High Life | ✔️

11

TRAUMA HAS SUCH a visceral way of invalidating your existence, turning you subhuman, making you feel at odds with your own flesh, making you believe you deserve worse, making it near impossible to see a future beyond rooted fear. It gives you a desire to obtain a dagger to do away with yourself in quiet repentance, smothered in self castigation and loathing. 

It turns you inwards and it circles you like a hurricane. It reduces your vision to smog. Rids you empty with nothing but remorse. It grows on you. You grow into it. 

And faintly, almost faintly, I heard Elias's voice. In quick succession, the fog was gone.

It was just the red and the white tiles of the restroom. Row of sinks across a row of cubicles. 

"Andrea," Elias said. "Are you there?"

"Yeah," I said. 

"Are you okay?"

"I will be."

"I'm on the way okay," Elias said, in an almost reassuring tone. "Where are you?"

"This ice cream place."

"Say no more, I'll be there in fifteen. Don't act suspicious. He's still my friend."

When the phone call ended, I splashed cold water against my face. I hated my face sometimes. The time was 21:59. If Elias kept to his words, he'd be here around 22:14. 

When I reemerged from the bathroom, I spotted Darren seated at one of the cubicles, taking small spoons of ice cream while reading something on his phone.

"You alright?" He asked me. 

I lowered myself before him, trying my best to maintain a straight face. 

"I just got my period," I told Darren as I lowered my eyes. If there was something I could do, it was lie. Just one of the skills I acquired over the years, it came in handy sometimes. 

Darren's eyes widened slightly. But then he licked his lips and nodded, in an action that (I fucking hope this isn't the case) hinted at some very dark fetishes. 

"Sorry," I said sheepishly. "Too much info. You didn't need to know this."

"Nah, it's okay," Darren said easily. "I have 3 sisters. I'm more than accustomed to hearing things like this."

"How old are they?"

He gushed about their ages, names, and personalities herein. I tuned him out as I toyed with my ice cream - without actually eating it. 

22:05.

I received a text from Elias. How are things?

I speedily told him that things were okay. So far.

"You got any siblings?" Darren asked me.

I tucked my phone under my thigh as I leaned back against the cushioned seat.

"Nope. I've got a cousin though. Two years younger and major spoilt brat."