The Wide Wide Ocean

Chapter 25

I wonder if our minds are their own little universes. Their own tiny worlds. I've never run out of a place to store my thoughts and feelings. I wondered if it is a curse. Maybe sometimes I needed to run out of storage to throw away the old and replace it. But oh God, sentiment...

I clung to everything in my past. I couldn't let it out. There was never an emptiness in my mind and I hated it. but now as a stream of little colourful me's were released into the world straight into Owen's ears, I truly saw everything that has been heavying my mortal form. I knew then why I physically couldn't handle my own emotions. They were so big they stepped from one plane of the unknown and immaterial to the plane of touch, fevers and tears.

So great and painful.

As I told him everything with tears in my eyes, I saw the very same emotions in him. His eyes widened as I breathed heavily. His eyes grew glassy as my voice broke. And when my voice traced away into heavy silence, he was crying just as hard as I was...

Silence.

Do you understand now, Owen, do you understand love now?

Do you, Owen asked as an answer.

It was the right answer. Because I didn't understand how I could love someone like Evie. How did it happen? Why did it happen? What happened that made me fall in love with Evie while there was so little love in the world?

So, she found out, huh, he said.

I looked at him in surprise.

You were not the one who told her, I asked in astonishment.

I wouldn't have held it against him if he had. But if he didn't tell her, then it only meant Evie found out on her own. And after everything that happened it only made it all worse.

No, he said, we may not be as good friends as you guys are... but I wouldn't have told her, Owen said.

I sighed.

I don't think we can be called friends, Owen, I told him.

He only shrugged, saying:

I think you are many things, M. I think you are friends, soulmates, home, lovers... I have a really strong suspicion you are everything.

Everything. Such a complicated term and yet defining me and Evie so beautifully. And Owen saw it, perhaps it was so obvious others saw it before we ever did.

We are not lovers, Owen, I told him, not really knowing what to say.

No need to have sex to be lovers, Missy, he told me.

I knew Owen was right. Because Evie would say the same thing. Perhaps she would phrase it differently but nonetheless... she would say the same and if she isn't the truth then the whole world is a lie.

Sometimes I wish we were none of that, I told him.

And I am very ashamed of thinking so, I told him as well.

Owen leant back, his way of saying that he was thinking.

That's good, Owen said after a while.

How can it be good, I ask him in doubt.

Owen shrugged and said:

M, you are always embracing your pain, hiding it, deep in your soul. And I find, you embrace all the pain. Don't you want to avoid pain sometimes, he asked, don't you want to love, instead?

We were two fools in the world of ignorance and pain. We thought we were bigger than the meaning. Giants. And the truth was we were so little, out worries lost their significance even before we were born. Don't we want love instead...? Why are we asking such questions, knowing the choice will never be ours?

Love is pain, I told him.

Time is a bruise. Words are blood. And that girl is a killer, murdering me on accident.

I told Owen the thoughts I held in myself from the moment I knew I would never see my father the same. And when he asked me, why and I sitting there all broken, letting Evie kill me, I couldn't answer.

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