You're Not Alone

She is sitting by the window; a breeze, cold enough to rejuvenate her tiredness and soothing enough to caress her soul, gently blows across her face. Stroking her cheeks ever so tenderly, touching her heart and leaving her wanting. Longing. A steaming cup of coffee between her cold hands further relaxes her, the warmth running hurriedly through her veins with the hope of reaching her heart and soul, melting them bit by bit. A book with a rom-com genre lays on her lap, but not even her escape to the fiction world is bringing her out of the dark, overbearing clouds. Her mind is chaotic, filled with everything and nothing. A storm named Katya (that’s what she calls a culmination of restlessness, anxiety and all the things that makes her want to crawl out of her skin!) is brewing in her soul.

And her heart?

Her heart is waiting for a miracle, waiting for something called Hope. She has never experienced what Hope is, but she has seen great progress connected to it from people who refuses to ever give up. Her heart, whose only job is to pump blood throughout the body and keep her alive by beating appropriately, is breaking. She could feel Katya smirking, ready to wreak havoc everywhere she decides to sprinkle her torturous confetti.

Katya rubs her fingers together and a pinata bursts open, filled with her childhood moments.

Ever since she was a child, she was gripped with horrors that were sinister to her. The utter terror of abandonment was rooted deep within her being when she was only three or four and even with her parents, who were so loving and caring, she didn’t feel safe. She never knew, nor understood what sense of security meant, especially after how her own sibling used to hit her because according to him and her mother, “Siblings fight; that’s what they do!” Now, she never disagreed that siblings didn’t fight, but she was a sensitive soul who never once retaliated back, not the punches, nor stood up to the verbal insults thrown towards her about how she looked. She was too afraid; she had no voice.

Her father was her only voice; who always came to her rescue.

But the fear of people who were bigger than her, and especially towards the opposite sex, was so strong (which she blames her sibling for because she always hoped for him to treat her as the princess she should have been treated as!), she didn’t even feel safe under her father’s loving embrace and shadow. Hence, she turned to her mother. Her unbelievably shy, not-at-all-good-at-showing-physical-affection mother, but who loved with all her heart and soul, only to get nothing from her either. She was someone who wanted protection, who wanted to feel secured. Who longed for pampering by their loved ones, who craved validation (I mean, she was a Libra after all!), who wanted to learn to love unconditionally, who wanted to live a life without fear.

But all she got for everything she ever wanted was disappointment and heartbreak.

Her hold around the cup grows tighter as Katya hit her with another set of memories but this time from a different timeline: her teenage years.

Ever since she was a kid, she was looking for something in someone and in order to find that and make it hers, she gave a piece of her to everyone who she thought would be her everything. But no one rose up to the occasion and everyone killed the part of her that was kind and trusting and giving and basically, human. Her abandonment issues only became severe, her trust in others faded at an increasing rate.

She gasps as a sharp pain shoots through her.

She looks down and her hand is covered in blood. She didn’t even realize that she has broken the cup until she felt drops of blood on her skin. Once she wraps her hand in bandages, she finds herself back at the window. The awning cloth on which the shimmering eventide is stretched beautifully before her eyes takes her breath away. Her eyes stay on the silvery halo that hung in the sky, among the glittering stars. She and the moon have one thing in common: their destiny to suffer forever.

She knows why the cup broke. The anger and hurt that is provoked by Katya made her hurt herself; exactly what Katya wants.

The memory that triggered it was when she found out about her father, her cheerleader and her hero; that he had numbered days written in his destiny, in his life. The person who was so positive, so strong; who wanted to live a full life of love and adventure, and who feared nothing but only death was going into a ring to battle against his illness.

Against death.

In the eyes of everyone, death won and to her heart, that was in pieces; but in her eyes, her father won so much during his journey to survive. But she still lost her number one supporter, her hero.

She finds herself smiling, despite the tears that won't stop rolling down her cheeks.

Even in her darkest and loneliest hour, the universe had blessed her with someone. Someone she had been looking for all her life. But why was it so late? She always wondered. In many ways, she and the person who came into her life had helped each other through thick and thin and maybe it was the right time for that person to enter her life, but boy did she wish she had found that person sooner.

Her smile vanishes.

While Katya is the storm, it is her mind that has the reigns to everything that is going awry in her life. And this time, her mind royally fucked it all up for her. But shouldn’t the blame fall on all the trauma that she had gone through? And its mind’s job to protect her from getting hurt over and over again. Yet, there is an organ beating inside her chest that always wants to lay itself on the line so she could experience new things in life. For in all reality, its the heart’s job to take pain and heal, for the heart always heals, not mind’s. But the mind, its job is to give headache when it can’t solve a math problem, like finding the value of ‘X’ (Well, maybe no one wants to find the value of their x) and just wants to let it go!

Now, she is in such a part of her life where, even though she has this wonderful person in her life, her mind is trying to protect her so much that even that person, who was a godsent, is being coming off as someone who would wreck her. As her antagonist. And she is back to feeling every single feeling she never wanted to feel with this person: feeling of abandonment, trust issues, innumerable insecurities and fears, and not feeling secured.

If only she could explain to that person that it is not them that's the problem, but her. She has felt all the good things with them, that she never once felt before in her life, but her mind is protecting her from them for she has been broken and hurt and left to rot and die far too many times and this time, the heart is no longer in-charge.

The mind is.

The moon is looking straight at her, at her soul. Even the glowing satellite shudders by what she sees: the hollowed-out skeleton who’s so dead that if it isn't for the red organ beating within her chest, the moon would mourn for her death.

“I know you feel alone,” She could almost feel the moon talking to her. She nods, fresh tears springing in her eyes. “But you’re not. You’re like me and yes, we’re destined to suffer, not because we chose to love the wrong person, but because we can’t let them go. No matter what.”

She nods again, looking away.

“Look at me,” the moon commands, shinning in her lover’s light even brighter. She turns her focus back to the moon, struck by her beauty. “You’re not alone, and neither am I.” Did the moon just let out a smile? A sad one, but still a smile? She thought to herself.

“I have my sun whom I love with everything I got,” there is a pause. Silence engulfs them. “And so do you.” She can't look away this time. “We’re cursed for our suns have the tendency to shine so brightly that everyone falls in love with them while we wait in darkness for them, for their love.” She nods, finally breaking down.

“But don’t worry, my dear.” The moon is so tender. “Just like my sun, I know your sun too and the love they have for you.” She keeps sobbing. “You and I, we both shall wait for our suns in suffering forever; that’s given. But don’t run away from your sun, just like I won’t from mine. Because when you and your sun will come together, just like us, the world will call your love the Eclipse.”

She cannot stop her heart from weeping anymore.

The moon is suddenly so close to her window. This time, undoubtedly a smile. “You’re not alone when you’ve your sun in your life.” The moon starts to look blurry. “And I know you’re thinking why does it have to be this difficult? But honey, a love like yours? It was never meant to be easy; it is meant to be epic.”

And when she made the mistake of blinking just for a second, the moon disappeared into the thin air.

Or, into the dark night.