The Heart Of The Storm

When I was alive, my nights frequently consisted of quietly climbing down the tangle of vines that crept up the side of my house and rushing to the woods where I would meet up with him. The reason I enjoyed it so much was because in those hours of the warm and crisp nights, we were free. Free to be ourselves and feel comfort in the company of one simple person. For a while I felt that our actions represented our own versions of a mini-rebellion that kept us alive inside while the environment of our homes weighed heavily on our souls.

Usually my task on those nights was to provide some sort of extra escape from the world that surrounded us. Most nights that entertainment was an old photo album, or one of my favorite books that I would read random pages out of. My favorite evening was when I brought the entertainment of questions I had longed to ask him. We sat closely together in one of the lowest hanging branches due to Connor's adorable fear of heights and that's what we discussed for a while: fear.

I asked him what his top three fears were and he listed them in order as heights, death, and losing the one thing that he said made him feel free. Although I didn't exactly know what all made up the extent of his freedom, I knew it was of extreme importance or else he wouldn't have listed it as his number one. I thought maybe this was almost too personal to pry on, so being the lovely friend I am I told him that death was an irrational fear because death is inevitable. Is it avoidable? Maybe in some cases... but it is unavoidable in the sense that it is everywhere. Death, ironically, is apart of life.

He explained to me that he meant the surprise of death scared him. The surprise of walking down the street thinking everything is fine and the next thing you know you've been flattened by a truck and you're life is full of unfinished chapters. I told him that I thought maybe death could be a way out of the storm we called life and how it wasn't something I was afraid of. Maybe death was a gateway to the "great perhaps" I've always dreamt of from one of my books.

The look on his face made me think my words terrified him, but he chose to move on. He asked me of my fears and I gave him my three. Never being heard, disappointing the ones I love, and conflict. Of course he jumped right on my gun and shot questions at me for my fear of conflict. With a long pause and a sigh I elaborated my fear. I told him that I feared the kind of conflict that had to leave bruises on my ribs, the kind that used fists as a familiar punishment while words tightened around my brain like a rope and restricted my mind to the small world of sad and instability that was left.

He was usually quite good with his words, but instead of his mouth for comfort I received his arms. They snaked around my shoulders and his hands into the roots of my hair as his tall lean figure slowly pulled me into an embrace for which I returned. My arms wrapped around to his back where I gripped his shirt and let out a long breath.

The rest of my favorite night included more of these conversations. He always listened when I talked, and I talked a lot. I loved how he listened to me and never seemed to miss a word but I loved it more when he spoke and freed his thoughts from his head. He was careful in the way he chose his words and always thought about what he was going to say before he said it. The success he had in making his words flow like a steady stream was extraordinary. He had a mesmerizing talent with his words that could silence an ocean of raging waves. And with me he did just that. That night, I realized I had fallen in love.

I didn't fall in that moment, I just noticed it. I had fallen in all the previous moments we had shared together, and I fell in a way that I could not bounce back from. And I was continuously falling, paralized in my own feelings, until the day he caught me.

We never talked about love but we continuoisly switched between topics and questions and stories of crazy adventures we'd been on, or maybe adventures we'd like to go on someday, maybe even together. Although the words were never spoken, we had made many silent promises that night. Sadly those promises I had broken only a week later...

What me and Connor knew about each other was limited and what we failed to discuss was our lives at home. We both knew that the people we had become and grown into with each other was not the same person on the other side of our front doors. What he failed to know about was the bruises underneath my shirt and the scars along the curves of my thighs. He failed to know that I lived in a house of detioration. Hands were used as hammars against my small frame and harsh words were the building blocks of my decision to break my future. I often had hope, and I had not lost it, I just found hope in another form that mean the end of my promises. The long periods of thinking and contemplating my decision was finalized.

A violent night resulted in my first step towards my freedom. My last breaths consisted of muffled screams trapping voices in my head as my body fought against my fears.

I waited that night long enough to be sure my parents were asleep and just long enough to leave early so I wasn't stopped by the one thing that kept me alive. The comfort of one person can change almost everything. My heart was racing as I snuck out my window and down the vines. As soon as my feet felt solid ground I ran hard in my flip flops with tears beginning to blind my eyes. I couldn't see but my body knew every turn to take for the next three blocks towards the one place I felt comfortable.

Hours early I arrived and for the majority of that time I paced and cried and thought. I thought about Connor and the lovely nights we'd spent in these trees. I thought about the dreamland of my great perhaps and how I could be free of pain. But the voices in my head yelled over any sense of focus I had left and I needed them to stop. The rope I left in the top of the tallest tree nearby was waiting for me.

The struggle of the actual climb was ignored and overrun by the knowledge that I was going to fly to my escape. Once again I took the time to sit and ponder on my decision one last time. I was ready. I stood with shaky breaths and tears hightlighting my cheeks and like they do in the cinemas, I opened my arms as wings and fell towards my great escape.

I was free and now in an out of body experience I saw my body flying back and forth with the support of a rope. My lifeless body slowed and eventually stopped swaying unless the wind just so happened to blow.

A tall body with caramel skin finally spotted me. I had not let him know of a meet up time for tonight hoping maybe he wouldn't be shocked so suddenly. My love stared for only a moment knowing that it was too late. He looked ever so handsome in his superman pajama pants and plain white T-shirt. His light brown eyes were bright in the light of the moon and his muscled tensed as he walked over to the tree and climbed to where by body hung suspended by the knot and cut it. He watched my body fall into the bed of daisies below him and proceeded to lie next to me.

I immediately regret leaving him... I regret not telling him how I felt before I was gone. It was selfish of me to take something away from him. I loved him and with love comes forgiveness... So please, my love, forgive me for leaving. Forgive me for the tears I have brought you. Forgive me for letting you love such a destructive and unstable storm...

And then I woke up from that wretched dream. Shaking hard from the realization that death was not the only option. That true freedom just takes a strongly worded letter, and courage. So in seconds I have the essentials packed and a crappy note scribbled out to my chains that I am going to break free from.

And finally, I am once again climbing down a tangle of vines, and when my feet hit the ground, though they never leave the pavement I feel as if I am truly flying. Towards the trees, with a beating heart, longing for Connor's embrace, ready for an everlasting journey to find my "great perhaps" in the land of the living.