Anything & Everything || SHORT STORY COLLECTION

Distance Makes The Heart Grow Fonder || Original OCs

I miss you. 

The words pricked her like knives. But she couldn't help herself from thinking about them over and over like a broken tape recorder she couldn't quite dispose of. 

I miss you. 

Every single time felt like a new blow, a new tear next to the wound still pulsing with pain over her heart. She wasn't sure whether it was humanly possible to feel that much pain. 

"I miss you." 

She hadn't realized that she'd said those words out loud before they'd already slipped from her lips. Looking at the tear-stained girl in the mirror, with those stringy brown locks and pale moon face rimmed with blue patches underneath her eyes, Viola wondered -- for a brief minute -- whether she had actually transformed into a ghost overnight. It wouldn't have surprised her, honestly. At this rate, she felt like she was already on the way to becoming one.

It hadn't been so bad since she got to San Francisco. For a few days, she'd relished in settling back into the old routine, walking down the all-too-familiar streets and greeting her classmates that she hadn't seen since before the Christmas Break. For a few days, she thought that she actually had her life back together and that she could brush every single worry, every single stitch of pain attached to her heartstrings. 

But she couldn't run away forever. Feelings didn't work that way.

As if summoning the said person who had taken a permanent fixture inside her brain, her phone vibrated in her hand with a new message. Viola looked down, sucking in a breath as her eyes skimmed over the words. 

Haru Vong: Hey, sorry I didn't see your message. I was in business meetings all day and it's only now that I thought to check my phone. I'm so sorry Vi. 

Of course. Of course he was busy. He always was. If it wasn't business meetings, it was his work, and if it wasn't his work, he was out with his friends. And if not for that, then he was probably trying to help someone else from his office. All the thoughts twirled and danced throughout her brain as if they had every right to be there, and no matter how much Viola shook her head and tried to bat them away with conviction, they came seeping back through as though they had nothing better to do than torment her senseless.

Haru: We can call later when I get back home, okay? I'm really sorry. I know it's been tough for the past few days...

No. No he didn't know. Because she hadn't told him that she'd been suffering. There was no use trying to get him to sympathize with her sadness. They both knew that living in different countries, with different timezones and different lifestyles, would become a problem eventually. She had signed up for this, and now she was reaping what she had sown. 

Viola opened the message and held her phone in both hands, exhaling a shaky breath and squeezing her eyes shut for a moment in an attempt to regain hr composure. Fingers shaking, she slowly typed, then erased. Typed once more. 

Viola: It's okay. I understand. I know you're busy.

What else could she say? There was nothing else to be said other than 'it's fine' or 'don't say sorry.' Part of her wanted to chastise him for always being busy and never having time for her. He'd always put work first and that-- that was normal. That was to be expected of him. They were both starting out in their careers and she didn't want to take that away from him. She wasn't that selfish. 

But part of her felt like screaming. She wanted to climb onto her rooftop and shout out to the world about the unfairness of the situation. She wanted him to hear her cry, wanted him to know how hard it was to wake up every day with the knowledge that she was alone, like always, with no warm body beside hers and with only just messages to feel his presence. And those words, they were important. She loved these words, because he was the one to write them. Some days, that was enough. Others, like today, not so much. She wanted him to feel her pain, wanted him to understand without having to tell him that she missed him so, so much that it was a huge hole inside her chest, tightening her throat with the familiar burn she felt whenever she was trying to hold back her tears.