TIFITY

My home

It was raining as if there was no tomorrow. Time ran so fast, it was almost eleven o'clock at night, but I couldn't go home without Evangeline. My mum had called me to ask me where I was and why I hadn't reached home yet. She was very mad at me and I couldn't handle her at that moment, so I just hanged up, knowing that I would pay for it later on. I have to admit that I know it wasn't the right thing to do, taking the situation into account, but all I could think about was Evangeline. I was afraid something bad had happened to her, and I couldn't even imagine what I would do without my family friend.

I had called and texted her too many times to even count them, and I had started to feel hopeless. The monsters in my head wouldn't stop telling me that I wasn't doing it right, that what Evangeline wanted was to stay away from me because I was a horrible person who didn't deserve anything. They wouldn't stop repeating everything was my fault and that if something happened to her I would be the only one to blame. They said that I was the worst for not helping her out, that I hurt her so badly. I felt very weak and dominated by such thoughts I was having. I fell in my knees and started crying out loud in the middle of the street while my tears merged with the raindrops in my soaked skin. I felt just as if I was drowning, I couldn't even breathe. I normally would be ashamed of crying in public, but I was feeling so much pain that I didn't care about such stupid detail. The monsters wouldn't leave me alone, and I thought I was falling to the usual hole one more time. I couldn't escape the situation and was about to give everything up when my phone started ringing. I didn't recognize the number, but I picked up the phone anyway. "Hello? who's calling", I asked. A deafening silence invaded my ear at first, and I could hear nothing. "Who's there?" I asked once again while tears were falling down my face, but nobody replied. Some random person calling me so late at night was the last thing I needed, honestly. I was about to hang up when I heard somebody whisper my name. That scared me enough to make me stop crying. "It's Evangeline", the voice said. 

*****

Evangeline had started to get anxious. Her mind was a mess by the time I suggested her the pyjama party plan and told her about the popcorn and the Oreos. It just seemed as if she was scared of food, which I found out later was correct. She just couldn't handle it all at once, so she ran away leaving me in the cafeteria. She was just running with no direction. She didn't know what to do, how to feel nor where to go. All of a sudden, she found herself in front of the train station, and she thought that taking a random train was the best thing she could do at that moment.

It had been six hours since Evangeline run away from the cafeteria when she called me. She told me she was calling from a phone booth because hers had no battery. She got off the train in Preston, since she had no more money with her. She called me to apologize for leaving me like that, but she mentioned she just had a couple of minutes before the call got cut. She asked me if I could go to Preston and take her back home, to what I, of course, answered with a "sure".

I stood up and tried to wipe my tears while I was on my way to the train station. I was lucky to take the one that came at midnight. During the train ride, I didn't stop thinking about what I was going to tell Evangeline even for a second. The truth is that I couldn't wait to see her again, although it had just been some hours since I saw her for the last time. I had been so worried not knowing where else to look for her and being all frustrated with myself for not being able to understand my friend. Yeah, my thoughts were trying to kill me again, but I had to save her no matter what. 

Once the train arrived in Preston, I could see a tiny girl standing there, all soaked because of the rain. Hug her was the very first thing I did right after getting off, just as I did the day we met. We both started crying behind the rain but we wouldn't let each other go. We stayed like that for a long time, I can't even tell how much. The thing is that I had finally found her and nothing had happened to her, which is what I was afraid of. However, she was carrying too much on her shoulders already as I see it now.

When we finished hugging each other, I held her hand and told her: "here I am, everything will be okay". I knew it sounded like a cliché, but I meant it when I said I'd stand by her. "I'm extremely sorry Al", she said still in tears. I wiped that watery pain on her face and proceeded to sit in a bench. "No need to apologize Ev, I'm so glad you're okay. Now let's go home". She told me that I wasn't just her family friend, but that I also was her home. I got emotional and my fragile little heart felt something it hadn't in so long. I felt useful. "I love you" she continued while we got in the train and for the first time in so long, my mind shut up for a second and it let my heart speak: "I love you too".