Page 42

Aoi

I unlock the door and walk right in. I don’t want to talk to anyone right now. Neither of them deserves a word from me at the moment.

“Are you mad at me?”

I lean on the edge of the dinner table and look away at the hallway. I can’t even look at him without getting pissed and disappointed at his immature behavior.

“You’re mad,” Visha replies in my stead. “You’re right to be. I shouldn’t have argued with him today of all days, but he started it. You’ve got to give me that.”

“Unbelievable. You’re fucking unbelievable.”

“I’m sorry, okay? I was wrong but-”

A loud bang makes him jump as my palm collides with the wooden surface and makes the table rattle.

“But, but and fucking but. Is that really the kind of half-assed apology you wanna give?” I seethe. “You don’t feel sorry. You’re only mad because a grown man made a disrespectful comment about you. I understand your anger, but you should’ve shut your mouth and let me deal with him.”

“Cause you think that would’ve worked? He’s a fucking asshole! You heard the crap he said about me, but you didn’t stop him!”

I step forward, stomping. “Didn’t stop him? I told him to cut it out. And I told you to stop it, but you didn’t listen either!”

Visha throws his jacket on the couch. “We can’t all be like you!” he snaps.

I halt in the middle of the room. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He rolls his eyes. “You know damn well.”

“No, I don’t.” I cross my arms over my chest. “Go on. You want to argue then go for it. Since we’re already at it.”

“You care more about him than me. It’s easy for you not to react to his insults when it’s clear you’re taking his side!”

I shake my head. “I can’t believe you.”

“This is all because of him!”

“Don’t blame him for your immaturity.”

He raises his voice. “Why do you always defend him? What about me? He’s a grown man and still picks fights with me!”

“Please don’t start. You know I love you both equally. I’m not defending him more than you.” I sigh, fed up with this incessant argument. “I told him countless times to stop it. I’m not taking his side.”

“Yes, you are! Every time something happens you defend him. No matter what shitty things he does, you always justify his behavior.” He stomps his foot. “He literally made a snarky comment about me earlier and you let it go!”

“Are you kidding me? Did you not hear me tell him to cut it out?”

“As if that’d change anything!” he shouts. “I know that there’s something between you. I- I don’t know what the hell it is, but you always have that weird look when you look at him and you’re not behaving normally with each other, and I hate it.”

“This isn’t something you and I should talk about.” I face the table and dump my wallet on the oak. “It’s none of your business.”

“It is my business! You’re so obnubilated by him that you completely forget me!”

I spin around, outraged. “That’s not true. I care about you and I’m always thinking about you. I could never forget you.”

“No, you’re always thinking about him ,” he utters, eyes moist.

I slam my palm on the table. “ Actually , I’m worried about more important things than Jason. I worry about our future and expenses. I worry about work and school. I worry about your departure. I’m not as free as you think I am.”

“Yeah, I know that you work hard but that’s not the point.”

“Then what’s your point?”

“You don’t love me as much as you love him!” he shouts, gesticulating aggressively. “You’ll eventually replace me with him, won’t you?”

“Do you know what I’ve sacrificed to get you here? Do you have a clue what I had to do for you? How I had to throw myself into the den of the lion and throw my dignity and pride out of the window?!” I raise my voice, taking a step closer to him. “You have no idea what I did. I’m not saying that you’re a burden so don’t even start. I would do it all over again if it means protecting you but you dismissing this is just fucking upsetting.”

I hold back from throwing everything I want to actually say in his face. I want to scream about how he’s replacing me and that he has no right to argue about this.

But I don’t.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about here but if you think your sacrifices show how much you love me, then you’re dead wrong.”

“I refuse to keep talking about this. We’re not getting anywhere.” I walk away, needing to get out of this room suffocating me minute after minute. “If my actions up till now couldn’t prove how much I care about you then I don’t know what will.”

Still standing behind me, he speaks up again, cutting me with his words. “You sacrifice yourself because you don’t value yourself enough, not because you love me .”

The inconceivable fact that he dares to throw that in my face shatters my heart into a million tiny fragments of hidden pain and a truth I’ll never be able to admit.

“What?”

He pulls his lips into a thin line, clenching his fists at his sides and avoiding my gaze.

I can’t breathe, can’t turn around, can’t look at him for fear of falling apart right here and now. “I can’t be here.”

So, I stride for the door and slam it behind me. A mixture of fury and hurt spirals out of control in my lungs, clouding the space and choking me like cotton absorbing a thick liquid.

I have to get away from here. As far as I can. If even Visha thinks that I hate myself and don’t love him, then who else must’ve thought the same? What does that say about me? What kind of repugnant person am I that I’m so incapable of loving someone how they deserve to?

I run and keep running through the bustling streets. I crash into countless people but can’t seem to utter an apology and merely keep running for what feels like an eternity.

I flee from home. From my past and my future. From the mistakes I made. From what I am and what I refuse to see. From whom I am and have no other choice but to accept.

I am rotten and shattered. There is no salvation for me, no hope. I keep kidding myself with speeches of optimistic days that await me, but it’s all bullshit in the end. I’m beyond repair and even the joy of my life thinks it.

He sees how broken and bruised I am and even he can’t soar beyond that sickening reality.

No matter how much I smile and how much I laugh and try to convince myself that I’m whole again, it doesn’t change anything. I’m still the same, still ruined, still broken.

I don’t know where I’m going. I just run until my legs give out, until I gasp for air. It’s cold outside but my body’s blazing. My phone rings against my back pocket but I ignore it. Whomever it is, I don’t care and neither should they.

It’s not even Visha’s fault that I want to rip off my skin and jump in a pool of acid. He was telling the truth and that’s why I’m furious. The worst is that I’m not even angry, I’m more hurt than I could ever be mad. I’m just so frustrated by my own stupidity and ignorance. I have the ability to change, to get better but I don’t try.

I wallow in my self-hatred and selfishness in hopes that the tide will wash me away and bury me in the depths of the ocean.

What do I want? I don’t know what I want but I know that it isn’t this life.

Icy wind blasts into my face, slithering through my nostrils. I hate this. I hate myself . And above all, I hate how I manage to destroy everything good in my life.

It’s not the universe that takes people away from me, it’s me. I cut myself and bleed all over them until they’re so tainted that they have no other choice but to leave me behind.