Empty.

68 - Breakdowns & Bad Behavior

The air was brutal and the wind was not any friendlier. I noticed the security guard standing at the gate. I always saw him but we never really spoke, just a simple greeting when I got there and a goodbye when I left. This time I was not in the mood to face him and so I tried to duck past him.

"Hello there",he smiled at me and as he nodded his cap moved a little on his head.

"Hi",I smiled back at the middle aged man.

"Haven't seen you around here in a while",he said with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh, well stuff came up",was all I managed to say.

He probably wondered what was so much more important.

"Well, I'll see you", I waved him off.

I made my way down the pathway as I hugged myself tightly to protect myself from the cold.

My mind wasn't exactly at the best place. The fact that Jamie was leaving tortured me. Even though I would still get to see him it would be hard for me to go weeks without him. Not getting to hug him or see him smile for that long would drive me insane. I was in love, as far as I was concerned. Could a seventeen year old girl actually be in love? Well I did think I loved Trent at one point. I guess I probably did because what I felt for Trent haunted me but with Jamie it was different. My feelings were intensified. It was like my feelings for Trent multiplied by a number that doesn't exist. That is probably an hyperbole but saying anything else is an understatement.

It was like I had no direction anymore. My life was dismantling right in front of my eyes and I had no idea how to stop it. The easiest thing to deal with were my grades. Studying actually relaxed me and took my mind of the catastrophe that was my life. I was losing myself again.

As I reached the end of the pathway, I stopped.

"Hey dad."

I forced my lips to curve into a smile.His headstone was beautiful and simple. My mother chose it. I didn't feel right choosing one, I couldn't bring myself to but I'm glad she chose it because it wasn't too out there which is something my father hated.

I bent down and dusted off the excess sand at the bottom of the headstone after removing the shriveled up flowers. The flowers weren't so bad so I figured that my mother had left them there since I hadn't been around my father's grave in at least three months.
I placed the new bouquet of flowers down neatly.

"I know you hate pulling out flowers from the ground but I just want this place to look less sad",I shrugged.

I ran my hands through my hair in frustration.

"I haven't visited in a while because things got a little crazy."
"I should have still came to see you I know, I'm sorry."

I bent down and touched his tombstone. It was the exact opposite of how I hoped it would feel. I thought it would take me back to when I held his hand but it just made me angry because instead of my father's hand I just felt cement.

"Dad",I spoke with so many emotions in my voice. I held back tears and groaned.

"I can't do this anymore! You left, you left me. I'm alone now, why couldn't you just take me with?", I yelled as I stood up.

The wind answered me with a loud howl and it made my anger go up another level because I wasn't even talking to the wind in the first place. I was talking to my father and he didn't even have the decency to answer me.

"Why are you so selfish?",I exclaimed as I wiped away the tears that were now streaming down my face.

"I can't do this anymore! I can't do it! Do you hear me?",I sobbed.

"Miss, you need to calm down",a hand touched my shoulder.

I spun around in shock to see the security guard. He had a warm look on his face.

"Don't touch me!",I shook my head.

"I'm sorry",he said removing his hand from my shoulder and backing away from me.

I brought my hand to my face and took a deep breath in order to calm myself down.

"I am sorry, I didn't mean to behave that way",I apologised immediately feeling mortified.

"Don't worry about it Miss", he smiled.

"Mia, my name is Mia",I stretched out my hand to him.

"Charles Roberts",he smiled and shook my hand.

"Mr Roberts I really am sorry, I'm just going through a tough time", I said trying to make it sound less sad than it actually was.

"Please call me Charles I'm not that old now",he chuckled. "Here",he handed me a tissue.

"Thank you",I took it from him and dried my eyes.

"This your dad?", he asked looking down at my father's tombstone.

"Yes."

"It's hard losing a parent as young as you are. I lost my mom when I was fifteen, I still haven't gotten over that",he shrugged.

"How do you cope?"

"You just do, you focus on the good and then some days you feel like there is no good and so you have a total meltdown like you did a few seconds ago. Then you realise that it's a cycle. Life has a pattern", Charles answered with a shrug.

"I don't understand", I said perplexed.

All the crying made my head sore and I felt as if someone was repeatedly banging my head against a metal door.

"Have you ever heard of the phrase Regression To The Mean?", he questioned.

"Things always stay in the middle", I tried to recall which television show I had heard that line from and what it meant but my memory was failing me.

"Something like that. You see in life, good things happen and bad things happen but life always returns to the median. Which means things will never be all good or all bad. It will balance out, a little bit of the good and a little bit of the bad."

"Oh, I get it. Regression to the mean, mean as in average. Life will always be average?"

"Exactly. So you might feel upset that things are not going your way but keep in mind that it can only get better from here. You're not always going to feel Empty", Charles explained.

"I'm not always going to feel empty."