5. la palette de couleurs de la home.

 [la lune regarda la lueur de son soleil et demanda : "penses-tu que nous aurions travaillé dans n'importe quel univers ?"]

-

7 days. 5 hours. 43 minutes.

elaine held her head in her hands. 

everything was so fucking difficult. every day seemed worse. the regret that loomed over her head made it worse. 

i don't deserve this. or maybe i do. maybe i'm an asshole. wait, does saying that make me more of an asshole ? 

she hadn't left her room in a week. these spells wore off, but it was getting worse. and the work that she used to distract herself just looked very distasteful.

a plate of cold brick-looking ramen stood lone at the edge of the bed. 

everything seemed loud. too much. 

and she didn't understand why.

her phone stayed switched off.

fuck the world i have done so much for.

~

in another house, was another girl.

darker hair. darker eyes. darker room.

she held a phone in her hand. she held it for two days straight. in hopes of salvation, maybe.

the irony is, this was not the first time this had happened. she didn't know who to keep beyond the perimeters.

she didn't know much when it came to people.

but when she loved someone, it was cannibalistic. scary.

i don't think anyone believed her when she warned them beforehand.

her father had given her the name esmeray. that might've been the only nice thing he ever gave her.

it was of turkish origin, and translated to 'dark moon' . 

sos. sos. sos.

-

10 days. 9 hours. 12 minutes.

elaine thought when she left she would also leave her mind. 

that didn't happen. that irked her. the defiance of theory.

the emptiness that had guarded her from the weight of feeling, didn't look safe anymore. it settled deeper into her, a constant presence that lingered, growing heavier with each passing hour. 

she went through the motions of her daily routine—work, errands, brief exchanges with colleagues—but everything felt muted, as though life itself had been drained of something she was used to having.

this feels like a story read before.

because at first, she welcomed the numbness, mistaking it for the kind of calm she had always sought. but as the days wore on, the monotone of it started to feel drowsy. 

the quiet was no longer peaceful. it was oppressive. the solitude once desired now felt like a punishment, a stark reminder of the space esme had filled. 

elaine hated this invisible uncontrollable power that girl had over her.

long after she had gone.

and she turned to the only drug she knew would push the feelings away. 

work became her refuge, a place where she could lose herself in tasks and deadlines, where she could avoid the thoughts that plagued her in the quiet of home. 

but even there, the distraction was temporary. she caught herself zoning out during meetings, her mind drifting back. her colleagues noticed the detachment, but she brushed off their concern with practiced ease, hiding behind the same walls she had always used to keep people at a distance.

emotional purgatory. 

the emotions she had buried were starting to push their way to the surface, demanding to be felt, no matter how much she tried to suppress them.

she wondered if the chance to reach out had already passed. for a second, though. she always did have a very strong hold on herself. 

the idea of contacting esme filled her with both hope and dread. she didn’t want to confront the mess created, didn’t want to face the possibility that she might coil back now that she had finally come to terms with what she had lost.

madness.

mad ness.

~

esme was used to sitting on the edge. she thought that it was the only way to be.

this felt that someone had pushed her off the edge before she was ready. 

as a narrator, i find fallacy here. if you have lived in anticipation your entire life, how could you not be prepared for the fall ?

but then again. i'm only the narrator.

this was a different storm that brewed.

esme couldn’t stop thinking about her—how she had pulled away, inch by inch, until she was nothing more than a shadow in the corner of her life. she replayed their last conversation in her mind, dissecting every word, every pause, searching for the moment when it all went wrong. 

was it something she said? something she did? the uncertainty gnawed at her, a relentless ache that made it hard to breathe.

but she knew this was her curse.

this need to be needed, to be held so tightly that the fear of being left couldn’t slip through the cracks. but now, in the absence of her touch, her voice, she felt as if she were unraveling, thread by thread, until there would be nothing left of her but the empty shell of the girl who once believed she could be loved.

so dramatic.

she wanted to reach out.

and she did. esme didn't have that strong of a hold on herself.

she also wanted to beg her to come back, to tell her she would do anything, be anything, if only she'd stay. but the fear of rejection was too strong, paralyzing her every time she thought of picking up the phone. 

what if she didn’t answer? what if she had already moved on, found someone else to fill the space esme had once occupied? the thought was unbearable, a knife to the gut, and so she kept her silence, her fingers trembling with the effort it took to resist.

and the days blurred together, a smear of grey against a backdrop of memories she couldn’t let go of. she clung to the remnants of their time together, the little moments that had once made her heart swell with hope. the way el smiled at her, the sound of her laugh, the warmth of her hand in hers—these were the things she held onto, even as they began to fade, slipping through her fingers like sand.

the feeling of no control over the things that were hers.

the feeling of all of that melting away.

the feeling of not being able to save something.

-

28 days. 10 hours. 2 minutes.

"Elaine ?"

elaine shook her head to bring herself back to reality.

"yeah. yeah i'm here."

the lady in front of elaine pursed her lips in sheer helplessness.

"We've had this discussion before."

"i know. i just need a different way to deal with this. the talking it out is fucking excruciating. i'd like to save that energy."

the therapist sighed.

"You're forcing a lid on a Tupperware full of emotions. You're not going to be able to put the lid on without damaging the container, no?"

"the analogies never help doctor."

"Confrontation does not necessarily mean you fix things. It means you sort things out and then put the lid back on. Without it, you'll have to stand there holding a lid to the issues, until all you're doing is holding a lid."

"i don't know, did i ruin this? everything is so ugly now."

"Sometimes things aren't meant to live forever, Elaine. These things happen."

~

esme sat near the window with her cat balled up at her feet. 

she hadn't had coffee for a long time now. coffee just reminded her of the first time she had met elaine.

instead she sat with vanilla tea, and listened to this on repeat.

Repeat to yourself that they're not really gone

Time has proven

That fooling yourself into believing a lie

Is the most effective way

To deal with things you have no control over

Keep listening to the mixtapes they made you

Overanalyze every single word you hear

"Was this a sign that things were going wrong"

No no, you were the one that cared too hard, not them

Stay up every single night staring at your phone

Either attempting to gather up the courage

To turn these demons, these constant reminders

Of your loneliness into nothing more than a bad dream

Or praying just for one second you could feel

The warmth of equally returned love

Go out for coffee four times a week by yourself

Always bring your notebook, never stop writing

Leave little comics and thank you notes with your tip

Watch them smile as you get in your car

Talk down on yourself whenever possible

My life is shit because I deserve it, right?

You must have done something real bad

Its nearly impossible for you to cry now

Avoid your friends for weeks even though

They're the only sense of consistency you have

Left in your life, if they really wanted

To see you they'd come, but they won't (who cares?)

Allow yourself to lose interest in the things you love

Watch as you begin to take a backseat

To the world around you, don't fight it

Become a secondary character in your own motion picture

But most importantly

Drown every single one of your feelings

In old stolen rum

Learn to love the taste of it dripping down your throat

Find comfort in the warmth coming from your stomach

You're drinking bottled love now

You don't need other people to drive away your loneliness

You just needed to find a way to talk to it

-

1 month. 19 days. 8 hours. 30 minutes.

elaine found herself in a quiet resignation now. her phone beeped a lot, and then there were the notifications from the parasites of people she thought entertaining would drive away her pain.

she was so disinterested.

these people were so boring.

the initial turmoil had subsided, leaving behind a stillness that was both a relief and a burden now.

the sharp edges of her grief had worn down to a dull, persistent throb, like an old wound that refused to fully heal. she no longer felt the urge to run from the pain, but neither did she know how to confront it. So she let it settle around him, a constant presence that she had grown almost accustomed to.

going out seemed so tiring.

the idea of being around other people, of pretending to be fine, was exhausting. she had become the master of evasion, sidestepping invitations and making excuses, preferring the quiet isolation of her apartment to the forced camaraderie of a night out. but even at home, the loneliness was overwhelming. 

she had stopped trying to convince herself that she was okay.

she wasn’t. 

she missed esme—missed her in a way that was almost physical, an ache that settled deep in her chest and refused to go away.

still, she wondered sometimes, what esme was doing, if she was thinking about her, if she missed her the way she did. but elaine never allowed herself to dwell on those thoughts for too long. they were dangerous, filled with what-ifs and maybes that only served to deepen the ache in her chest. And so she pushed them aside, burying them beneath layers of self-protection that had become second nature.

~

the initial shock of elaine's absence gave way to a dull, aching numbness that settled over her like a heavy fog.

the world seemed to move in slow motion, each hour stretching out endlessly as she struggled to make sense of the emptiness that had taken root inside her. she went through the motions of daily life, but everything felt muted, as if she were watching herself from a distance, disconnected from the person she used to be.

the constant barrage of memories was exhausting. she would catch herself staring at the empty spaces where el's things used to be, the bare patch on the wall where her jacket hung, the empty chair at the kitchen table. each reminder was a fresh wound, a reminder of how much she had depended on her, how much she had wrapped her sense of self around their relationship. without elaine, she felt unmoored, as though she were drifting through life without any anchor.

esme's phone became both a lifeline and a source of torment. she checked it constantly, hoping for a message, a sign that el was thinking of her too. every time it buzzed, her heart would leap into her throat, only to plummet when she saw it was just a work email or a notification from a friend or a fucking software update. she wanted to reach out, to ask if she missed her, if she was hurting too, but the fear of being met with silence held her back. 

the thought of reaching out and hearing nothing in return was more than esme could bear.

and yet, as the days blurred together, a small part of her began to realize that she couldn’t go on like this.

the constant anxiety, the endless cycle of hope and despair, was wearing her down, and she knew she needed to find a way to reclaim herself, to stop letting the loss consume her.

but even as she acknowledged this, the thought of letting go terrified her. it felt like losing elaine all over again, like admitting that she was really gone, and esme wasn’t ready to face that reality yet.

instead she continued to exist in this liminal space, caught between holding on and letting go, between the past and the future. each day was a battle, a struggle to find some semblance of peace in a world that felt irrevocably altered. 

the doorbell rang.

for a moment esme's heart leapt out of her chest.

but then it was only carmille.

"let's go have pizza. come on. get up."

"i'm really not in the mood."

"the parlour is literally downstairs. come on."

-

2 months. 25 days. 10 hours. 2 minutes.

how much time until we're okay?

1 year.

fuck this.

we run in circles.