Smoke of His Breath // Ethan Torchio

lesson 93: let it go

Apologize, never apologize
You hate the way I lie
So here you go, I'm being honest
*
I, I, I only love, love you when you don't love me
(Why do you love me-Charlotte Lawrence acoustic)

I never had anything my own. My excistence was provided by my mother. I was living in the house she bought. She gave me my money. She gave me my life but she was never in it. I never had a mom.

I was never a smart girl. I could only survive in school. I would only study during exams and I would get notes just about enough to pass. I never had academic validation.

I wasn't popular either. I would just exist. I would exist as the best friend of the main girl. All my social status in school was what Miruna had given me.

I was never beautiful. I wasn't ugly but I wasn't one of those girls who you would keep looking while she walked by.

I was never happy. I didn't have a reason to be.

I wasn't anything. I didn't have anything. I learned what it meant to own something l, be something when Ethan taught me.

He always protected me. He kept me alive, owning the responsibility my mom never fulfilled.

He made me feel smart. I realized being smart had nothing to do with grades. He was the smartest person I knew and he didn't have perfect grades. I knew I was smart because we rhymed perfectly together.

For the first time, someone had noticed me over Miruna. For the first time I became more than a best friend of the pretty girl. Maybe I wasn't the first choice but he made me sure I was the right one.

He showed me how beautiful I was
.I look good in my outfit, because I know I look good. You look bad in your outfit, because you don't think you do. Today's lesson is this, Carmen. You need to feel good to look good.

The lesson he gave me  months ago was still echoing in my head. It seemed like an insult when you first heard it but it wasn't. He had implied that he found me beautiful. He was fucking narcissistic Ethan Torchio. You knew you were beautiful if he compared you to himself.

He had given me countless lessons. He had taught me how to kiss, how to touch, how to love.

But there was one lesson we both followed without a hesitation was the trust we built. Honesty was what kept us standing. The common trust we shared was what made our relationship special.

But we had fucked it up and he wasn't hesitant to speak up about it.

I knew nothing was going to be the same. It was one of the few fights we had but by far it had damaged us the most. I knew this because even though rest of the group had returned back from the trip, he hadn't.

It had been 5 days since Damiano and I came home. I was staying at my house and Damiano was constantly visiting. We weren't doing anything. I wasn't talking and he wasnt making me. Usually he would make us tea and we would sit in silence until the time he has to leave arrived.

I appreciated the way he wasn't hard on me. He was allowing me to heal and he wasn't rushing it. He also wasn't letting me be alone so I was thankful for that.

There was one problem. I didn't know how to heal. It seemed impossible. Some of the times it felt like nothing was wrong. As if he was going to walk in the door and we would continue with our day. Those were the times when my anger disappeared. But they all came back when I replayed all the things he said in my head.