Disenchanted

It's my last day of collage. I've studied here at the University of Denver for two years and majored in literature. I studied a few side things, picked up a few hobbies and made some friends. But now it is the fall, leafs are turning orange here and falling to the ground from the bushy, once green, trees.
 
But to me, it wasn't the end of collage. It wasn't closure. It was time to go home. I was tired and wary of the early morning classes and studying until twelve every night and having permanently bloodshot eyes. With every day, I missed my home more and more. And my home was in California. I'd gone a long way out of my way to go to collage. But I just needed a little space from the memories...

They all hurt a lot. Because most of them I loved. They made me smile and laugh. But when I thought of them, they made me numb and incapable of feeling anything. Like taking medicine to cure a cold, it cured me. Reminding me of the reason I was here. So far from California. But I always regretted it, every time I thought about the memories. I remember a few things the most prominently. Those which were, the way I always laughed way too much and was called names for it. These days, I never laugh. And if I do, it's this humorless little puff of air.

I was lifeless. But all the precautions I took, saved me from tossing and turning every night. Murmuring his name in my sleep. One of the reasons I lost my roommate long ago. And the reason I usually cried myself to sleep and woke up way too early and restless. Also a reason why I got sick so much. I got maybe four to five hours of sleep a day. Exhaustion weakens you, and it definitely showed in me. So in all ways, it was best to live and avoid. 

Another thing I remember so vividly, was the color of his eyes... Green. Emerald green. A outstanding color. I always stared too long or got caught up in his eyes and missed his questions.

I shook my head to rid it of the memories. When most of the time, to me. They weren't memories, they were like a plague. Poisoning me and drowning me in unimaginable pain. That is usually how I spend every day. It surely isn't good for me.

I pulled the zipper around the last corner of my brown leather suitcase. I simply glared down at it, while two emotions were fighting for a whole on the inside. Happiness to be home, to sleep as long as I want. All of that. And then there was the constantly present bitter edge. That was like a acid coated razor blade to the wrist everyday.

I let numbness win and let myself feel nothing as I drifted absentmindedly around my little dorm. Picking up the few belongings I owned and putting them in my bag. 

When the room was bare of everything except the bunk bed and desk under the tiny window that let in little light, I felt it was time to leave. I checked under the bed for anything I could have cared less about but wanted to leave behind. But it too was bare. I stood up and straightened my top, also the most reminding piece of the plague. A Green Day top. I shouldn't even own it. Let alone wear it. Especially on the day I go home. To the same little town I met him in, but he had long gone moved from. It held little sanity for me after the six months prior to enrolling in collage, I curled up in a ball on the queen sized bed in my bedroom. Rolled up in his sweatshirt and wrapped in the blanket we'd take with us star gazing. Staring at the phone and listening for the door bell or a knock to tell me I wasn't alone and he would come back. That he hadn't left the town and me forever. But it was six months. And nothing changed. Except for the bitter numb edge I took on everyday when I finally started making the effort to get up everyday and eat and take care of myself again. I went to collage to get my mind off things, but I honestly can't tell you if it made anything better or worse. He left me two and a half years ago. In the fall, of 2001. It was 2003 right now. But we met when we were both eighteen. Attending the same stupid little school in Pinole Valley High-school. We were acquaintances at first, then okay friends. Then best friends, joined at the hip friends and in 1992, boyfriend and girlfriend. I graduated, he dropped out. I didn't want to go to collage and neither did he. We spent ten pointless years of relationship together but I knew him for five years. Those years spent under stars and at parties. Hanging out at Christie Road or having the occasional beer.

And in three little words, those ten years disappeared in a puff of dust...

“I Don't Love You.” he stated simply. Standing in the sunset of our lives on the hill above Christie Road. He didn't reach out to brush my cheek like he usually would. He didn't smile or apologize. Or laugh and say he was just joking and that I was so gullible. He was very serious and partial to his words. I could feel it in his tense stance. It was over, we were over.

I gasped wildly and broke through. Jerking upright off the floor. The light in the bedroom gone. I'd fallen asleep on the floor. And God what a dream to have when returning to the war zone. I slowly got to my feet and picked up my bags and walking out. Closing and locking my dorm room door behind me. And going home to face the plague.