large as I trekked my way through it. I suddenly felt all too small and too inexperienced to be here all, like I was one person in this gaping land of people that all had their own problems and people to worry about.

It felt stupid. Stupid of me to be crying and chain-smoking while I made my way blocks and blocks away from my apartment, trying to console myself only with the knowledge that it won't last. That this feeling – this hole in my chest, the fear of the unknown of what will come next, won't last.

Trying not to think about the ring my finger adorned or who it belonged to, how that person now knew the deepest, most terrible parts of me that I wasn't sure anyone had yet been able to fully come to terms with. That I was almost positive he wouldn't be able to come to terms with. That my friends definitely hadn't. The friends that still treaded lightly around me, careful not to speak too loudly when I was upset or distanced themselves whenever I closed off because they weren't quite sure how to deal with whatever would come next.

When I finally turned into the parking lot that I had decided only minutes before was my anticipated destination on this little escapade, I had already finished three cigarettes. As much as I wanted to hate myself for it, as much as that little voice at the back of my head nagged that it wasn't good for me, I felt better. It had been nearly 20 minutes of interrupted breathing, of allowing me to focus on something other than the thoughts in my head.