29 12.3: Greyscale (2/2)

”Okay, that was sweet-” He then says. ”He deserved a standing ovation.”

”He loved me-” I tell him quietly, glancing back at the street. William is completely gone now and I wonder if I'll ever get to see him again. And I guess my answer to that is how well and how fast he'll move on.

If he moved on fast enough, I might not see him ever again.

”Yeah. And as usual, my Rose was blind to the love-” Tobias says and I roll my eyes.

”You say it like it's easy to be sure that people love you and not just pretending-” I say crossly. ”Or that they even love you at all-”

”Well, either way, one thing is surely clear-” He says, eyeing Jacob who's now sitting on the bench swing with Aiden, staring, unblinking at the book's contents.

I cross my arms. ”And that is?”

”You clearly didn't love yourself at all-” Tobias looks at me. ”Because you were ready to live for other people but not for yourself-” I'm about to interrupt him, but he gives me a look that asks me to wait. ”Let me finish-” Tobias lifts a brow. ”You disliked yourself and thought lowly of it. And I, Rose-” Tobias holds my eyes. ”I find this very confusing-”

My shoulders drop a little. ”You find my self-hate confusing? Why?” I shake my head. ”Because you think I'm too frickin awesome and should've seen my self-worth and blah, blah, blah?”

”No. Idiot. It's because you're proud-” He says. ”You don't hit me off as suicidal.”

I make a face. ”Well, here's the thing with suicide cases... or with the 'Dead Losers Society', you came up with-” I gesture wildly. ”There's no black or white. You can't say that happy people won't kill themselves and that sad fucks are the ones that end up in hell. There's a lot of greys there too, you know?”

Tobias narrows his eyes like he's not grasping my concept.

”You and I, Tobias, we're in the grey. We're the whole fucking greyscale in this story. You, a passionate person no-one would ever think can off himself. And I, a proud person who seems to think that the whole world should revolve only about her. Who seems that nothing could ever shake her titanium core-” I shake my head. ”But really, Tobias, nothing is what it seems to be.”

”You're right.”

”Of course I am-” I say. ”Yes, you were passionate, but you were fucking weak. You weren't strong enough to pursue your passions without approval. You were just willing to get buried with them. And I? I, 'the shit', didn't really believe I was 'the shit' without the love of certain people in my life. Certain people, who are not right for me. So that was the end of me. The end of us.”

Tobias looks at me and instead of saying anything he smiles. I shift in my place.

”You've come a long way, you know-” He tells me, his eyes bright.

”A long, awful way, yes-” I say, squinting at the sun that's getting lower and lower. The sun that's currently giving up on lighting up the sky. The sun who's like me, who's tired to do the shit it's supposed to do. Tired of existing.

”In three weeks,” Tobias adds. ”I was a hot mess my whole first and a half cycle.”

”Yeah, thanks to you-” I say.

”Why the sarcastic tone?” He asks me. ”I mean, I did help you. A lot. I set you on the right path. So in the next cycle, you'd be...ready.”

I say nothing when I notice how he's made it very clear that we won't meet again in the next cycles. I say nothing and look away.

”I think we should hold on to each other-” I say bitterly, looking at the now empty porch. ”We might leave any moment now-”

I carefully glance sideways to find Tobias with his Benji standing very close to me. I blink and look away, my soulless heart giving away how it feels about this whole scenario by skipping a couple of bitter beats.

”So we're not going to talk about it?” He whispers and I know he's standing quite close. ”How we're only one week away from not knowing each other?”

I blink more.

”It's better if we don't-” I say way too sharply, not even looking at him.

A pause.

”You're right-” Tobias says. ”It's better if we don't.”

I remember turning and staring into a deep shade of subtle gold, a shade of sunny sunsets, a shade of honey sugar and just a shade of beautiful hazel, before the sun finally sank in the sky, taking us within it into the night of its insides.

---

To be very aware that time's passing, yet ignorant about how and where it's going, really gets you vexed. Like wow, I'd think, I've been dead for three weeks now (three weeks that I had no clue they passed because it felt a lot less than that?). Like my body and the soil hugging it, are about to be an amazing, natural homogeneous mixture of the universe's elements.

I realize I'm no longer the curves that made me or the blond bob that framed my 'moon face'. My blue, 'soulful' eyes that Joshua loved looking into are no more than the protein that makes them and the elements that nourish the bacteria colonizing in them.

So really, our bodies, after all, are just bloody, edible, yummy machines that bacteria loves feeding on. And we? We are in the breaths that settle in our lungs, in the energy that we make, we are in the blood that if drained, takes our souls away. We are nonphysical things planted in many vulnerable physical things.

That's why, my friends, that's why we die. We die when those physical things break.

And the concept is scary crazy.

I realize that it becomes more difficult to open my eyes with every dimensional change, and it's probably because I'm just tired of being haunted down by my mistakes. Because I really dread what's to come.

And maybe I do have the right to dread it all, because what unfolds in front of my eyes? It's what people would call a nightmare.

I am standing and seeing the world upside down, or I'm seeing the world in deep, deep blue, or I'm seeing the world as a blur of odd, senseless colours, or I'm seeing it in 2D, or I'm just seeing the world as anything, anything but as a venue where it's acceptable to see my ex-boyfriend make out with my ex-best friend.

And really, really, I don't understand what the fuck is happening anymore.