Yours Truly ❁ n.k.h

• chapter three •

"Has anyone seen Gary?"

"Excuse me ma'am, has anyone seen Gary?"

"Gary?"

Yeah, no one's seen Gary. And at this point, I wish I was him.

I slumped into my chair, looking at the office around me. I had come to this community center in hopes of finding Gary Fenway, a tattoo artist that I heard was taking on apprenticeships for his new shop. He was getting really popular in the round tables at the shop back home. Some of my friends wanted to pick his brain but none of us felt like taking the trip South to do it.

None except me.

I reached into my pocket, pulling the tattered bus guide into my hands. It was full of scribbles and creases. I even drew in some of the random letters I saw. I needed to get a notebook soon, but today was a rough morning and I still had yet to go to the bank. I wasn't in the mood for a full itinerary today.

Today's journal entry was written so small, it would be illegible had I not remembered writing it. I was running out of space but my mind was also running on adrenaline. Turning my phone on probably wasn't the best idea for my head.

Thirty seven missed calls, over a hundred text messages, and fifteen voicemails.

It's been four days.

When my phone turned on, I started to read it all, but it was just too painful. I could only get three messages in before I just closed my phone altogether.

You sent me paragraphs, essays, voice notes. You both did. But yours alone was just too painful to look at.

I don't need a FaceTime call or to have you in front of me to see you. I know you spent the whole night crying, probably still are. And I wish I had the guts to just call you and tell you I'm sorry. I wish I was as brave as you always told me I was. But calling means owning up to my shit and... I'm not there yet. I mean, not totally.

I get it, okay? I fucked up. I at least know that much. I just wish you didn't drag her into it.

I'm not gonna let you use her as a ploy to make me come home.

I could feel a pit of fire settling into my chest and growing harsher by the second. Maybe reading that back wasn't such a good idea either.

I just don't know how to deal with all of these feelings. I feel so much and so little at times, I feel like a metronome. Like I'm just dancing between two extremes.

My chest burned as my eyes danced around the room. I was a ghost to these people; to the receptionist in the orange and cream blouse or the man whizzing past with his head buried in a stack of papers so high they met his glasses. No one could feel what I was feeling.

My hands rocked in my lap accompanying my bouncing leg. Heat, so much heat, so much movement, so many things and feelings. Hands shaking and leg shaking and chest burning, and I feel like I'm alone in a crowded room. Like I'm in the middle of a stadium but it's all so packed to the brim with people and they're all suffocating me. Like they're all holding hands to my neck and squeezing and squeezing and squeezing—.

"I heard you're looking for Gary."

Black boots, black jeans, black shirt, silver watch, silver hair.