Post It

sixteen

     I find amazing that there are so many places I don't know of. I always thought this was a small city and that nothing happened here. I mean, my friends left already and I've always had in mind that I'll also leave once I'm finished with my degree. I never even considered staying in this place or something like that. I never thought of loving this place. This city was always a hellhole for me but today I've seen things, places and people I never imagined lived here.

A stranger is showing me all this. How ironic is that?

I chuckle to myself as I keep walking to this new place H is taking me to. I wonder what kind of place this is. I'm not the artsy type so I don't know if I'll be able to do something here, but I might enjoy it. You don't need to be an artist to acknowledge the talent of others. I'm actually quite intrigued by what I might find over there.

As I have a few minutes before I get to this artistic place H has sent me to—he called it Street of Art on the other page, the one with the directions—I decide to allow myself to think about what he told me on his letter. Every letter I've received today has been different. Friendly, hyper, cautious, concerned... I feel like I've got to see different sides of his personality through this letters and the people he's introduced me to. I had an idea of what he was like with the post-its, but that was like having only the frame of the puzzle. But with every thing I've done today I feel like I receive more and more pieces of this puzzle that H is. I know the last pieces, the ones that go right in the middle of the puzzle, will be handed to me the moment I meet H.

But I'm scared. Scared in a way I wasn't before.

I've always thought that people believe my lies, that when I smile at them and tell them I'm doing fine they buy it. I know people do, even my therapist believed I was doing better because I deceived him until I broke down. But H saw through my lies and I still can't understand how he did that. I lied through a small piece of paper with a few words scribbled on it. How is that even possible? What gave me away? How could he know the reality out of a few post-its?

What scares me now isn't that he knows my smiles are fake; no, that certainly isn't the problem. I'm scared of what he might find out the moment I meet him. Will he read me as easily as he did through the post-its? Is he going to see all my lies and pretences and think I'm a living charade? The closer I get to meet him the more I fear I'll disappoint him. Maybe I should turn around and go back home before I ruin things. I can't fool him, I can't sell him my excuses so what am I supposed to do then?

But I thought, I honestly did believe that he accepted what I told him when he didn't insist on the matter. I thought he was one of many others who just smiled happily for me and carried on. But I was wrong.

••• 

It was he first week of October when I broke down again. H and I had been exchanging post-its for more than four months, almost five. My journal was thick with post-its and other things I wrote. By that time, I wouldn't leave that journal anywhere out of my sight. It was precious to me, it had all those notes that helped me to make through the day. All the kinds words by a stranger whom I felt closer with than to any of my friends, even if I didn't know his name or had ever seen his face, I felt his presence closer than anyone else. But not even his words could reach me this time.

I couldn't sleep again, my mind wouldn't shut up at night and would only torment me with thoughts that made me hate myself even more. I felt like thousands and thousands of kilograms were thrown at me every second and I couldn't breathe. I couldn't eat, I couldn't move. I couldn't care. All I wanted was to disappear, to cease to exist because I was tired. I was so damn tired but I was so weak to even move and do something about it. I wanted the pain inside of me to stop but at the same time I wanted to still feel miserable because I believed it that was all I deserved. To be miserable.