Chapter 33: Chapter 33

Bonus Chapter: Blue

Feeling numb is worse than feeling sad. It’s like the brain can’t handle anything anymore so it just gives out signals to stop feeling anything at all.

I have been lying in bed doing nothing, staring at the ceilings, counting and calculating. I want to feel something, sadness for the least. I want to cry, feel pain, anything.

It’s been so long since I ate something with feeling the taste of it, been so long since I smiled with actual happiness.

I no longer have the desire to do anything. I wonder sometimes, what will it’d be like if I just disappeared into thin air. Would people even care?

Would I be considered a soul that made the world a better place or the one who lit up the whole room?

Or would I be considered that girl who had no name that just disappeared.

Or no one would remember.

I sit up straight in my bed and look at the clock beside me. I open my phone to see if I’ve received any e-mails and gladly a notification pops up.

It’s an e-mail from the NYU representative. It read as follows:

Dear Blue Andrews,

Your portfolio is stunning; your essay has a depth and meaning which I admire. Your grades are perfect too.

I think you’d make a great addition to the campus here, as you’re a student with great potential and talent, we give you a fully funded experience at the NYU campus here.

We are so glad to welcome you here.

I’ll send you the details very shortly, take care.

I wait for the tinge of excitement to overtake me but nothing washes me away.

It is never too good to wait for something that never comes. I throw my phone back onto my bed and go back to sleep.

*********

I wake up to the sound of my mom shuffling into my room. I squint to take a good look at her; she walks up and sits next to me onto my bed as she always does. “You’re back?”

She smiles and looks around my room, which is surprisingly neat for staying my room for three whole days.

“Yeah, your sister and dad are downstairs.”

I nod smiling; I didn’t expect them to come today. “Weren’t you supposed to come tomorrow?”

“Yes, but we didn’t feel any need to be there anymore. So, we left.”

I nod pushing my blanket away from me, I stand up and stretch. It feels like eternity since I’ve done this.

“Have you eaten anything at all?” she asks, I shrug. I feel no appetite; the last thing I ate was some bread and jelly at this morning. It’s nearly ten at night.

“Yeah, some bread in the morning.”

She gasps, “In the morning? Blue that’s not healthy. Do you need to go to therapy again?”

I am nearly on the verge of tears; I just don’t have the energy to do anything right now. I don’t have the energy to eat or to talk to her right now.

“I just didn’t feel any need to.”

“Oh, honey. I know it’s hard. But you don’t have to lose yourself.”

I nod slowly. She doesn’t need to mention who and it makes me hurt more.

She gets up from the bed, “I’ll make something for you.”

“Okay,” I say and then I remember that I got into NYU. “Mom?”

“Yeah, honey?” She turns around mid way.

I gulp, “I got into NYU.” I say, “It’s a full ride.”

She squeals excited but then I zone out.

The rest of night goes by blur, my mom making plans excited, my dad and my sister. Sweetie blabbering things I’ll never understand in the near future. Sometimes I wish I could be like her, even though no one listens, she keeps speaking. Nothing stops her, there’s no pain, there’s no numbness, just doing her thing.

The rest of the night goes blur, I’ll leave the place I’ve called home for the past two years. It feels surreal yet something feels so off.

It’s probably feeling nothing.

I lay in bed thinking back to times before this, before everything went downhill.

I close my eyes and I am back at the abandoned carnival where I had the best experience ever.

I am back at Alex’s arms, smelling his t-shirt. My fingers tangled in his dark brown hair that was almost black.

I could feel his breath against my neck, inhaling me in. Exhaling back out which gives me tingles.

My legs dangling in the lake that summer and him next to me giving me kisses against my neck which made me shiver.

And then I break out free and cry, tears pour out of my eyes. Just like that I am shaking holding onto threads of memories I can’t back to.

But it’s still not pain; it’s just numbness, my brain telling my heart to shut up, to shut out.