Chapter 1
April 2021
Each and everyone of us have some things that they like about themselves and things that they don't. I like my eyes, a lot of people say that I have tantalizing, big, and round brown eyes that turn almost transparent whenever I'm under the sunlight.
But the thing that I don't like— no, despise—most about myself is that I'm still alive.
I don't even feel alive. It feels like I'm just existing.
And I never knew that even just breathing could hurt this much. Like the air that is passing through my lungs have sharp edges that leave thousands cut on my organs. It feels like I exist, but I'm not really living.
Like I've been submerged underwater for days, but for some reason I'm still not dying. It feels like I'm being tortured and right now, death might seem better than the feeling of endless drowning.
I stare at the painting hanging on my sky blue wall. It was an abstract painting of a man, with the color of red and yellow tears rolling down his cheek. I painted this when I was just sixteen and most artists say that they paint to express how they feel... but I'm not an artist. That was just an attempt to get rid of the boredom that I was feeling back when I was sixteen.
I feel my lips curling up into a bitter grin. I wasn't intending to add tears on the man's cheek, but I remember adding it because it felt incomplete... strange even.
And now I feel bad and I wanted to ask forgiveness from the man in my painting for making him sad, for stroking the brush to add tears on his cheek because now I know... now I know how it's like to feel dejected... depressed.
Now I know how it feels like when the sun rises but it doesn't really shine. Now I know how it feels to see in a perspective of a person who is colorblind. Now I know how it feels to be trapped inside a four-walled room with no door and windows.
Now I know how it feels to die as I live.
I always find people who are drug dependent, drunk, bitter and cynical as hopeless cases.
Drug addicts? They're the kind of pathetic people that I should avoid. Drunk? They're pathetic, too. And those people who are so bitter and cynical about everything? Seriously, they are the worst.
That was my mindset before... but now. Now I understand.
Now I understand that when you are in deep pain, you would do anything, anything to numb the pain and some people use drugs and alcohol as their escape. That's what they do to run away from the thoughts that are killing them second by second.
Now I understand why some people are bitter and cynical. It's because they have their heart broken tons of times, it's because their hope has been assaulted by countless disappointments and now they have no choice but to expect less and see all the worst possible scenarios in everything because that's how you do for survival.
You do everything, and anything in order for you to protect what's that little piece that's got left on you. Even if protecting it is throwing away your hope, building your walls, and giving up on your dreams. Because you know that risking it will make you end up with nothing.
That's why you try to protect the only thing that you got. That's why you push people away because if you don't let them in, you won't have to suffer for another loss.
Now I understand... Now I know all the things that I didn't before.
Because right at this moment, the people that I used to call pathetic are those people that I am with on this same page. Because just like them, I am desperate enough to do anything just to end the pain.
"Maeve! Are you ready?"
My mom's yell from outside my room pulled me out of my trance. I immediately wiped the tear that managed to escape from the corner of my eyes and I took a fast deep breath to compose myself before yelling, "Yes! Coming!"
I stand up from sitting on the edge of my bed and then I run my palm on my rose pink skirt before grabbing my bag on top of my drawer. Nang makalabas na ako sa kwarto ko ay si Mommy ang kaagad kong nakita, bihis na bihis na rin siya. She's about to rush inside their room but she did a double take when she saw me.
She gives me a slight disapproving look. "Will you change your clothes?" She says.
"No," I say. She looks caught off guard. Because my usual response would be "Why?"
She narrowed her eyes at me. "Change your clothes now. You look skinnier in those off shoulder and skirt. Kung ano-ano na naman ang sasabihin ng mga tita mo kapag nakita ka nila," she warns.
I roll my eyes. For the love of God! She only cares about what other people's opinions are. She never cared about mine. If she just had the decency to ask why I lost this too much weight instead of thinking about what people are going to say.
"I don't care about them, Mom. I feel pretty on this dress so this is what I am going to wear," I say with finality. I'm at this point where I don't give a shit anymore. I want to laugh, I want to smile, I want to feel pretty, I want to be a bitch, I want to eat... I want to lessen the pain of existing.
She lets out a harsh sigh. "Hay, bahala ka. Don't forget to wear your mask," she says in defeat before proceeding to their room. I just shake my head before making my way out of our house to proceed to the car. My Dad keeps a box of surgical facemask on the backseat kaya doon na lang ako kumuha.
***
"It's been a long time since the last time I saw you! Sa wakas nakalaya ka na rin!" My cousin Jeremy exclaimed. He's about my age and he's the cousin that I am very close with.
"Girl, ang OA. You saw me last month!" I tell him, rolling my eyes. He's not actually gay. He's just... feminine.
But our whole relatives keep on insisting that he is. He used to deny it everytime they call him gay, but now he's just laughing it off. Maybe he got tired of explaining the concept to people who couldn't understand that being feminine in men doesn't make them gay and being boyish in women doesn't make them lesbian.
And if they only knew that Jeremy had fucked gorgeous girls more than those varsity pick me boys in their University, our relatives are going to have a heart attack. Especially his parents who "accepted" that their son is gay. What's to accept, anyway? I mean, that's cool and such a sweet thing to do but Jeremy is not gay.
"Yeah, but a month consists of four weeks." He insisted.
I shrug. "You know I'm not really fond of going out, and I've been really busy with online classes," I say.
He groans and rolling his eyes upward, he says, "Yeah, fuck that. I fucking hate online class, if only this government know how to handle this pandemic well we'd be on face-to-face classes now."
"No, I think we'd be on the beach because it's April. It's time for hot girl summer!" I say, flicking my hands in the air with an attitude like I'm a white girl.
He laughs. "Yeah, I'm sure you can be confident in wearing a bikini now. You lost a lot of weight."
"Well, thanks to this diet called depression," I say, spreading my palms apart in the air like I'm quoting the fanciest diet ever.
He laughs. "Dumbitch," he says because he knows I'm kidding. Or maybe I'm not. But I like that he thinks that I'm kidding every time I crack jokes about my crippling depression and anxiety. I don't think I'm ever ready to talk about it to someone, because if he asked me why I feel like this.
I wouldn't know what to tell him why. If he'd ask me what's wrong, I wouldn't know what to tell him or give him a specific reason, because right now, everything just feels wrong. Everything.
"Okay, let's go get some food now." I suggest after five minutes of giggling.
He looks at me quite disbelievingly. "Wow, bago 'yan ah. Kumakain ka na pala ngayon." He says. That might sound offensive for others but I can't take that comment against Jeremy because the last time we visited them here, hindi ako kumakain. Wala akong gana parati.
"Girl, I'm so hungry today that when I see a walking pig in front of me, I'd devour it."
He laughs. "OA mo naman. Anyway, what do you wanna eat? Lasagna? Cake?"
"Both sound good."
He raised a brow and then he shot me an amused look. "Damn, you are really hungry."
I nod. "Call our other cousins. Let's all hang out together, I have missed you all guys."
"Yeah, I'll just re-heat the lasagna then I'll call them."
I just smile.
***
It's time to go.
That's what my mom told me at exactly 9 PM when I was in the living room with my cousins, watching this movie called "Before I fall."
Those are just four words but they managed to seep into me, conveying a different meaning. Something that is more deep, more terrifying.
Because right now, I can feel it.
It's time to go.
"It's time to go," I whisper to myself and then bitterly, I grin.
Those are going to be my last words. Will someone know? Will someone know that those are actually my last words?
If they'd ask my mom what my last words were, she'd probably say, "Goodnight, mom." Because that was the last thing that I've said to her before I went upstairs.
And if they'd ask my grandfather— the most bitter and cynical person I know— he'd probably say, "I'm sorry that they broke your heart so badly." Because that was the last thing that I told him when he was sitting on his rocking chair as I bid him my goodbye.
But the truth is, my last words were really "It's time to go."
Or maybe not.
Maybe it would be, "Fuck," as I struggle to catch for my breath. I don't know. I'll find out.
Taking a step towards my drawer, I grab the bottle of my sleeping pills. I developed insomnia ever since the lockdown occured and I had to take these in order for me to fall asleep.
Sometimes I take them to fall asleep. Especially when the thoughts inside my head are the loudest.
But there are some times that I don't.
Because I want to stay awake so that I can hear them. So that I can listen to them... so that I can allow them to hurt me because I desperately want to feel something.