The Love Letter

Chapter Ten

The elevator doors close in front of me and I remain in the cab alone. The deafening silence around me is broken only by the agonizing beats of my painfully broken heart that echo in my ears like a bell.

My eyes fill with tears and I stagger backwards, hitting the mirror. From its touch to my right palm, to my back, and despite my suit jacket and skirt, icy cold shivers run through my entire body, as if ghostly fingers brush through every millimeter of my skin.

My head is dizzy from lack of air, due to the suffocating emotions swirling inside me like a raging tornado. I lean forward and try to inhale and exhale evenly. Tears slowly roll down my face. They trickle down my chin and in slow motion fall to the floor, crashing with a monstrous thud that sounds more like the rumble of thunder, and drowns out the beating of my heart. 

Boom Boom Boom 

Every single tear that falls explodes upon hitting the floor with a thunderous roar.

Boom Boom Boom 

The tears and the pounding of my heart are too loud to bear. My ears are already hurting from the sound, my head is throbbing, my senses are overloaded and I'm as cold as I've ever been.  

My breath catches in my throat and I completely lose control of my lungs, no air reaches them anymore and they contract painfully.

I place a hand on my painfully thighten chest and I gasp for air, desperately trying to restore my breathing. My knees buckle and I almost fall. But I refuse to fall. My stubbornness is the only strength left in me, and I am not giving it up, even though it is only enough to keep me standing on my feet. I may be falling apart on the inside, but on the outside I have to stand tall, I can't give up, not now, not here. Not that close to Greg, who can see what he's done to me. My pride won't take it.

"I need to brace myself or I'm going to pass out. And that's not an option. They took away my hope, but I will walk out of this building and this situation with dignity, because I am not the one who wronged anyone!" I tell myself.

"Are you not? Really!? You didn't hurt anyone. Is that what you think, what you're trying to convince yourself, your consciousness of!? Um? Do you really never hurt anyone?" A stern voice asks.

Faster than I think I can, I straighten my back like a string and look around. I'm alone, but have they installed a camera and speaker here?

"W-Who said that?" I ask in an uncertain, shaky voice.

The stern voice barks a gloomy laugh and says, "Turn around and you'll see Rose." The voice spits out my name as if it is poisonous.

I slowly turn on my shaky legs to face the mirror and... the source of the voice. My breath catches in my throat once more, and I start to choke and cough. And she laughs at me like my struggle for air is the funniest show she's ever seen.

And she... She is me. More precisely, my reflection.

I clear my throat one last time and take a step back, now able to catch my breath. I raise my face to the ceiling and focus on it as I'm slowly breathing in and out, refusing to believe what is happening. I would close my eyes for better concentration but I don't do it now. I can't because as soon as my eyelids fall, hiding the light, the image of Greg kissing Megan will emerge out and push the air out of my lungs again. And frankly, I don't know how many times in a row a person is able to cope with losing the ability to breathe normally. I don't know and I don't want to experiment with it.

"No, it's not happening. It can't be happening!" I say, trying to calm myself down.

"Oh, but it can. And it is!" The voice I now recognize as darker version of my own answers.