I Could Use Somebody in this Windy City

I was enclosed in a box. All of the walls around me were white. There were no windows, no beds, no tables, or any other pieces of furniture. All that was there, were four white walls, a white ceiling, and a white floor. Unlike normal floors, it wasn’t made out of hardwood. Instead, it was made out of the same material the walls were.

As I looked down to inspect my clothing, I caught glimpse of a red liquid slowly dripping down the wall directly across from me. I started walking toward it. Every step I took forward, the wall moved back. Frustrated, I felt tears rush down my face, like a raging river. Feeling a small burst of energy, I started running for the wall. Every footstep closer I got, the wall moved back the same length. It was like I was running in place, but the walls were moving with me.

Finally, out of breath, I collapsed to the floor, the tears still falling down my face, even though it didn’t feel like I was crying, tears were pouring down my face as if I was in hysterics. I opened my hand and laid it against the floor, feeling how smooth it was. Curiously looking over my shoulder, I crawled over to the wall, and with an open hand, ran it over the one patch of the wall. It felt the same as the floor.

Completely lost, I looked ahead to see the red liquid run down the wall. The last drop came, and slowly trickled down the wall. My eyes followed it closely, watching as it made small curves even though the wall was completely smooth. When it got down to the puddle, it fell into it, making small ripples. Once the puddle was calm, it disappeared and left a faint pink stain in the floor.

Head pounding, I blinked hard and shook my head. When my eyes reopened, I noticed a small crack in the wall. The fine black line ran down the wall perfectly straight. I took a deep breath and went to stand up when my legs gave out, and I fell onto my hands and knees, not feeling a pinch of pain. Although it should’ve caused pain, it didn’t and I crawled over to the black line and ran my hand over it.

It was a crack, maybe a quarter of an inch wide. I tried to stick my finger into it. As I applied barely any pressure, I listened as it sounded like the wall was cracking. When I looked up, I smiled. I was right, from the top of the crack, it started moving away from it. When I placed my hand on the right side of the crack, I pushed down and watched as the crack made a sharp ninety degree turn and went straight down to the floor, making the perfect outline of a door.

“Jayden?”, I herd a faint voice call my name. I wasn’t sure if it was a boy’s or a girls, all I knew was that it was coming from behind the wall. I placed my shoulder on the door and pushed my back into it, listening to it crack more. Taking a deep breath, I pushed a little more until the cracking stopped and the white rectangle disappeared into the air. My eyes quickly scanned over the hallway that was the same as the room. All white. Bleak, eerie, hopeless, white.

I pushed myself up onto my feet, and walked through the door, then fell into the wall. All of the energy I had left, which was barely any, was wasted on pushing the door open. Now, as I looked down the hall, there was one red door all the way at the end of it.

I shut my eyes and listened and my name echoed through the hallway again, this time louder than before. My body was weak, and my legs were jello beneath me. Stumbling and leaning against the wall, I managed to make it halfway down the hallway.

There, half way toward the door, I collapsed as the voice called my name over, and over again. Each time it got more and more nervous. My eyes shut as the voice pounded through my head, each time it grew more and more familiar. As I felt my body lay flat on the floor, I realized who the voice belonged to as it screamed my name.

It wasn’t Adrian, Leo, or Todd. My mind was over the heartbreaks they gave me. This voice’s owner was none other than Jonathan Toews. “Jayden!”, I felt a shiver run through my body pressed against the smooth white floor. My eyes scanned the floor, but fell upon no one. There no movement, and now there was no noise but my shaky breathing. “Please, baby, please?”, the tears started pouring down my cheeks. I went to push them away, but I couldn’t even conjure up enough energy to move my arm from the floor. I looked up at the red door, feeling the failure and anger wash over my what seemed to be paralyzed body. “I’m sorry”, I whispered and shut my eyes.

“No, Jayden. Please, wake up. Please Jayden don’t do this to me”, I felt a shiver run up my spine and I opened my eyes again. The red door was now right in front of me, slightly open. My right hand that was tucked under my body, was if extended, the closest thing to the door.

I laid there for a few more minutes listening to Jon’s low voice. He started humming, humming the beat of a song that seemed extremely familiar. As my eyes squeezed shut, I started thinking of the song. After a while of thinking, I reopened my eyes and looked back up at the door. Taking a deep breath, I pulled my hand out from under me and put it through the door way. On the other side, it was pitch black and extremely cold.

With a shiver and a deep breath and pulled myself along the floor. I kept pulling into the darkness until my stomach was out of the light, with only my feet in the white hallway, I shut my eyes again ad listened to the voice that seemed even closer now, like it was right over my head. “Jayden, I love you Jayden”, a small smile busted onto my face, and a wave of energy washed over my body. With one good tug, I pulled the rest of my body into the sightless room. Once my foot was out of the hallway, the door slammed shut and I inhaled sharply as the room lit up.

I blinked a few times until I took in the sight of the familiar hardwood floor. After a few more blinks, feeling washed through my body and I felt the stiffness in my whole body. My body temperature was cold, the dim light in the room hurt my eyes, and my cheeks were sticky.

“Jayden!”, I herd Jon call. I moved my eyes, getting a little dizzy but it quickly washed away as I came eye to eye with him. His normally calm brown eyes were hectic and shimmering. Tears were settled in the rims of his eyes, and I felt like sitting up and tackling him into a hug. I moved my arm, but it only slid against the hardwood floor.

Jon leaned down toward me shaking his head. He blinked, and the little water accumulated near the bottom of his eye formed into a droplet and rolled slowly down his cheek. “I’m fine, Jon”, I whispered. Deep down somewhere, I wasn’t sure where at the moment, I still hated Jon for breaking my heart like the other guys. Right now though, he was the one person I desperately wanted to see.

“I should call 911”, he said and went to move when a burst of energy ran through my arm and I latched onto the end of his tee-shirt. He turned to me and slowly sat down, taking a shaky hand and placing it on the side of my face. Involuntarily, a smile lifted itself onto my face and I was able to reach up and put my hand on Jon’s.

He smiled and took his other hand and picked our hands off of my face. “You think toy can get up?”, I shrugged and then nodded for him to try to get me up. With a nod and a serious expression on his face, he slowly sat me up, then pulled me up to my feet.

My legs weren’t as jello-like as they felt in the dream I was having. Now, they felt steady, like I was able to walk on them. “Ready?”, I nodded and let on walk a little, at first my legs just dragged and I stumbled, but after a few times around my living room, I was able to walk like normal. With a deep breath, Jon took his arms off of me, and kept them close by. I just kept walking, without him ha ing to catch me before I crashed into the floor.

“I think I should get something to drink or eat”, Jon looked at me a confused look pasted onto his features at first. His eyes darted from mine down to the floor.

“Let me take you to get something. I know this good twenty-four hour café, diner thing in town”, he said giving me a small smile and huge eyes as if he was trying to persuade me. Right now, I would go anywhere with anyone to get something to eat and something to drink. “You can go get changed or whatever, and we can go out. Just me and you”, he said hope filling his eyes.

At first, I was skeptical. First, he was dating that Heidi girl, second, there was a good chance he was just trying to be nice. But for some reason. I didn’t think he was just trying to be nice. I mean, sure, he walked into my apartment and found me passed out on my floor, he probably thought I was dead, but he cried, so maybe, somewhere he still had some ounce of care for me.

“Thanks, Jon. Let me go get changed”, I whispered as I ran a hand through my smooth hair. Nodding, he sat down on the couch and ran his shaking hands through his hair, then straightened his back, and smiled.

I turned away form him, and walked down the hallway. When I got to my room, I quickly slipped into a pair of dark blue skinny jeans, a plain white v-neck that fit me snugly, then I put Patrick Sharp’s hoodie on and pull my slightly wavy brown hair to the side and fixed my hood as I stumbled out of my room and down the hallway.

Once I got to the doorway between the hallway and the living room, I tripped and landed onto my knees. Instead of groaning in pain, I chuckled and watched as Jon hopped over the couch and crouched down in front of me. “You alright?”, I nodded and took Jon’s hand as he pulled me back to my feet.

“Ready to go?”, I nodded. He took my hand and started walking me over to the door. Once I got there, I slipped into a pair of my sneakers and trailed behind Jon down the hallway. “Are you sure you’ll be alright?”, he asked turning around and walking backwards down the hall.

I inhaled sharply, the nodded as I watched Jon stumble and fall into the wall by the elevator. Chuckling, I hit the down button and watched him step next to me, his cheeks red with embarrassment. The elevator doors slid open sooner than I expected. I walked in first, and hit the bottom floor button, then waited for Jon to lean against the wall next to me. He didn’t. Instead, he stood by the door, looking down at his shoes.

“I’m not going to bite”, I whispered as the door slid open. Jon walked out and then turned to me, an innocent look in his eyes. I chuckled a little and walked out with him. “So can I ask you a question?”, I whispered once we were in the middle of the parking lot and the cold wind was whipping at us mercilessly.

“Sure shoot”, he looked over at me, shivering a little. Instinctively, I wrapped my arms around him, making it difficult for us to walk, but we somehow managed to keep walking anyway. After a deep breath and a period of time when I squeezed my eyes shut tightly, I let out a long sigh and stopped walking, putting my hands back by my sides.

Jon stopped and took my face into his hands, his eyes worried. “Why were you the one I woke up to”, his hands dropped to his sides. “How come Lori or anyone else didn’t come to check up on me?”, he looked down, then back up at me and sighed heavily. He intertwined his fingers together and let out a shaky breath.

“Lori told me what was going on. I text you. I waited an hour, you didn’t answer me, I got scared and drove to your house. I was worried about you. Really worried”, his cheeks tinted a faint shade of red and he kept his eyes away from mine. “When you changed I told Lori you were alright. I’m sure she text you, but I saw your phone lying on the floor”, he ended in a whisper and right there and then, I realized that I really wasn’t that mad at Jon anymore. The text I was going to send him replayed in my head and I felt my shoulder slump.

The conversation dropped there and we started walking to the car. Without any words, we got to the car and I crawled into the passengers seat and out on my seatbelt. He got in the drivers seat, put his seatbelt on, and turned to me with a small smile. “Positive you’re not going to pass out on me or anything?”, I nodded my head and sunk down in my chair, sighing heavily.

I shut my eyes and put a small smile on my face as Jon backed out of the parking spot and started driving down the street the opposite way of the way I normally walked. “So, do you mind if I asked you a question?”, he shot me a quick glance as he kept his hand steady on the wheel. I shrugged knowing exactly what he was going to say.

“How are you talking to me?”, I sat there, my limbs completely frozen where they were. When I tried to move or look at him, I couldn’t. “I mean, after everything that just happened and I know you’re anger”, I looked down and broke out of my stiffness with a small shrug. “I mean, please, keep talking to me, but, I feel horrible”, I shrugged again and felt the mood in the car go from happy to angry. I’m not sure if it was all from me, or Jon was angry at me for something.

The car came to a halt at the red light and he completely turned to me. “I feel horrible”, he admitted keeping his left hand firmly gripped on the wheel. His grip was so tight the skin against the wheel was turning red. “I really like you, Jayden. I don’t know why.. Heidi”, I shook my head and unbuckled my seatbelt and went to get out of the car, but the door was locked.

“Obviously you’re not that mad since you fucked her”, I snapped and felt my head spin a little. After the dizziness was gone, I crossed my arms and slammed my back into the seat.

The light turned green and the car slowly lurched forward. As the silence stayed in the car, Jon roughly hit the button for the radio and it came to life. A commercial was read off then a song came on. Before words were spoken, Jon turned it up and sunk down in his chair.

You'll be loved you'll be loved
Like you never have known
The memories of me
Will seem more like bad dreams
Just a series of blurs
Like I never occurred
Someday you will be loved

You may feel alone when you're falling asleep
And every time tears roll down your cheeks
But I know your heart belongs to someone you've yet to meet
Someday you will be loved

You'll be loved you'll be loved
Like you never have known
The memories of me
Will seem more like bad dreams
Just a series of blurs
Like I never occurred
Someday you will be loved

The song died down as Jon pulled the keys from the car. As he looked over at me, I suddenly had the urge to act like my old self. Scream at him, tell him he broke my heart, then go on and on about how much of an asshole he was. I wanted to scream at him, then fall into his arms crying because without him, I had no one.

Luckily, I kept myself together. My mind soon made it hard too. As we walked into the diner and sat down at a booth, my mind started reading the text message I never sent Jon. Explaining to him how much I missed him, and how bad I was without him. Now that I looked back on it, I was glad I didn’t send it. Sure, I may have confessed my love to him, but he still might not feel the same, I mean really. He has a super model, easy, girlfriend.

Why would he want me?

The waitress came over and took our orders for drinks. Jon ordered a coffee, and I ordered a Pepsi. Once she came back over with the drinks, the conversation started back up.

“You’re very mad at me”, Jon pointed out as he peeled back the plastic cover to the little milk and looked into the white container. Twitching his nose, he dumped the milk into his coffee and looked up at me with his huge brown eyes. “You are, I can tell”, he pointed out nonchalantly, and dumped one more milk into his coffee, then leaned back, keeping his hands on the table.

I pulled off one of my signature moves, I shrugged and looked down into my Pepsi. The small beige bubbles covering the top of my glass. Someday you will be loved... The lyrics from the song we herd in the car started up in my head. I loved Death Cab For Cutie with a passion, but there were sometimes where there oh-so lovely lyrics were not needed. Like now.

Did I really want to think about all of this. My heart breaks and my lack of a significant other? No. But thanks to them, I would have these thoughts in my mind all night long.

“Are you going to answer me today?”, I looked up at Jon. He looked five times more tired than before, and it startled me.

“I am. I have a right to. So let’s drop it and have a nice little midnight dinner”, I said stirring the flimsy white straw in my bubbly, sugary, caffeine filled liquid. .

“I’m not going to have a good time if you’re mad at me. Why are you mad?”

“Because maybe”, I shut my eyes and controlled my anger, “You dumped me for a girl that broke your heart in Winnipeg, then took her back, and got her pregnant?”, I said narrowing my eyes at the end. For once, I was able to keep the extremely rude sharpness off of my words.

The dark eyed boy looked up at me, his hands firmly placed on his cup of coffee. “Where’d you come up with that?”, he chuckled like it was no big deal. Like him breaking my heart into millions of pieces was nothing.

“You’re laughing?”, I slammed my hand down causing the old woman behind the counter to look over at us curiously. “You think completely breaking my heart is funny? You think me having to go on anti-depressants and almost killing myself because of them is funny? Do you think it’s funny that maybe if I never met you I’d be better off?”, I whispered feeling the urge to reach across the table, throw Jon to the ground and bash his head against the asphalt a few times to wipe that smile off of his face forever.

He wasn’t smiling when I gained enough courage to look up at him. Brown eyes sad, he reached across the table and grabbed my hand, I quickly pulled away and sat on my hands, eyeing him down like he was the scum of the Earth.

“We never slept together, Jay”, I looked down. “How could I get her pregnant when we never slept together”

“Ask Heidi”, I spat and watched Jon’s eyes grow caring. My tone wasn’t sour, it was more brokenly and sad. “Jon. I don’t want to fight with you or anything. I just want us to be friends, alright? I don’t think I can..”, I fell silent, but them quickly took a breath and went on, “I don’t thing I’m going to be alright without you in my life”, I whispered and watched as his eyes glassy. “I know it doesn’t matter but, I think I still-”

“May I take your orders?”, I fell silent and watched as Jon’s eyes stayed on me, begging me to continue speaking, but I just opened the menu under me, and skimmed through it.

“Chocolate Chip Pancakes, please?”, the waitress nodded with a smile and grabbed my menu, then turned to Jon who was still staring at me.

He stayed silent for another minute until he looked down and rubbed his temples annoyed. “A cheeseburger, medium-well, please?”, The waitress nodded again, took the menu and dashed back into the kitchen. “What were you saying?”, Jon asked desperately.

I shook my head and took a deep breath, placing the straw between my lips and slurping the sugary liquid. “I was just going to say, whatever this whole pregnancy thing is about, I hope you and Heidi are happy”

“That’s not what you were going to say”, he snapped angrily.

“It was nothing important”, I huffed and looked down at the orange table thinking of what I was going to say.

I know it doesn’t matter but, I think I still have feelings for you. I think I love you Jon, it’s alright if you don’t feel the same, I just wanted to let you know, I really love you.

Even though I shouldn’t. You’re the wrong kind of guy for me and you broke my heart. But even after all of that, I’m such a weak, insecure, lonely person, that I still love you.

I shook my head and quickly put my hand in the sweatshirt pocket and felt my cigarette box. After I excused myself from the table, and Jon let me go with a grunt, I walked out of the diner and sat down on the curb at the edge of the parking lot, and pulled out my box.

With the last cigarette lit between my lips, I inhaled deeply and thought about what had happened earlier. Not only did I wake up from an overdose, but I walked away fine. I could’ve died. I could’ve killed myself no problem.

I exhaled through my nose and shut my eyes. Leaning back, I put my left hand back to keep myself propped up.

I could have never been able to see Jon again. I could have not been able to be around when Heidi fucks up and Jon’s back desperate for a girlfriend. Was I really going to be Jon’s rebound girl for the rest of my life? Was that what I really wanted?

Inhaling again, I opened my eyes to the dark sky and picked up my left hand, brought my knees to my chest and wrapped my left hand around them. In a small ball, I shook my head and exhaled, tapping the edge of my cigarette so the ashes flew into the street. I watched as the orange dust soon went out, and the street was pitch black again.

I can’t stand around waiting for Jon. Sure, I may love him. Alright, it’s a fact. Yet, how could I love someone, who doesn’t love me the same way?

As I tapped away the rest of my cigarette, I watched the orange dust in the street again. The remains of the cigarette, I dumped into the near by sewer as my eyes stayed locked on the glowing orange embers.

I got up, and turned toward the diner, looking through the window at Jon staring down at the table sipping his coffee. He glanced over at me, then looked ahead and answered his phone. A smile appeared on his lips and I sighed heavily.

As I walked up to the front door, Death Cab For Cutie slowly started playing in the back of my head. Soon it was loud enough that I felt like I was in a movie as I strolled across the vacant dark parking lot.

I cannot pretend that I felt any regret.
Cause each broken heart will eventually mend.
As the blood runs red down the needle and thread.
Someday you will be loved…