Saturday
I’ve been staring at a road. I’m not able to see five feet in front of me. I don’t know where it’ll take me, but I've been walking it regardless. It’s the road I chose. I have to crawl now with all the weight on top of me. I can’t stand it anymore. The only thing keeping me from getting crushed is the comfort I find in Yuele. I don’t have to understand it.
It’s enough for the moment.
He listens.
But he can’t help me.
My friends were able to move on and forgive Elizabeth by looking at all the good that happened after. They found solace, peace, with it. I was given a lot of good too, maybe enough to outweigh the bad.
One of those things was being able to meet Felix.
Felix taught me how to become a storm that could not be ignored. I only gained my confidence because he taught me how. He showed me how to use my weakness and turn it into my strength. Hate is power. I used it to become who I am.
And I still fucking hate myself.
I never thought Felix would ever come home. It takes me a moment to convince myself that it’s actually him when I come over to Aylin’s to babysit. Sure enough, he’s real. Aylin was just as surprised as I am. He came without notice. Aylin decides to stay home for the day because of the special occasion. After catching up, I nearly leave because there no need for me.
“Why don’t you stick around for a while?” Felix stops me.
“Are you sure?”
“I don’t mind,” Aylin says. “Helen certainly doesn’t.”
I feel like an outsider. This isn’t my family. I don’t truly belong here so I stay as a silent observer to Aylin and Felix’s conversation. They have a lot to catch up on.
“Grace, did you know Felix was a trouble maker as a kid? I had to practically be his mom.” Aylin asks me.
“I said I was sorry already,” Felix laughs.
“Where were your parents?”
“Our dad was murdered and our mom wasn’t the best. It’s been just us two since we ran away,” Aylin says it so casually. “My hard work paid off.”
“Don’t give yourself all the praise. Don’t think I forgot you were a shithead too. You’d still be with your baby daddy and miserable if it wasn’t for me.”
Sibling banter is funny. I always longed for such a relationship which I eventually got in Sara. But it’s different when there’s a blood connection, isn't it? I won’t ever get the same. I was an only child and that’s all I knew for the longest time. Even after Sara came into my life, our sisterhood didn’t come right away. That’s still so new.
I’ve really become nothing but negative thoughts now. It’s just harder and harder to say something positive. It’s still not too late, however. I can still turn myself around.
“That reminds me. I have two tickets for a symphony later today. Want to go?” Felix asks.
“You didn’t expect me to drop everything and accept, right? Who’s going to watch over Helen?”
“Don’t you usually babysit today, Grace?” Felix asks me.
“Yeah. I don’t mind.”
“No, no,” Alyin waves her hands. “Take Grace instead. I can’t remember the last Saturday I spent with my girl, I’ll rather do that instead.”
I have never been to a classical concert before.
“Grace, do you want to?”
“Yeah, sure. Let me go home so I can change into something other than PJ’s.”
“That works. I have a few errands to do anyway. Let’s meet there.”
Felix hands me over the ticket before I go home.
I was unsure how to dress so I went how I’m most comfortable. I read online that I don't have to dress as formally as I always believed. I’m also only going with Felix, so there’s no one to impress. I put on a nice top and jeans, nothing fancy. I just hope I don’t look out of place.
I arrived early at Benaroya Hall. It’s a beautiful building but I didn’t come to admire it. I am one of the first to take my seat assigned on my ticket. I’m close to the stage but not quite facing the center. I’m a bit to the left of it. One by one, the seats all get filled up, all except for the one on my left, Felix’s.
All the lights dim and the ambience changes for the concert to start. I take a look around but I don’t see anyone else making their way to their seat.
The audience claps and the orchestra gets ready to start the performance. There’s dozen of wooden strings, violins, cellos and violas, and all are divided into sections. On the back and sides are woodwinds like flutes and oboes. There’s many more instruments I recognize but don’t know enough to identify them correctly.
Felix finally takes his seat once the band begins to play.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
I sit in silence and listen to the type of music I never gave the chance to for the next two hours. I never saw the appeal. Obviously I’ve heard what’s always commercially played but I don’t know anything more than that. Sort of like how I got into Jazz, I was wrong in my misconceptions. It isn’t as boring as I thought it would be. I know nothing about classical music, but the ticket says a symphony is being played. It’s easy on the ears and it never gets repetitive.
It’s ironic that I never bothered to give it a chance. Tina always nags me to check out her favorite artists more. She is better known as a classical musician. I’ve only heard her commercial and digestible songs, the ones that make the real money. I never thought I would enjoy it.
I think I underestimated how much I could enjoy this type of music.
After it ends, we find a corner in the lobby upstairs to unwind. With the side of the wall we find ourselves facing being glass, the view of the street outside makes me feel hidden and exposed much the same.
“What did you think?” Felix asks.
“It was better than I expected. Is that what you’re into?”
“It’s been my favorite since I was a little kid. Thanks for coming. Aylin always says no.”
“I'm always down to try something new,” I giggle. “Won’t know what I like if I don’t.”
His glacier blue eyes look down at me. I’ve grown considerably taller since I first met him, but he still towers over me. I haven’t gotten used to the well kept beard he grew, but I guess it’s not too weird for a 29 year old man to have.
Aside from doing something new, I wanted the opportunity to talk to Felix alone. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to and my mom interrupted the last time. We didn’t get to finish our conversation yesterday.
“Have you been feeling better?”
“Not really.” I nervously laugh. “I’m actually glad you came, but you should at least have told me. It got really bad last night, but my friend helped me out. They make me feel a little better but I can’t rely on them all the time, y’know?”
“You haven’t come close to finding what’s making you empty, huh?”
“No.”
“That’s disappointing. I expected better from you.”
Out of all the people I met, Felix is the only one I’ve been unable to read. By the time I learned I could, Felix already moved away. Sometimes it's not enough to figure someone out through their voice and that has been the only way we communicated. Now that we’re face to face, I’m reassured of what I always believed. I can trust him.
“Well, this is your work,” I twirl my arms around to show off my body to Felix. “You can only blame yourself if I fall short.”
“Life will never be a smooth river where it won’t fight against you, that’s what makes it so enjoyable. How else can you appreciate it? Everyone is preparing to enter a storm, are going through one or are exiting it. You were being an idiot to think you could become the exception.”
“That isn’t what you told me. You said I could be the storm that is above everything.”
“Water is still water regardless of the form it takes.”
I turn back to the glass wall and look up to the sky. They’re too heavy to let any sunlight in. I don’t expect it to rain today either. Summer’s the driest. Any time I thought it would rain, I’ve been disappointed.
“Then I’ll just have to become a stronger storm.”
“When I first met you, Grace, you were this naive and shy girl, nervous and uncertain about everything. You were pathetic. You told me nobody could see you. You told me you wanted to change that. Now that you did, you’re telling me it wasn’t enough to satisfy you?”
“If you hate something enough, you’ll have the will and power to crush it, right? I used that hate to strip away everything that made me feel that way, but I couldn’t take everything away. It wasn’t enough.”
Felix sighs, getting in front of me but doesn’t turn his back. “Why do you think that is? What’s different now that it doesn’t cut it anymore?” Felix gives me time to answer, but I don't. “Where did you go wrong?”
“Everyone expects me to fulfill this role when it wasn’t mine to begin with. I’m tired of it. It wasn’t me. It was fake, temporary. Something to help me sleep at night. But at one point, it became me. What if that’s all I am? What if I’m no different?”
Felix turns around. He has a cheeky smirk. “You are different, Grace. You don’t see the world like everyone else. You’re not fooled by the lies it operates on. You see through them. You see reality and you’re only been alone because there’s no one to relate to. You’re not broken because there’s something wrong with you. There’s just nobody who can understand you. That emptiness you feel? It’s anger.”
I move to stand next to him again. I hold one arm behind the other. “Of course it's anger. I fucking hate myself, Felix.”
“You’ll keep storing that anger until it’ll spill over or it drowns you. Rage has to go somewhere. You can’t silence it, but you can use it.”
Felix had put into words what I’ve been feeling exactly.
The loneliness of being unseen by others is the pain I’ve been experiencing. It’s a vague but a private feeling. It’s existential. But my loneliness doesn’t come from being unseen. It’s coming from how I’m seen. It comes from how I want them to see me.
I’ve been a beast that could drink for the river until it gets sick, but never enough to quench its thirst. It will die before it does. I’ve been drinking from the wrong river.
I’ve been standing still while the world is flying past me again. I’ve been letting the shadows of the past give up my control. I’ve been walking on tippy toes to not shatter the light everyone sees in me. I’ve been afraid of what I’ll lose if I do. I would rather be tortured by it than lose it.
I am selfish. It’s all about me. It always has been. I’ve been lying and making myself believe I wasn’t. In self righteous intent, greed followed behind. Why would I bother to have everyone idolize me if I wasn’t greedy, and for what? To make up for everything that I was denied?
To prove to myself I wasn’t born defective?
That I deserve the attention.
And why wasn’t that enough?
Because it didn’t give me what I truly desired. The love I always yearned for. The one that can tell me that I’m fine the way that I am.
That’s my emptiness, my loneliness.
I want it to come from the people who hurt me the most.
They would see me.
“Stop pretending that you don’t want to take it out on the world,” Felix says. “You won’t become her if you do. You’re better than that.”
I don’t have to run. I don’t have to fight. I don’t have to please. I don’t have to be nice about it. I’m too angry to care anymore. I’m tired of not existing. I’m tired of feeling like my voice can’t be heard. No one knows what hate is until they, truly, hate themselves. It’s the only time you can truly know yourself, without any illusions. It’s not pretty and excruciatingly painful, but it’s real.
I believed I was familiar with it. I walked around thinking I knew what hate means. I built myself with that but it wasn’t right. I came out twisted, deformed and incomplete. I did not know what hate really is. I hate Elizabeth.
I can’t believe I became disillusioned that I have to carry the light she did. I’ve been trying too hard to keep it lit, afraid of it ever fading. But It’s what’s been chaining me down. It has kept me from being me. I don’t know why I got this life, but I can stop feeling sorry for myself. No matter how much I change, I will still be me. I will still suffer. If the world rejects me, I don’t have to dilute myself just to be bearable. It can choke.
If my light shatters, so be it, it was a poison.
It begins to rain.
I look down at the street that’s being relentlessly pummeled by the thick water. In under a minute, the rain accumulates to be too much for the ground to absorb or drain fast enough. It swallows the earth. It washes away the dirt. It brings anew.
It’s raining down again.