memento mori

13: not feeling human

LIV

I know this isn't the first time somebody has been stood up. I keep repeating that mantra, hoping eventually it will ease the stinging in my chest.

Besides, it's only been ten minutes. There could be traffic, or she was slow getting ready, or she could be getting gas, or maybe she's just in the parking lot and running my way right now. And if none of those things, she would text me. She wouldn't just disappear on me like that without a single word of explanation.

I know Opal, and I know that she isn't standing me up on purpose. She can't be.

My phone dings a few minutes later. Hastily, I pick it up and the whole world drops out from under my feet.

oPaL: sorry, can't make it.
oPaL: gotta type fast
oPaL: parents taking away my phone

My heart doesn't stop burning for the rest of the weekend.

••••

Opal doesn't show up at school on Monday. Or Tuesday. Or for the rest of the week, for that matter.

I search for her face in every crowd, feeling a sinking hopelessness in my stomach every time I catch sight of dyed hair and then realize it actually isn't her.

I try to call, text, or get in touch with her in any way. And still, there's nothing. Panic and anger grow side by side in my chest, painting my insides a stark contrast between red and blue.

If I were to run into her, I don't know if I'd rather hit her or hug her and ask her if she's okay.

I suppose that's why I don't go to her house, don't go searching for her because I can't even imagine what I would say. Words have never been easy, but especially not now.

On Friday after school, I'm back at the 7-11. Clutching bags of candies in one hand and a monster in the other, I sit on the curb and begin crying.

I haven't felt so alone in months and now I'm drowning in it.

And then, suddenly, out of nowhere she calls me on Sunday night. I rush out of the living room where I previously had been hastily scribbling down notes and close my bedroom door behind me, refusing to sit but still not wanting to be left standing either.

"Hello? Opal, where have you been!?"

"I don't feel real." She sounds tired, each word taking on a deflated tone.

My thoughts flicker back to that Tuesday a month or so back, Opal crying in the parking lot. Her eyes had been so devoid of anything but sadness, a pit of despair dragging her below the surface. My thoughts flicker back to the party next, when she had a run in with her ex and shut down on me.

Like rubbing salt in a wound, I'm not feeling enthusiastic, and she probably isn't either.

"What?" As always, I just feel like I'm sinking. This time, though, the sinking feeling is so intense I have to sit on the floor to even feel like I'm still existing there at all.

If I didn't know better, I'd say the ground was three seconds away from opening wide and re-claiming me as its own.

"I'm sorry." She says, voice shaking with no intention to stop in the near future.

"For what?" I ask like I don't know, because I don't really. I have an inkling, the vague beginnings of an idea, but it's been a week and there could be so many things by now.

"I'm a whirlpool. I only bring trouble. Don't you deserve better? God, from the beginning you've only deserved better."

"Opal, what's going on? Are you okay?" My question has been answered— there's no anger to be found anymore, rather just the intense urge to hug her above all else.

"Do you ever wonder what the point of the human experience is?" With each sentence that only dodges my words and confuses me further, I begin to grow concerned.

"Opal! Listen to me. Are you alright?"

"I guess so. At least, they want me to be."

I have no choice but to shrug it off, knowing that if I stray from the three predetermined questions in my mind I will never be able to steer the conversation back. "Where are you?"

"I just got home." She sounds so exhausted, like she hasn't slept in a week. Hell, maybe she hadn't.

"Home from where?" It takes me a whole of thirty seconds to stray from my path, daring to ask another question. I have to, don't I?

"I'd prefer not to say, if that's alright." She laughs, but it falls so flat that my heart twinges and the pain just won't let up.

"Do you need me to come pick you up?"

"I don't feel real. I don't feel human." She repeats as if that's the clearest message in the world. My brain is left reeling, though, spinning like a tornado tearing up all the roots I thought I had grown.

"Do you need me to come get you?"

"Could you? I wouldn't want to be a burden," her voice cracks on that last word. I wonder what she's been going through this past week, what I had been ignoring to only think about my own stinging heart.

That doesn't make things any better though, and yet I feel horribly selfish.

"Of course I could. What time should I be there?"

"What time is it now? I smashed the clock on my wall." She laughs again, this one slightly brighter but nowhere near full capacity. I close my eyes.

"It's..." I pause, pulling my phone back from my ear and waiting for the screen to light up to reveal the answers. "It's 7:02."

"7:30, maybe? I don't know." Now she just sounds frustrated, like making a decision is too difficult.

"I'll be there." I reply without a second thought. "Should I text you when I arrive?"

"No, I'll already be outside." An inhale. "Thank you, Liv. I appreciate you." The exhale follows, sounding so cathartic that even I nearly start sobbing.

I think I've done too much crying lately.

As I rush around trying to explain to mom what's going on without giving away too much information (which I barely know much of myself) and trying to find my keys, I barely feel human myself.