Chapter 33.

Midnight Love by girl in red

A year passed.

It was hard at first, but I numbed to it. I numbed to everything actually. I remember maybe 1 or 2 things happening that whole year and the rest was too overly monotonous to make an imprint in my buried head.

Someone published my book for me, I didn't do much. I was nothing but the one forced to endure the sick experiences in it. I felt like a cheat for giving blank faces my incomplete life. No closure touched those pages even once.

The days passed in agony at first, to the point of looking down on streets with blurry eyes and dangling by sanity over my head by a string. The adrenaline rush of my isolation translated rather quickly to my foreseen numbness. My numbness turned to convincing wellness. It was really only a gilded mindset where I was powerful and independent to the world but quiet and sidetracked and desolate in my head.

I didn't write after finally publishing, as if it were some sort of reward that gave my passion the title of Work.

The truth is I did Forget. And I turned my headspace into a mansion of an obsessive coping device. I would live in there until I found something outside of it to live for.

I stayed in Florence but moved in with Anna when my lease was over. She preferred the company and I certainly didn't mind it. And she gave me my space when I needed it. She oversaw everything I'd gone through in as much excruciating detail as I gave her, and with the intuition and ruthless empathy she's cursed with, too.

If my life were a movie I think this is where it would end. I've always preferred endings like this, I guess. I'll tell myself I learned something. It will be the moral of my story.

I can be satisfied in a sequel that only is written unofficially. His movie is not over yet, which is where I think our conflict lies. They don't match up. They have to match up. I don't talk about it much anymore. Anna and I are fantastic at avoiding subjects.

The light in this room is softer. There's only a small lamp, one that i've designated as my focus when I've zoned out. It's tan colored and has sweetly carved initials around the bottom rim. I'm not sure where Anna got it, but I wouldn't assume it was hers. Probably some vintage shop or street market.

"M. L. and--" I spun the lamp slightly to the left to read the other. "H. H."

I huffed to myself. There were no hearts, but their initials were still very much together. I wondered and wondered about them. I hope they are very happy and annoyingly obsessed with each other. They seem to deserve that.

I sat in silence for only a couple minutes after that. It came to me very quickly, and I jumped up from the bed to grab my notebook.

A new, green one. It was much simpler than my last. I untied the side ribbon that kept it closed and opened it hastily.

There is a thing we do when we are in an unexplainable place. To grasp at what is steady is merely a call for something comfortable, and it rarely ever comes when you are falling too fast to grab on. Perspective is too malleable to be given such responsibility as it is. My story feels comfortably unimportant at this moment. I've decided to catch hold of another.

In the sense of merely jotting down my ideas, I let go of my overthought sentences that sound like dying, time-worn flowers. The question spun in my brain, to figure out the kind of people that would carve their legacy into a clay lamp.

hope ur ok by Olivia Rodrigo

They were overly kind to others. And they were never social beyond what was necessary. But they were awfully good actors when it came to it. They found solace in complete darkness and found that typical endings were a system of desire and fantasy that stemmed from an unsearchable place. When the other pushed their way into their life, the peak of light signaled a satisfying end.

But a satisfying ending is safe. It's no risk, it's a known fact, and it's not for the artists and poets, is it.

M. L. She was the artist, and her mind completed itself with emotions on a paper soaked through with watercolors. She was a vicious caregiver who never once tasted of it herself. And when colors failed her she turned to creating them with a cracked guitar.

H. H.

I sighed.

He was most definitely the poet. He was never seen outside of his notebooks. Words came to him easier than his hard-earned breaths. He was sick, with something unknown. He left feeding her all the words he tucked into their past times, as full and golden as they were.

Their collective fate supplied her everything her art needed. Storms and collapsing roofs, cymbals and power outages all found their way into her outlet of emotions. Watercolor wouldn't do anymore, she switched to oil pastels. Her love symbolized itself in light and dark, the way I... The way I'd felt like my own did.

Carving on the clay lamp was something she did alone, both of the initials were in the same borderline messy handwriting. She gave it away to a flea market soon after.

Closure isn't as significant as we make it. It's only a lovely way to put reasoning behind your tragedies and staple yourself to your past lovers. By lovely, I mean destructive.

Buzzcut Season by Lorde

It didn't occur to me where Anna was when I was grabbing a key from the kitchen. I flipped the singular key in my palm over and over as I rushed back to my room. I unplugged the lamp from the wall, feeling the urgency rush over me.

D. A. E. felt a good enough addition. I didn't dare add his initials. This wasn't about him.

I took it carefully in my arms after scratching my name into the back. I didn't do it very well, but at least it was there. I would take it back to the flea market down the street. Legacy was as much of a sort of closure as jumping off a cliff, I'd find myself at a bit of peace either way. It wasn't raining outside, it was only cloudy. I took personal offense to that.

I walked briskly as the wind pierced my cheeks. My heart hoped it'd be open more than anything.

Two streets down, one right turn. Only ten more steps. I caught the eyes of the man working one of the booths. He reached out his hands...

"Miss...?" He cleared his throat softly.

I snapped out of it, "Yes! Yes, I'm well, grazie." He took the lamp from my arms and examined it. "This is beautiful lamp. Quanto?"

"Oh-" my voice trailed off. I shook my head. "I don't need any money, sir. Ciao." I smiled with my eyes. Something kept my legs from taking me home after turning away from him. I kept my hands safe in my pockets.

I couldn't leave without turning my head.

The flower shop was on this street. One bad decision away and awfully crowded for this time of day. I saw a familiar teenage girl standing outside of it. She was taking a picture.

I left without any further investigation and no knowledge of who the girl and her group of friends actually were. They were all dressed up, colorful clothes that contrasted the cloudy aura in the city today. There was a possibility no one felt that but me.

I walked home slowly compared to before. I took things in a bit more, I think. Everything but the people. The only thing I picked up on about the people was an unusually high amount of them. Other than that, I saw no faces whatsoever.

Anna's apartment was just as quiet when I got back, my heart even more unsettled but for different reasons. Something felt off, more off than the feeling I'd numbed to over the past year.

"...Anna?" I called out, opening the creaky door that I'd spent too much time staring at for no reason. This made me realize something very, very disturbing. The girl I saw at the florist... the florist. That was the fan that came by the café. She complimented me, didn't she. All the people here... they're all... They all are dressed up... it makes total sense...

My head jolted at the crashing movement I heard from inside. "anna-"

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