Chasing Summer

What am I Without You?

I slept until my body knew nothing else. Life passed me by, holding no temptation to lure me out of bed. Every day noises attempted to jostle me out of slumber, but I willed them away, for sleep had become my drug. It was the place I could go to see Eren's face, to feel his hand in mine. When I was there with him, in his gentle embrace, I could pretend that he'd be here with me when I woke up. Although I was alone, my body remembered the way it felt to have him pressed against me, our hearts beating as one.

There were times when I was unable to persuade sleep to keep me from reality. In those moments, I lay staring at the sunset Eren had painted on my wall. I ran my fingertips over the colors of the past, remembering, remembering. I never wanted to forget.

Eren.

Other times, I woke up in the dead of night and wandered aimlessly around my house. Somehow, I'd end up in the backyard, where memories of dancing with Eren coaxed me out onto the damp grass that bit at my bare feet. There, under the faded moonlight that illuminated the lining of birch trees in the distance, pain gripped me until tears coursed down my cold cheeks. I yearned for nothing that wasn't him.

Eren.

Everything hurt. Nothing was okay.

Eren.

Why did he leave me? Why didn't he take me with him? I didn't understand. I never would.

This hurts too much. Come back.

(x)

Something had woken me up. Opening my eyes, I lay there in bed not knowing whether it was morning, afternoon, or night. Sleep erased all differences.

I pulled the blanket up to my chin, listening to the stillness of the house. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, someone laughed. The sound chased away the silence. For one moment, a split second of time, I was sure that it had been Eren and everything inside me welled up, but then my brain registered the tone: too high pitched. It couldn't be Eren. Of course it wasn't him. The voice I was hearing belonged to someone else.

Fully awake now, I turned onto my back and stared up at the ceiling, where I had hung hundreds of paper cranes that dangled on the strings that held them in place. From somewhere in the house, I heard Petra laugh again. I could smell the hint of something, which meant she was cooking in hopes of getting me out of bed. If I didn't get up on my own, she would come in here, and I wasn't sure if I was ready for her to see me like this. So, mustering up what little strength I had left, I sat up.

My room had become something out a fever dream: origami paper scattered on the floor, walls covered in pictures Eren had taken, ceiling stuffed with cranes of various colors. Whenever I looked at everything, it was almost like I could hear Eren's voice telling me that I was doing it backwards, that I was supposed to be moving on by taking things down, not by putting them up. But there was no moving on from him.

Bare foot, I padded out into the kitchen to find both Petra and Jean fussing over something on the stove. They were huddled together, poking whatever it was with a spatula. Judging by the foul smell, Petra hadn't been the one to cook it (it smelt like burnt ass—Jean's specialty). That was probably the reason behind her laughter earlier. Jean's cooking wasn't exactly edible. The best he could do was Mac and Cheese, and that was on a good day.

"Making sludge again, Jean?" I asked.

They both whirled around at the sound of my voice, eyes going wide when they saw me standing behind them. For three weeks, I'd avoided them. I ignored their calls, sent no reply to their texts, and even went as far as to not answer the door whenever they came over to check on me. Now, they were taking matters into their own hands, but that didn't mean that they were prepared to see me in the state I was in. I hadn't eaten much of anything since Eren left town, so I'd lost a good amount of weight.