Love Me Like You Did Before

The apartment was quiet that night, quieter than I had expected. All the doors were closed. The windows were shut tightly. The crickets stopped singing their infinite melodious tune in the blue midnight shadow. A constant tapping was at my window, most likely from a knocking pipe. It sent chills down my spine in a swift movement.

I exhaled a steaming breath into the chilled current of the room. My body remained still to feel the vibrations of the bypassing cars of the street below. The wind within the room danced on my bare skin, raising up bumps on every exposed area.

As I brought the blanket around me, a vision of John flashed into my mind. His silky skin caressing me every second we came in contact. I sighed, "John..." I croaked. "I can still feel your arms around me."

The breeze whispered in my ear the answer that I longed for every night in my solitude, "I'm right here, Deee."

I shook my head to myself, "No. No, you're not. I wish you were but you're not. And you never will be." My head is playing games with me. The absence of love beneath the cage in my chest has twisted my thoughts. Just as I started to process this, the blanket slipped off my skin. John's essence was no longer there.

I opened my mind to this fact. A single acid tear slid down my cheek. Before I knew it, my pillow was drenched with salt water.

Judging by the feelings that circulated around my system, I had died inside. That which I had striven for has disappeared as a result of my own decision.

Courses of arguments penetrated my skin. That two separate beings within me, the hopeless romantic and the realist, were having a dispute with forceful, aggressive, and painfully truthful blows.

I sat upright. My skin was drizzled with sweat and left-over eyeliner. My legs acted on their own. I trudged downstairs, dragging my feet along the burgundy carpet. The temperature dropped hastily each step I took. I made no attempt to warm myself, knowing that all my efforts would have been wasted anyway.

I wanted to convince myself that I was somehow delusional, that I was still on that familiar white van, leaning on John with his arms wrapped around me. I wanted to be able to smell that familiar inebriating cologne that rose off his skins, to be able to tangle my fingers in his brown hair. It was all just a distant dream now.

I shook my head in resistance to being dragged back into the sad visage of reality. It didn't help. Not one bit.

I drew back the olive green curtains revealing a plateau of sunshine gleaming through the wide bay window. It wasn't until now that I realized the time. The gold glow sat atop that buildings that faced me. That heat began to enter the room.

It entered the room, but it didn't enter me. It was like staring at the city lights in black and white. You see the beauty but not the life beneath it. Just completely pointless and time-wasting. It felt empty and cold.

The clock beside me resonated a solemn sound. It's five in the morning. Did the escape from my thoughts take so much time?

One by one, alarms from cell phones went off throughout the apartment. I stumbled along to my room, turning off my own alarm as I entered the door.

I could hear Seraphina's dainty yawn from the next room. Her ballerina-like footsteps trailed towards my room, "You got up early. As usual." She yawned once more then smiled.

Tina followed in after her, "Did you sleep at all?"

I chuckled, "I got a full two hours."

Tina rolled her eyes, "No wonder you're so short. If you don't get a full eight hours, you will never grow."

I stuck my tongue out at her, "I stopped growing, what? Like, three years ago? It's no use trying to grow anymore now."

"Don't go wasting your time over something out of reach," Seraphina smirked.

"Perfectly phrased," I agreed. "And completely stolen from ABBA."

She chuckled, "I ran out of advice. And it's technically not stolen if you reword it."

"Technically," Tina smirked.

"Technically stolen."

"Don't go wasting your emotions. Lay all your love on me." I smiled.

"It was like shooting a sitting duck. A little small talk, a smile and baby I was stuck," Seraphina followed.

"I still don't know what you've done with me. A grown-up woman should never fall so easily" Tina sang.

"And yet we still fall so hard," I closed.

They nodded in agreement.

"Well, we can't let beautiful fantasies get in our way," I sighed. "It's just a waste of time."