Chapter two.
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“So, how did you do on your test yesterday?” asked one of the few people he could still call a friend. It was an unusually cool night, very rare for this time of the year, and especially rare in that desert of a country.
“Okay, I guess” he said, in an empty voice. “It doesn’t sound like it went good…” started his friend, but he was wrong from the beginning. The test was definitely not the reason for the emptiness in his voice.
“Don’t tell me you’re still stuck on her, man… I thought we’ve went through this enough… It just won’t happen. She’s a year plus older than you, she’s in a different school, your social chains don’t have any links in common, and, on top of that, you haven’t even met her! You haven’t even met her, man. Think of that”. Spirit-lifting as always, he cynically remarked in his heart. But his friend didn’t deserve that treatment, so instead he smiled and said, “Well, I guess you’re right”, as he did every time the subject would come up recently. That pretending was so hard sometimes that he thought someday he would just burst in tears in front of the most embarrassing of crowds in the least appropriate moment. “You don’t seem okay to me, man”, said his friend. He sighed and decided that maybe it was time to honestly spill the beans for once, but before he could say anything he was cut by the arrival of two more friends.
“Finally, I thought you guys would never show up” said his friend, and got up. He quickly followed, and they stepped into the night.
They located at some quiet garden, close to his friend’s home. In that hour of the night, there wasn’t a single soul out there besides them. It was perfect. They didn’t like drinking in a big crowd.
The first bottle was opened, the first shots were poured. He took his cup, lifted it to the air and clinked it with the other three, and drank. The strong liquid burned his throat, and the feeling was good. If there was anything he enjoyed recently, it was drinking. Not because it made him feel happy, on the contrary. Because it made him feel nothing at all. No craving for some unknown woman, no mourning over a life he could never have. Just the silence of the night, with the occasional laughter of his well wasted friends sitting beside him, laughing from some dumb joke one of them told.
The night grew deeper and thicker, yet time didn’t seem to go anywhere. In fact, the concept of time is quite vague when you’re drunk. The time just passed, slowly and surely, till the effects of the alcohol started wearing off. “Hey, let’s ss-stay here t-till the m-mor-morning!” said one of them, and that meant it was time to go home.
“Man, he’s living two houses from here. Walk him home, will you?”. ‘Huh?”, he uttered, and snapped back to reality. “Ah, yeah, sure…” he said, and then noticed it was his best friend who was mumbling like a drunk hobo. He took his arm and threw it over his shoulder, supporting his weight, which wasn’t all that hard. He walked him all the way home, which wasn’t that close as his friends said, but it didn’t matter. This guy was too close to him to just leave him rambling in that park till god knows when.
They reached his friend’s home, and he silently opened the door, careful not to wake up the parents. He’s been through that drill a few times before, and actually got pretty good at it, even when he wasn’t sober himself. They managed to get to his friend’s room with no disturbance, and so he helped him get on the bed and he fell asleep immediately. “Mission accomplished”, he whispered to himself, and got out.
Outside his friend’s home was an open parking lot, to the convenience of the residents of that street. Going through there was longer then taking the main road, but he had his reasons. Well, reason. This way, he could pass by her house. He felt a bit ashamed for that, but it was the only reason he’s been visiting his friend so often lately.
And so he walked through that lot, glancing at that house he knew so well from the outside, and yet craved so hard to know from the inside. In a sense, the house was just like her. He kept walking, the house by his right, and finally it was revealed to him entirely. As usual, his eyes went for the window he believed was hers, so that he nearly missed what happened a few meters under it, by the gate to the driveway.
When he did, he stopped in his tracks. What also stopped in its tracks was his heart. He skipped a beat for a second, and then, with an unheard yet so painful sound, something cracked inside. He fell back into a dark corner in the street, unviewed from that house, and in front of him still was that sight he has just witnessed.
It was her. And to top that, which was hard enough, she wasn’t alone. And the worst of all… No, he couldn’t think of what he just saw… It couldn’t be real…
She was kissing that person. They were standing there, hugged, kissing each other, and all he could do was stare. His eyes filled with tears, and he began to cry silently. The tears kept ping and ping, and didn’t stop even when she disconnected from that person, hugged him, kissed him on the chick and went inside. In that dark corner of the street he was sitting, curled into his knees, tears ping from his eyes like rivers. His entire shirt was wet, and there was a little puddle of salty water beside him now. He didn’t know exactly for how long he’s been sitting there like that. All he knew was that some when he found the strength to get up, and started walking slowly and silently towards his home.
About an hour later, after a walk that usually took about 15 minutes, he got home. The effect of the alcohol wore off completely by now. He closed the door, walked a few steps into his room, closed the door and ped onto his bed. He was grateful that his room was soundproof, as he really didn’t want anyone to hear him crying like he was at that moment. He was crying for hours and hours, nothing in him could stop that cursed flow of salt onto his face.
Something in him broke that night. Something he couldn’t explain just yet. Something that gave him hope, even when it seemed all was lost, was now gone. He felt as his grasp at the world was slipping away, and eventually, fell into a dreamless sleep.
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