My head was still spinning, the impact was too strong for my fragile little heart. I blinked a couple of times shaking my head in frustration. My lips tasted like sandalwood, alien taste venturing on my taste buds. An irascible impulse in my heart was driving me insane.
The worst part was that it wasn't a dream.
I looked up at him, knocking out of my reveries, my heart desiring an emotion in return from him. Just one feeling. One expression. One look. That could change everything. One expression of devotion, a little, even the tiniest spark that could witness that he had - even the littlest - a sliver of feelings for me.
Nothing. No response. No eye contact.
Not even a cold stare did he return, he wasn't even looking at me. He was looking at them - at Misty. As if I was nothing. As if he owed me no explanation. As if I was just a thing.
Use and throw away.
I was getting to know my worth. My entire life, all I had been, was a tissue paper. People always used me, let their pain out, let everything, every cyclone go. I wiped off their tears, helped them, gave them a shoulder to cry on. But in reality, nobody ever asked what I was going through, What bothered me, what my life had been.
No, they had always been selfish, always thinking when I apologized for whatever they were going through, it was all out of pity, not empathy.
When in reality, nobody knew this pain better than me.
But now I knew my worth, I was just another muse.
I heard clicks of heels rushing towards us. My vision was hazy and my head was heavy. I wanted to go home. Go home and cry for some very odd reason. Soothe my heart that had again fallen in love and again been broken.
I hardly knew what to think or feel. The walls in the diner had felt claustrophobic. I felt breathless, like all the air had been sucked right out of me, and I was nothing but an empty vacant, vacuum.
"Oh my Goodness! You guys are a thing, right?" The ginger headed girl jumped and squealed in excitement.
Damn, she was a catch.
Ash just nodded in response as I blankly stared at them, still spellbound by the kiss. Oh hell, my entire mouth was paralyzed.
"I'm so happy for you guys!" She hugged Ash, "You have no idea what a big burden has been removed from my shoulders! I thought you would be devastated after the breakup. I'm happy that you've moved on so quickly. I hope we can still remain friends."
"And coming towards your gorgeous girlfriend - Your name is -?" She questioned.
I panicked, contemplating right words to say but nothing really came out.
"Serena!" Dawn barged in, "She's Serena!"
"Wow, Serena! I'm actually very surprised that Ash could get someone as attractive and sophisticated as you - You are really beautiful. I'm actually quite jealous!" Misty playfully mocked.
"Yeah - makes me feel like I'm about to steal another one of Ashy-boy's Girlfriend." Gary smirked before being smacked in head by Misty.
"Trust me, We have, like SO much to talk about! But I'm really running short of time. I have my swimming classes and I'm in a real big hurry! My coach would kill me if I don't rush now." She giggled, "So, I'll see you around, gotta go."
She gave me a half hug and playfully dragged Gary out of the restaurant.
I was still flabbergasted. I was betrayed. By Ash. By Miette. By my own damn best friend, Dawn. How could someone just intentionally put so much effort, just to make someone feel miserable. Make someone fall in love - make someone fall in an abyss of misery. Why?
My teethframe tightened with anger, my eyes went crimson.
They thought I was a joke.
"Thank you so much, Serena! I can't even describe -" Ash spoke up before I cut him out.
"Dawn. Drop me home." I blankly said, my words cracking with bitterness in my tone.
"But - Are you okay? I -" Dawns excitement came to an abrupt pause.
"NOW." My voice broke.
Dawn immediately got the idea. She knew I was not ready to deal with anymore drama. She knew this bitter tone well and she knew that it was not a joke anymore.
She silently trailed behind me towards the car, leaving Ash clueless behind. I was breathing heavily, somehow trying to tame my temper. Trying to hold it back.
The drive to home was silent. Dawn didn't mutter a word and I didn't expect her to either. Soon, the woods appeared in sideways that indicated that my house was close until the building appeared.
"I need some solitude -" I blankly said with a brief sigh.
"Call me when you're okay and wanna talk, I'll fly right over." Dawn assured as I got of the car and gave her one last look after which she drove her car away from sight.
I silently walked towards the dock, beautifully shining in the rays of dying sunlight indicating that it was about time for the sunset. I felt my legs tremble as I finally lost balance and collapsed over the wooden dock. Tears immediately bursting out of my eyes like water from an overflowing dam.
I've held it for too long. I needed to let them out.
I wiped off the tears a couple of times with my bare wrists but they never stopped. Whimpers escaping after each time I recalled his eyes. Eyes in which I could not read a single word regarding me. I was nothing to him. He did not love back. He was not obligated to.
Truth is always bitter, but true nonetheless.
I recalled when I was younger, my mother once asked me to whom my first kiss would belong and with great enthusiasm, I would always say that it would be a charming prince on a shining horse. She would hug me and ask me what if I never find a prince. I would smile and say that my price charming only had on characteristics that really mattered.
That was - His love for me would be true and unconditional.
Weird, right?
Because I gave my first kiss to someone who had no feelings for me. At all. That's what the eyes said. And eyes don't lie, remember?
It was a darned play. An ugly fat lie.
It was all destroyed. All useless. These years, full of struggles, to fall out of love. All nights sleepless nights spent to construct a breakup Formula. All in vain. All in vain, darling.
But now it was just me, the glimmering waves ahead, the horizon and the sun. Sometimes you just have to stop. Pause every swirling hurricane inside you, set ever sadness and happiness aside and just stare at the sun sinking deeper and deeper into the horizon, like a thin frail between everything that has to come and everything that already has.
It's just a pause, a standstill. It was my antidepressant. And god, was I luck to have it. The ability to sink my pain with the burying sun. But this time, nothing seemed to work.
"Serena?" A voiced echoed in my ears.
I didn't turn. Its just in my head, why would he come anyway? To get something as worthless as me?
I then felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up abruptly in shock, and just as I had feared, it was him.
Of course.
I remained silent, for silence was the strongest thing to say at this moment.
"Look, I'm sorry, Serena - I'm here to explain." Ash spoke.
"Go ahead. Explain. What'd you explain?" I bitterly spat. My outburst was loud and jarring on the soft silence surrounding us. It was just that I had been suppressing these emotions for so long. And they'd eventually erupted, like Mount Vesuvius upon the city of Pompeii. The feeling of anger, frustration and bitterness. -- these were the feelings I hadn't ever let go of to begin with.
"I - I'm sorry." He frowned.
"What was all that? What exactly was this crap? How could acting it all out in front of Misty make you happy? How can it make you feel so contended while it broke me into two halves?" I spoke, entranced by the bittersweet memory.
"Look, calm down. Nothing was intentional." he briefly sighed in frustration.
"Exactly! To you, nothing is intentional. Because you're reckless, careless, relentless --But I? I've grown up reading those stupid fairy tales. I've believed in love, magic and all that crap. I had a scenario in my head. Of how it'd be ball, a prince, a dance, and a kiss that is actually intentional. You may not understand what bullshit I'm spewing out of my mouth but this is what I had pictured - for my first kiss. Guess that's impossible -- But at least, at least someone - who truly loved me, someone deserving." I swallowed the lump in my throat.
"I believe in a magical kiss that heals you - But these days, kiss is merely anything out of love, it is rather lust. We think love means attention and maybe that's why we suffer so deeply. We are absorbed in our social life and we mistake it for love. While I - I believe in long drives and camp nights where you sing your love to each other. I'm a broken record player in a world full of sound systems. I'm an old rose it's world full of bottled perfumes." I shakily spoke, "I may sound old to you - but this is the truth. We are all infected by the social disease and are lost, we've forgotten that love existed before us. And It was pure. And a kiss wasn't just a kiss, it was everything. From stardust to fireflies. All."
"I -" he muttered, "Didn't know it was your first kiss."
"Forget it, just go home. Ash, you can't fix everything, some things are meant to be left broken so just accept it and go home." My voice cracked as I stood up, "We don't know each other anymore."
"God, what has gotten into you?!" Ash yelled in disbelief.
"Go away and never return." I sternly said, "Ever. Nothing can be fixed now."
"Serena calm--" His eyes faltered.
"Because if you stay one more second, I -" I held back my words,
I would never be able let you go.
I turned around and walked away without looking back. Sliding open the door I entered and shut it close, leaving behind me a trail of dreams, broken promises, unsaid stories and my shattered heart.