I Ran

The air smelt of ink and dust, a tangy smell that wafted through the condensed room. It was dark and the only light was coming from a medium sized lamp on the floor by the desk and the bright light of the computer screen. My auburn hair was up in a lazy bun with small black pieces falling toward the front of my face.



I put the dark strands in about six months ago, no one liked them, but I did. They reflected my moods at times. My hands were moving like small machines against the keyboard as I typed out the last chapter to my novel.

There, finally all finished, the story of us through my eyes. I gently moved my right hand over the mouse and quickly double clicked on print. I used my feet to thrust away from the dusty old desk and you could here the squeak of the chair as I lay back in it to examine the room around me. To the casual observer I’d look calm, satisfied, but to anyone who knew better they’d see the slight tapping of my foot against the floor, the deep inhalations I took every couple of seconds, the anxiety in my eyes. This is the first accomplishment since…Him.

My eyes glazed over, and my breathing slowed down a bit. Not even a minute later I stumbled out of my daze and stood up abruptly. Damn it! I thought this was over. It’s been over a year and at times I still feel like my heart is being wrenched in a vice grip. Pain, it’s a four letter word that I have been living my life with for far too long now. So six months ago, I left. Just picked up and left the town I grew up in, the friends I’d made, family, and any associations to him.

I ran, even though I insisted to anyone and everyone that he was not the reason I was going, I just needed a change, and most of them believed me, but not her, not my best friend. She knew. I guess it’s only fitting that she would. She knows me better than anyone, sometimes I think she knows me better then I do. So yes, I ran five states away in hopes of getting away from everything that was suffocating me, all the memories, the places, and the people.

And here I stand six months later and as the story of us prints, I take a deep longing breath. I can feel the air fill my lungs and I hold it in until it burns. When I release it I can feel all the pain leaving with the hot air from my mouth.

The pain is dull now, a small barley there throbbing and at most times almost unnoticeable. I leaned over and started collecting all the papers that were already printed and put them in order. I never realized how hard it would be to leave everyone behind. The first few months were exhilarating, and new. Life was uncomplicated and free. After all the dust settled though, and I finally decided to go visit the place I was so hell bent on leaving, the sour taste that it left in my mouth was gone.

Almost like eating a sour patch kid, when you first put it in your mouth all you want to do is take it out, but once the flavor settles there the taste dulls and isn’t as potent anymore. That’s how I feel about the town I left. When I went back my best friend took me out all over. I passed so many places where he and I had so many of our memorable moments and yet I didn’t feel the need to cry. I could look at it and remember those times with fondness instead of pain.

My little town didn’t suffocate me anymore and that’s when I knew. Time and distance had healed most of my tattered heart, but as days passed by and it got closer to when I had to leave to go back to my new “home” I felt torn. It was then I realized that to really heal my heart and myself I had to be with the people who I loved and who loved me. I needed to close the chapter in my life that made me run from everything I knew, and in order to do that I had to get it out of me and on paper.

So I came back here and wrote. I wrote of all the times I had with him, everything he taught me, things we did, and how he made me feel. Writing it was hard, reliving everything was almost incapacitating, but I figured if I could relive it, write it all down, get it all out, and accomplish something in the process then just maybe I could stop running and go back to where I belong.