It's dark.
It's quiet.
Yet sleep hasn't come at all.
For hours now, I've been alternating between closing my eyes and thinking about Clara, to having my eyes open whilst staring at the shadowed ceiling whilst thinking about her. Either way, has been quietly torturing me. I'm beginning to think that she just couldn't do this anymore. She just couldn't be a part of us anymore. If she had talked to me about it, at least then, I could have tried to talk her out of it. Or maybe she knew that? Maybe she knew I would talk her out of it, which is why she's suddenly cut all forms of communication with me?
All I wanted was to see Clara. To spend some quality time with her at Echo Lake. That's all I've been looking forward to. Now, I have nothing to look forward to. Rolling over on my stomach, I angrily puff up my pillow and plonk my head down onto it. My temples actually ache. They ache with total exhaustion. I need sleep. I need to close my eyes and just stop fucking thinking. As I take slow and depressed breaths, the darkness of the room soon becomes awash with light from my silenced cell phone that's on the table beside the bed. With my sore eyes wearily squinting, I can see that I've just got a message from Clara.
I'm so sorry...I didn't mean to ignore you. I just needed to work through some stuff in my head. My mobile was switched off, so I haven't seen your messages and calls until now. I'm so sorry if I've worried you. I really am okay. I'll talk to you later.
Miss yoooooooou!
Clara xxxxxxx
I'm struck with a nauseous and overwhelming kind of relief.
She's okay.
She's finally got back to me.
We're not over.
My relieved thoughts hurl themselves around my head. Flinging themselves against the exhaustion that has also taken up residence inside of there. As the relief slowly sinks into my bones, I just need to lie here for a little while longer. I just need to collect all of my abated thoughts. I didn't think I was going to hear from Clara again. I had convinced myself of that. Now here she is, her name and message popping up on my cell. I'm happy, yet afraid.
Happy, to just hear from her.
Afraid, because I'm so happy to hear from her.
My feelings for Clara are far bigger than I ever imagined. I realise that now. This girl has imprinted herself on my heart and mind. She has crawled beneath my skin and has quickly become part of my DNA. Without her, I feel like something is missing.
That, scares me.
That, excites me.
Half of myself is still strangely angry with her for dragging me through complete hell, the other half is dizzy with jubilance and tiredness. Needing to hear her voice, I am soon calling Clara right back.
"Hello?" She sounds surprised, almost apprehensive.
On a really tired drawl, I greet her with a restrained. "Hey."
Her voice is tenderly soft, yet still a little apprehensive. "Hey." She carefully replies, seemingly awaiting me to say what she knows I have to say.
"So you've decided to no longer ignore me?" The hurt, the anger, the total relief; it falls tiresomely from out of my mouth.
Clara's voice becomes quieter. "I wasn't ignoring you." She sounds guilty, I hear it plainly in her voice.
"You send me a text message to say that you're going out with friends, that you needed to let your hair down and that you're pathetically missing me, then you turn your phone off so I can't check whether you're okay or not? Where I come from, that's being ignored." My anger is making my heart beat hard and my reply to Clara come out so bitterly strong.
"I wasn't ignoring you, Rhys. I turned my phone off because I didn't want to keep checking whether you had texted or called. Where I come from, it's called having a life." Her guilt quickly morphs into complete sarcasm.
My anger, the hell that Clara has dragged me through, is now taking the lead with my feelings and all that I really should be saying.
I should be telling Clara how much I've been missing her, how I've been terrified that I'd lost her, but instead, I just keep on pushing up against her sarcastic response. "So this having a life involves ignoring me and trying to forget all about me. Is that what this is, Clara? Are you trying to forget me?"
Clara inhales, maybe readying herself to tell me what I think I already know. "I'm not trying to forget you, Rhys. I'm just trying to forget how hard this all is. I didn't think it would be this hard, but it is. This past week has just been about getting through the days, just so I can talk to you in the evenings. It's beginning to wear me down. Yesterday, I just needed to prove to myself that I can do normal things in a normal way without needing to hear from you. I feel like I am losing myself to how I feel about you. I really didn't mean to upset you. I just needed to do this for me. Can you understand that?"
There is was; emotional honesty. My girl is just as afraid of her feelings for me, as I am of mine for her. So yeah, damn straight I now know exactly where she's coming from. "I understand more than you'll ever know, Clara." I eventually and quietly admit, with just the same emotional honesty as my girl had just so openly expressed. "Are you still coming next weekend?" I ask, so very wary as I ask it.
But there's no hesitation from Clara, no hesitation at all. "Of course I am." She earnestly tells me.
Shit, I've fallen for this girl...I want her so much, it's almost suffocating me! My frustrated thoughts burn their way through my brain, thoughts so coiled tight with scorching impatience, I can barely contain how I feel.
Why am I even trying to contain how I feel?
Why not just say how I am insufferably feeling?
So, I frustratingly do. "Dammit, I wish I was there to hold you, Clara!"
But my frustration, my near-desperation is suddenly interrupted by one of Clara's friends happily calling out to her. Then I hear the phone being held away from my girls mouth as she yells back to her friend that she's coming. "I need to go but we'll talk later, okay?" She quickly explains, sounding happier as she does.
Before she goes, though, I just need to know that she's missing me almost as much as I am missing her. I just need to hear that pass her lips. "Tell me that you miss me?"
"I miss you, Rhys Ryan. I miss you more than I can ever say."
That'll do.
That will absolutely do.
With a relaxed smile, I eagerly reply. "I miss you too, Clara Thorn. Let's just get through this next week, okay?"
Sounding just as relaxed, content even, Clara softly agrees. "Okay."
"Do you want me to Skype you, later on?" I ask, sensing that my girl will now say a firm yes.
"I would love you to."
With all of the stress and the frustration falling away from my shoulders, I cheerily then say. "Cool! Laters, then."
As we said our quick and confident goodbye to each other, I felt more secure as we said it. Together, we will get through the next week of being apart. Then, we really shall be together.
Together, it just sounds so right, doesn't it?
And it feels so right, too.
When Clara comes to be with me on American soil, I honestly don't know whether I'll ever be able to let her go again. One week in without her, has literally been my version of hell.
I don't like being the lonely half of us.
I don't like feeling incomplete.
So when my girl comes to be with me, I intend on going all-out on keeping her with me.
I think this girl is the love of my life...I'm not going to let that go without a Rhys Ryan fight, that's for sure.