The doors open. My back is turned towards it, yet I need not look to know who is standing there. His presence is too strong to ignore, and all my senses react to him. He approaches, ever so slowly, his steps echo in the silence. I sniff the air around us. He reeks of alcohol.
''Look at me.''
I shake my head, already feeling everything crumbling inside of me. My body shudders, and I wrap my hands around myself, as if trying to fight off the upcoming storm.
''Look at me,'' West repeats, only this time his voice is sharper. Still hushed though, an undercurrent of anger and pent up frustration.
There is no reason to be afraid of West, I tell myself, trying to stop my body from shaking. He would never hurt you. Would he? After all, there was a time I had promised the same thing, and broke that promise, along several other things. Including West.
I turn around, but keep my head down, eyes away. ''You should leave West. You are drunk.''
West laughs, the sound so fabricated and maniacal, haunting. It enters my bones and lingers there, freezing me from the inside. ''You care about my wellbeing? How considerate of you.''
''Why are you here?''
West grins, and staggers on his feet. He produces a bottle of who-knows-which drink from who-knows-where and takes a long, large swing. His eyes are fixated on my head, I can feel them piercing through my scull all the way down to the darkest pits of my brain, searching for an answer. The tension between us is crushing, it weighs on my shoulders like iron. My thoughts are spilled everywhere, caught between the hazy battle between my heart and brain.
''What was that you told me once?'' He pretends to think, then snaps his fingers. ''Oh, I remember! You said you would want me even if the world doesn't.''
I shake my head. And again. And again. ''Please, West.''
''But those are just empty words, right? Trivialities.'' He smiles a wicked smile, a smile of a clown hidden under the mask. ''Silly me. I thought you actually meant what you promised.''
I finally look him square into his eyes. Surprisingly, when my mouth open, my voice comes out oddly calm. ''Is this the reason you came? To torture me with your words? If your goal is to remind me what a despicable person I am then I advise you to save your breath.''
West opens his mouth and I brace myself. He wavers, both physically and emotionally, and takes another swing from the bottle. ''That's not it.''
''Then what do you want?'' This time, my voice is fiercer, more determent, and its strength takes me by surprise.
West lets out a deep, tired sigh. His right hand slides over his face, agonizingly slow as he was trying to wipe away everything that happened. His shoulders sag, the bottle slips out of his grasp and shatters on the floor. "I failed, Billie. Years and years of fighting it, and in the end, I failed. And I am tired. I'm so tired."
"What are you talking about?"
"Oh, Billie, Billie, Billie. My Billie.'' He chuckles, then shakes his head. ''You're an awfully hard person to forget, you know? You crawl under ones skin and spread all over, impossible to trace and banish. And I tried to, oh, I tried so hard to pretend you never existed. But you know what?"
"W-what?"
"It's not possible. It's physically unmanageable. You can't force a sunflower not to follow the Sun."
He brings his gaze back to me, searching for something I can't grant. Somewhere behind the tiredness that overwhelmed his eyes simmers an old feeling that pierce through me once again. There is still a part of me that paints an image of a different world, different circumstances; and it is where West reigns. Filled with what-ifs and if-onlys, that image represents a distant, unachievable dream.
Something akin to that picture flickers in West's eyes.
I look away. "West, you shouldn't have come here. You will regret it tomorrow."
He dismisses my words and continues his heart-wrenching monologue. "And now you are here, and I can see you and hear you and feel you. Your presence is taunting me, it's mocking me for spending years trying to forget you. What for? It only took a single look to send me spiraling backwards. And I'm so mad at you... I'm so angry.''
''West, please."
My plea falls on deaf ears. West staggers for a moment, and hangs his head as if the entire weight of the world is on him. "Don't you think I've suffered enough?"
And it is evident, God, is the suffer evident on his face. Once his walls crash down he looks as if aged years in a matter of seconds. There are lines on his face that are usually hidden under a stony facade, his eyes hollow, distant, glistening with the unshed tears.
My heart twists so badly it physically hurts. Unable to contain it, a loud sob escapes my mouth. My body weight tons and my knees struggle supporting its weight. I did this. I brought this suffer on him, I condemned him to the life of misery.
''West...'' I try, but suffocate in tears and sobs. Even if I could talk what would I tell him? What do you tell someone whose life you've ruined? Whom you hurt beyond repair? Sorry? It hardly suffice.
His eyes are back on me. They look so broken, so sorrowful. "And yet, after all this... I still need you."
He is approaching me slowly, mumbling words that slice through my heart, through my facade. Everything he explained I felt, every agonizing moment he spend these last few years, I too felt. And now he is here, he is drunk and broken, and it's all because of me.
''I'm so tired, Billie, so tired of forgetting you. Of pretending everything is okay. Nothing feels right anymore.''
West is right in front of me, his breath is my breath, his tears are my tears.
''I need to touch you... feel you.'' He leans his forehead against my own, that simple action the last blow, and the dam breaks, and I break. ''I need you.''
I let him touch me. I let his hands snake around my body, let him fill my senses. And when he kisses me, I allow that too. My body erupts, sprung into life after years of hibernation, of the lack of emotions. My heart is on fire. At first, like a timid kitten venturing into unknown, it knows not how to behave, how to feel.
But then West pulls me closer to his body, and let his hands explore every inch of me; and it all comes back. Soon, everything becomes like a physical demonstration of the way our hearts feel. His resentment battles my regret, his bitterness clashes my restraint, his longing fuses with my yearning.
And just that night, when the alcohol clouds our brains, and our hearts take over the reign, we stop trying to forget. Instead, we remember.
ns 15.158.61.20da2
