Alex's Nirvana

Nirvana

2
I stand at his doorstep and knock casually three times. Endless nerves curl and uncurl in my stomach repeatedly until he opens the door. His hair is a mess and all over the place, his eyes have dark circles under them, telling me that he hasn’t slept at all these past few days. Alex’s skin looks inhumanely pasty, like he has joined a vampire clan that I wasn’t aware of.
Alex’s eyes light up when they see me but the light instantly fades to darkness when I notice the cigarette attached to his long fingers.
“What do you want now; nirvana wasn’t I pretty clear already? I want you gone and out of my life.” He presses his lips together, it’s almost like he’s holding back what he really wants to say. I suddenly forget the reason why I am here, I almost turn around and walk away, but the envelope in my hand urges me to do otherwise.
“I got your mail.” I hand it to him rudely; it’s amazing how weak and how small my voice sounds right now, I never thought I would diminish myself for anyone, yet here I am, slowly turning smaller and smaller in front of him until I am no bigger than an ant on the floor.
Alex takes the envelope from me and tosses it on the side table right next to him. His eyes instantly soften up and he smiles at me, but not until he presses the butt of his cigarette against his chapped lips and exhales the fumes near me. It smells so bad and I try so hard to stop myself from coughing.
“Thanks, do you wanna come in?” I shake my head before the tears, which have washed over my eyes every second I was alone since he left, start falling down my cheeks and down my chin. I don’t need him to see me cry or pity me in any shape way or form.
“I have to go now, goodbye Alex.” I turn around quickly and feel the tear run quickly down my cheek, it’s so warm and it burns like acid, how can something so pure hurt so much?
“Stay, nirvana, At least for just one drink, I have fresh orange juice, without pulp too.” He grabs hold of my hand, forcing me to turn around.
I don’t know what came over me or what I thought of but seeing the cigarette and his slightly slurred speech. As much as I hated to say it, he scared me.
I didn’t want to ride the hurricane of hope with him anymore. His touch didn’t send shivers up and down my spine or make me tremble, it burned, his touch burned painfully, like having a rope squeezed tightly around my wrist. I was afraid he would leave rope marks all around my wrist.
For once, I didn’t think of us, I only thought of me this time, I turned around, yanked my hand away from his harshly, looked him right in his eyes, and slapped him across his face. Alex drops his cigarette on the floor and raises his hand and rubs it against the area I slapped him. He looks it me as if I was the monster, like it was all me and not him.
“You don’t get to treat me like I’m nothing, like I’m a complete stranger and then act like nothing ever happened and I’m the guilty one. You do not get to act like the one who’s been shot when I’m on the floor bleeding and crying out for help. You do not get to invite me into your home when all you’ve been doing is locking me out. You do not get to be the one in the dark when all I have been doing is search for the light, for any drop of hope to hold onto. I just came here to give you your bloody mail; so finally, you most certainly do not get to touch me ever again, your touch doesn’t set fire to my body anymore, it burns, it burns like you took your cigarette and pressed it against my skin. This isn’t all about your new habits, I couldn’t care less if you had a mafia chasing after you, or if you’re slowly dying internally, which by the looks of it is true. What I do care about is the way you have been treating me when all I wanted to do was fix you but I can’t fix you now because it comes at a hefty price, my sanity. So leave me alone. Do you hear me? Leave. Me. Alone. you wanted me to leave and your wish is my command so freaking let me walk away and let me leave and let me be, God knows that’s what I’ve been trying to do when it comes to you and now it’s my turn to be the selfish one here.” Alex just stands there stunned, his hand still resting on his face as if it possessed some unknown healing powers. I instantly feel bad and want to take it all back but there’s a side of me that feels satisfied and avenged.
Alex slowly turns to the side table and starts rummaging through its drawers, searching for something while I only feel worse and worse by the second. Alex hands me a stack of papers in his hands, they’re all messed up and each paper is a different size or shape, they’re mostly ripped apart and falling to pieces, but they look like masterpieces ready to be read and admired.
I shake my head, after all I’ve said, I can’t take this, I just can’t.
“They’re yours, nirvana. You were my muse and this is all you, not me.” he whispers, sounding more broken than I do but also regaining sparks of his old self.
“Alex…” I pause, unsure of what to say.
“I was going to leave it on your doorstep anyway, either way it’s yours and you can do whatever you want with it. Publish it, edit it, rewrite it, frame it, burn it, I don’t care. It’s all yours now. Please take it; you’d be doing me a huge favor.” I take the papers from him hesitantly and dread the moment his fingers meet mine, even if it was only for a mere second.
After that, I turn around and I walk away, leaving Alex alone in his personally customized dystopia and I return to mine.
I am a monster. I have turned into a monster, again, that phase is back. I feel a storm headed my way and I’m not sure if a rainbow of peace will come after it, only mass destruction.
It literally hit me out of nowhere, I swear I was fine, but then I just stood there for a minute and started crying for no reason. Well, to be exact, I was screaming but no sound or tears came out. I decided to take a shower but all I did was sit down in my tub and stare. What did I stare at? Nothing. I stared at my thighs and watched as droplets of water fell down on my skin, one by one, until I was completely drenched in the hot water that I felt trapped under.
I sat there, immobilized for a while, unable to think of anything other than how the droplets of water reminded me of those endless stormy days I spent in the back of my mom’s car watching the rain fall down from the sky and onto my window. I always loved watching the rain drops run from the top of the tinted glass to the bottom, each one racing the other. Some never made it to the finish line for they had been hit by a fellow raindrop that was far more desperate to reach the end of the race.
Watching the raindrops entertained me and lit my mind up and filled it with so many thoughts and even more ideas, but watching the droplets of water on my thighs wasn’t nearly as enjoyable. It was mesmerizing, I’ll give it that much, but it was torture.
For once, my forever active mind shut up and I felt frozen in my place, unable to get up or snap out of it. I really wish someone would have grabbed hold of my shoulders and snapped me out of it but no one did, and if I felt lonely and alone before, I was wrong and had only gotten a small taste of it, because this, this was a new low I have never experienced.
I only snapped out of it once the metal was pressed against my skin and pierced through my first layer, and even then I sat there and stared at my wrist and watched, horrified, as the blood covered my arm and fell onto my thighs as well. I almost cried all over again as a scarlet river flowed down my arm and when the stinging pain took over and all I could feel was a burning sensation over the area I had cut, that’s when I screamed in horror and got out of the trance I was in.
After screaming traumatically, I got up, washed my already wet hair and tried to avoid looking at my skin but even now, as I lie down on my bed and stare up at my ceiling, embracing yet another sleepless night, I still keep on looking back at it.
This wound will heal and fade away, it will blend in as if it were never there to begin with, the wound on my heart, on the other hand, isn’t going anywhere.
I turn to my side and see Alex’s papers on my side table right next to my lamp and a picture of us, one that I couldn’t put away because we both looked so peaceful and so happy, we were both covered in water and soap after my dad forced us to wash his car and we got sidetracked and started throwing water at each other until my father came out, he took a picture of us, this picture. It was captured in the most perfect of moments, I was staring at Alex and smiling widely and he was mimicking me and my expression, we both smiled at each other while soap covered our skin and water drenched us.
I turn my lamp on, reach out across my table and grab the stack of papers and delicately unfold the first one and begin reading.