For all of those who have read it happen, sorrow for you to forget those words. For all those who have seen it happen, regret for you to forget the scene. For those of you who have had it happen, nothing for you for nothing is at it seems.
In an apartment, on the top floor, everything was still. It was late into the night in Chicago and the storm outside was just another hideous storm. It was dark with shadows trailing across the floor with lightening pouring in from the outside as the only glow. Two people sat on opposite sides of the room, facing each other. It was 2 am and it was raining.
The shattered heart sat curled up in her chair, hugging her knees into herself. The stringy hair fell over the face, hiding a puffy glare and swollen eyes. A body so fragile, she was about to break any moment.
And the mistake sat across the room, unable to meet her gaze. Legs apart, his head hanging low; slouching, He had not been crying but his face showed wear and tear as if it had. It was 2 am and it was raining.
A single note lay between the two and the shattered heart could not take her eyes off of it. It was crumbled and soaked, thrown a million years ago.
And how can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Words screamed hours ago still hung in the air, echoed a thousands times in the loudest shrieks. They were flung against the walls, hitting them, mixing up, forming other words, other phrasing, and other screams. But they all meant the same. Words replayed over and over in her head, the face of a mistake looking right back at her. It told her that it was her fault. It reminded her it was her idea. That falling was her own plan and the setting her own design.
A mistake couldn’t breathe. They aren’t supposed to. They are lifeless, but never meaningless. Guilty and longing to be forgotten. It sat across the room and stared at the hardwood floor seeing things past. It had no concept of anything outside this room. It was 2 am and it was raining.
This shattered heart dared not breathe because even that something could mess up. Shattered hearts couldn't have always been shattered. Nothing is made shattered, it has to be something first, belong to someone before it can be broken. But how awful that must be, to be something. To be incomplete unless you belong to someone. But knowing that if you belong to someone, you will be shattered. Would you still do it, would you still belong to a someone, knowing very well you will be shattered? What is better? Is feeling alone and lost better than being shattered? Being alone isn’t so bad, it’s lonely and sometimes cold but you’re still a something. A shattered something isn’t really a something anymore, it’s more a memory of a something.
So, What. Is. Better? Being shattered, but also have known what it was like to be a something belonging to a someone? Or was just being a something always dreaming of a someone better? The dreaming part is always better than the reality part. It hurt less. Especially at night. It was 2 am. And it was raining.
She coughed a wheezing cough, enough to make a mistake cast the floor a worried glance, but not daring enough to look up and risk showing emotions. Mistakes could have no emotions. But the chocking sound ended and she wiped a nose against her ripped jeans.
How could it be better than this?
The storm continued to howl outside and the rain fell down the huge glass windows that lay to the right of them. Lightening lit up the room for a moment, and then fell dark again.
This was all that was wanted. It was all that was needed.
But wanted by who? Needed by who?
Mistakes are made and lies are told, but breathing still happens and life still goes on. Even for them.
It felt like it wouldn't though. The world had ended, stopped in mid sentence. She pulled her body closer and he stared at the floor harder. She wiped the contacts from her eyes and let them stick to her jeans. He had an itch but let it alone, deciding he deserved to suffer. It was 2 am and it was raining.
The time still passed, without them allowing it to, that was the only thing no one in the world could control and never could. The passing of the time. In a million years even air could be charged on a little plastic card. But the turning of seconds into minutes into hours into days into years could not. It was everyone’s enemy, the one thing the two had in common still.
Would you tell me how it could be any better than this?
A shattered heart and a mistake sat in a room full of lost love and new found hate.
A thousand words were exchanged with the silence staying the same
To continue to breathe was the hardest decision without any precision.
And the last words of the note on the floor simple read cold and straining
Meet me out at 2am only but if its raining.
zoë a. gulliksen
