Feelings Kept Secret

Every morning the security guards would say good morning to Adira. She always smiled and sometimes jocked with them, her hair still wet after her morning swim. She went to work early, and left really late, and the security guards always told her that she would gain time if she stayed in the office to sleep. It was always the same joke, and she always laughed at it before wishing them a good night. 

At the office everyone knew her to be focused and relentless. A moral support, a stone to lean on. Adira always succeed after hard times, always managed stressful situations without breaking down, always took more in than everyone else. She was always brutally honest, but sweet at the same time, offering her help to anyone in need, not asking anything in return. She was the one who stayed the latest, and everyone thought it was because she loved her work. 

However, Adira had a secret. More than one, even. The reason why she did all what she did was only one: she didn't want to spend too much time alone with her thoughts. Adira lived alone, and that had never been a problem, until then. The silence in the house made her realize how alone she was. She would go swimming because it was a way to stop her brain thinking about anything else, as she was focused on counting the meters she had swam. She would work long hours because, in that way, she kept her brain busy. Everyone thought she was strong, and she kept that façade, but she was broken in three thousand pieces in the inside. Everytime she smiled one of those pieces shifted places and stabbed her heart, making her wish she could cry. Her innermost wish was to have someone who would hug her and tell her everything was okay, someone who would sit down with her and ask her how was she feeling, someone who would hold her while she cried the river of tears that was trapped inside of her. 

But Adira didn't have anyone, because no one ever thought she would need someone to lean on. And every night, when she arrived to her silent home, she would wonder what was the point of living a life like that. And all the broken pieces inside of her would collapse into rubble, and the voices would break loose. Ghosts telling her that she had brought that on herself, that she didn't deserve anyone, voices telling her that the world would be a better place without her. Every night she would fight back the ghosts and put together the three thousand pieces the best she could, containing the ghosts behind a shattered wall, knowing it would only hold for so long, that she needed help to make it solid again, to heal herself. Some nights, it took her longer to recover, those nights she would catch herself with a jar of pills on one hand wondering if anyone would miss her the following day, wondering how many would she need to take to go to sleep forever. 

Vanish

Her cellphone vibrated with the entering message:

"Hey! How are you?" 

She sighed. What did he want? They hadn't talked in ages, mainly because they didn't have anything to say to each other. Not after he cheated on her, anyway. 

"What do you want?" she texted back. 

"Talk to you." 

"Well, I don't."

"I miss you." 

Was he really serious? Was he drunk? He had to be drunk! 

"*rolls eyes*" 

"I need you." 

WHAT? He couln't be serious. 

"Fuck off."

"Don't talk to me ever again." She added before blocking his number. 

She put her phone away annoyed. He was an asshole and she avoided that burden. 

On the other side of the city he wiped a tear streaming down his face. He looked down to his hand and saw how his flesh was starting to become translucent. She was forgetting about him, and, once she completely forgot, he would vanish into nothingness. 

While You Sleep

I know you think I've forgotten about you. I know you think you don't mean anything to me. I know you think I've disappeared forever. You got used to have me disappear, coming and going, and you've always welcomed me with open arms. You got used to it, and you never complained. So, the day I left forever, you didn't even question it, didn't even think I would not return. But I never came back, and you just thought that it was time, that our time together was finished and I had to leave forever, that I was a free spirit and you could not keep me caged. You never thought that I really wanted to come back, it never crossed your mind that I actually returned. 

At night, I watch you sleep, I see you smile in your dreams, I see you cry, sometimes. But most of all I see how you're safe. I wish there was a way to let you know I'm here, that I came back, that I never meant to leave forever. I wish I could shake you awake, but my body is far away from here, rotting inside a lake where no one will ever find it.  

Sunday Evening

It's yet another Sunday evening and I'm on the sofa reading Murakami, he always seems a good choice for Sunday evenings. When the phone rings I know it's you, who else could it be? 

-Aitor- you say, your voice shaky.- I'm sorry to call you, but...

-I'm coming.

I take a light jacket and the spare copy of your keys that I've had since that dreadful night. We live five minutes apart, which has proven very convenient. As I climb the stairs to your flat I met one of your neighbors who says nothing but looks at me with sad eyes. I open the door of your flat and head to your bedroom. You're hidding under the blankets, hugging a pillow while sobbing. I sit next to you and hug you tightly until you stop crying. 

-Thank you. 

-It's nothing, Nekane. 

-You're a good friend, and I'm never doing anything for you, I always ask. And you're always here. You should get better friends, Aitor. 

-Don't say stupid things. Come, I'll make you some hot chocolate, it will do you good. 

I have long learnt that a cup of hot chocolate cheers you up. I take the set of blue ones that I gave you, after I realized all the others reminded you of Ekaitz. You had bought them in your travels, a silly tradition you had of looking for the ugliest mugs you could find, they were a trigger. The ones I had bought were light blue, plain, and had no memories tied to them. You still kept the old ones, however, not finding the strenght to throw them away, to be faced by the fact that it was the only thing you kept from him, that throwing them away would be harder tahn when you had to bury him. I give you your cup and you wrap your hands around it, drawing energy from the heat. I sit in front of you at the kitchen table, as usual I say nothing while you tell me of something that happened to you and Ekaitz once. When you finish your chocolate I wash the pot and the mug, as usual, and take you back to your bed. 

-Keep me company until I fall asleep.- you whisper. Sometimes you ask me to stay, sometimes you feel strong enough to go to sleep alone with your ghosts. 

You get in bed and I lie next to you on the blankets, hugging you, smelling your hair. It never takes long before you fall asleep, yet I hold you for some more time. And I tell you all the things I don't dare to tell you when you're awake. 

-I wish I were brave enough to tell you this, Nekane. I really do, but I can't. I love you more than I have ever loved anyone, and I want to make you happy because of who I am not because I ease you from your pain. But you will never be able to love me, you won't because Ekaitz will always be around, as a shadow, as people who die young do, always young, always perfect in your memory. I wish I were able to tell you I loved you, and that this is hurting me. You're hurting me by asking me for help, but I can't leave you alone. I wish you could hear me, Nekane, I wish you could see. 

I cry silent tears that get caught in your hair, but you're soundly asleep. I lift you up so I can take my arm from under your body, kiss you on the cheek, and turn the light off. I take my copy of the keys and leave knowing that I will come back in a week. Knowing that I won't be brave enough to tell you how I feel once more. 

Regrets

I had always considered my grandmother to be a regular grandmother. She loved baking cookies, had a really old cat, and gave really good advice. For what I knew of her life, she had always lived in the same place and had married her teenage love. She had never told me otherwise, and I had never had a reason to ask whether there had been something else. 

One day I went to visit her, I wanted to ask her advice about something, but I didn't know how she would take it, there are things you simply don't ask your grandma. She noticed there was something amiss. 

-What troubles you, Io? 

-Can I tell you a secret, grandma?- she nodded while handing me a cup of warm chocolate.- I'm not sure I love Adam anymore. Also, I met someone else, someone who has made me feel things Adam never has. But I'm scared, I have just met this other guy, and what if it is just a phase? What if I break up with Adam and he really is the man of my life? 

She smiled warmly. 

-I think it's time I tell you a story. A story no one has ever heard, not even your mother. A story of love and of loss. My story. 

'It all happened a long time ago, when I was very young. Your grandfather had just asked me to marry him and, of course, I had said yes. We had been together for a long time, and marriage was the logical following step. Four months before the wedding I panicked and ran away. I needed some time alone. I needed to live experiences that I didn't know if I could ever live again. I booked the cheapest flight I could find and the following day I found myself in Killarney carrying a light backpack and nothing more. I rented a room at a B&B and headed straight to the National Park to read and write by the lakes. I needed to find peace, to put order in my life before taking any further step, and that seemed the right place. On my way to the park I crossed paths with a young man, tall, proud, handsome, with a mischievous smile on his face as if he knew things no one else did. He looked at me square in the eye and I shivered. I continued my way and quickly forgot about him as I kept an eye out for deer. I spent the afternoon strolling around the paths of the park, stopping here and there to write or read or simply to marvel at the scenery. I returned to the B&B for a light supper and as I entered the dinning room I saw him again. He was on a small table by the window reading a thick book, his meal set by his side long forgotten. For some reason, he was barefoot. I sat on the other side of the small room and my meal was brought almost immediately. I also took a book out and read it between bites. 

-So, you are here too.- he had somehow managed to sit across me, he moved like a cat. 

-I am. 

-You weren't here yesterday. 

-I wasn't. 

-So you got here today. 

-Yes.

He hadn't asked a single question as if he knew that everything he said was right. 

-You haven't been to the pub yet. I'll take you. I'll be waiting in the living room. 

He stood up and silently walked out of the room. I sat there staring stupidly at the door, feeling all giddy inside. You have to understand that, not only was he extraordinarily handsome, he was also very confident about himself. I ate my supper as fast as I could, my stomach in a knot, picked a light jacket from my room and met him in the living room. He was sitting cross-legged on a sofa, still reading his book. I sat across him too scared to say anything. 

-You are ready.- he lifted the eyes from his book.-Hold on a second. 

He returned a couple of minutes later wearing a loose woolen sweater and some shoes. 

-Let's go. 

I didn't even question him, we walked on the streets looking for a pub with live music, but somehow ended up in one where they had football on the TV. He ordered two Guinness, my first ever.

-You never told me your name.- I said, waiting for the stouts to settle. 

-Names are not important, they are social constrains. Words used by other people to define us. It's you and I, and that's it. 

-Will you at least tell me where do you come from? 

-Berlin.- he said with his half-smile. 

He didn't sound German, but I didn't tell him that because he already knew it. We talked about lots of things, I had never been so comfortable with someone I just met in my whole life. When we finished our drinks, he insisted on finding some place with live music. However, on our way to the next pub we came across a Murphy's ice-cream shop. He had to have some. I had started to realize that he always followed his impulses, whatever those where, and that that was the reason why he had decided to take me to the pub. He ate some Rum and Raisins ice-cream, I didn't have anything. We walked more while he finished the ice-cream, passing by a bookshop. I stopped to look at the windows. 

-You like reading.- again, a not-question. 

-Yes. 

-You should read Terry Pratchett. 

-Yes, I should. 

I told him I wrote, and he said that he needed to read something by me. I showed him something I had on me, but it wasn't very good, to be fair. We went to another pub, one with live music this time. I had some cider and he kept drinking Guinness while we sat on the terrace. The music was lively, and I quickly joined in to sing along. 

-You know the words. 

-I don't, I just pick lyrics very fast. 

He smiled and looked at me deep in the eyes. We had a connection, and he had known it before I had. Because he knew everything. I never told him about your grandfather because I didn't want to remind myself that I'd probably be getting married soon. I was doing something I had never done before, enjoy the moment, see myself fall in love with a complete stranger for a night. We had to kiss, I knew we had to. We returned to the B&B silently, walking close to each other, so close I could feel his sweather against my bare skin. I could also feel the electricity running between us both. We got to the B&B and walked up to the first floor, my room was first. 

-Good night.- he said half-smile and all before walking down the corridor. 

On the next morning, when I went for breakfast, I saw him carrying his backpack. 

-You're leaving.- I was being as cryptic as he was without even realizing it. 

-Yes, see you, maybe. 

We looked into each other's eyes, saying with them everything that we were not saying outloud. He gave me his half-smile once more and left. 

I never kissed him and I never knew his name. I could have asked the lady at the B&B, but I didn't. To this day this remains my biggest regret, not having kissed him, not having tried to know him better, to keep track of him. You only have a connection like this with a person once in a lifetime.' 

When she finished talking I was speechless. 

-Now, Io dear, I'm not telling you that you should throw your life with Adam away. I'm just telling you that if you feel you're going to regret all your life not having given this other man a chance, you should probably give it a try? What could go wrong, anyway? Would you rather not try and regret it, or having tried and regret it? 

Museum

In her dreams she was always barefoot. The marble floor was cold under her feet, but it was comforting nevertheless. She always wore a long flowing dress with enough fabric to use it as a blanket, if needed. The color varied, sometimes it was midnight blue, sometimes a pink so pale it seemed white, and sometimes it was as orange as the rising sun. 

In her dreams the sun had always set and stars sparkled outside the large panned windows. The city was asleep, everyone was asleep but her. The lights inside the building were dimmed, and the dead eyes of the people on the paintings chased her. It was always the same museum, too, but the exhibitions changed, some days it was medieval art, some days ancient Greek, others contemporary conceptual art. 

She would fly from one room to the other her skirts trailing her, stopping in front of specific exhibits, getting close enough to touch them. Eventually she would sit down on the floor, using the excess fabric as a pillow, and tried to imagine what the artist was thinking of when they worked on the piece. Other times she caressed the statues, feeling the cold irradiating from the stone, pretending they were alive. When she was tired of soaking herself with art, she would take her dress off, make a nest out of its fabric, and lie down to sleep a work of art herself among the exhibitions. She would always wake up on that moment wishing to have a real night alone at a museum. 

Helmut

Helmut was a ghost. He had been a ghost for so long that he didn't remember being anything else. He must have been human, at some point, but he couldn't remember. He couldn't remember his real name, either. He had picked 'Helmut' from some book long forgotten. He had been there for so long that there had been several different houses and several different tenants. There had been different ghosts, too, eventually, but none of them stayed, just like the people they came and go and left him alone.

Helmut was bored. He was a bored ghost. He had been a ghost for a long time and there are few things that a ghost can do. At that moment, he was living with a young woman who seemed to work too much and enjoy herself too little. He decided that he needed to do something about it, for both of them. She would sit on her couch, alone, doing nothing, going to sleep early because she was tired, and waking up early because she had to work. Helmut pitied her, he pitied her because she wasn't living her life. Helmut had a life, once, he didn't remember, but he knew he had it, and he wanted her to have it. Helmut liked the girl, she was nice, and she never made to much of a fuss about anything, even when he moved things around she always thought it had been her who had left them in a place she didn't remember. 

Helmut decided to spice things up in that girl's life, so one night, when the girl was sleeping, he turned on the TV. He knew that there was something on TV that would change the life of the girl. After a while, he heard the girl moving in her sleep and waking up after realizing there was something amiss. She walked up to the TV and stared at it, half asleep. She looked for the remote and simply turned it off. Helmut would have slapped her if he had been able to. He was trying to fix her life and she didn't even realize. He let a frustrated moan escape, which the girl seemed to pick up as she looked at his direction. She shook her head and told herself "There's nothing here, go back to sleep Ria". 

Who is Bianca?

The house was silent, devoid of the music Alan used to play. Bianca had dated him for five years, that was their shared home. Or used to be, rather, as he had left her two weeks before. Alan was an aspiring rock musician, and a pretty good one. He spent most of his time rehearsing and composing, and the remaining one listening to other music. There was always music in the house. Bianca never cared much about music. Not until she started dating Alan when she started following him to all the concerts. She even picked up the bass guitar, to a limited success. 

The silence throbbed Bianca, but she didn't put on any music, it didn't feel right, it wasn't what she needed. She sat on the sofa and stared at the case of her bass picking dust in a corner. She thought of Alan and of all her ex-boyfriends. Bianca had been convinced that Alan was the one, although deep down she knew that that feeling arised from the fear of dying alone rather than from love. Before him it had been Hector. 

Hector's had been a short relationship, they dated for six months before Bianca met Alan. He was passionate about sports and an avid runner. Bianca started running thanks to him. Her running shoes lied abandoned at the bottom of her wardrobe, untouched for five years. 

During her college years, she had dated Lon. They spent most of it together, her majoring on PR, him on Film Making. He would take her at every screening, gift her movie packs at any occasion. Bianca cherished them, and would gladly discuss about the technical details and the actors performances after watching them. She gave all the DVDs to her friends when they broke up. 

Her first love had been Najib. They started as friends when they were thirteen. Najib was extremely intelligent, a book lover. One could always find him in the library, his face buried in a book. He became her boyfriend in a natural way, just like the river flows. Bianca spent lots of hours in the library during her high-school years, and would regularly visit the town's bookstores in search for reading for Najib, who was too poor to be able to buy books. They broke up before going to college, Najib was going to one of the most prestigious universities that happened to be across the country, and none of them was made for a long-distance relationship. 

It was then when Bianca realized that she had always adapted to her significant others, that she didn't know who she was? Was she the bookish, the film-nut, the sporty or the rockstar Bianca? Was she any of them? Was she truly anyone? 

Caterpillar

At the first look it seemed a normal caterpillar, it was bright green with black and red spots, and very tiny. Rosamund stared at it as it moved through the leaves of her lilies, she wouldn't have spotted it hadn't it been because it moved. She hadn't seen anything like it again, and wondered which kind of butterfly would it become. Curiosity was stronger than the fear than it could be potentially poisonous and she looked closer, her eyes at the same level of the strange caterpillar. It was very fluffy, probably half of it's volume was this very thin hair. Rosamund had to touch it, even if she ended up with a rash. That caterpillar was possibly the fluffiest thing in the universe and she wouldn't die without having touched it. 

It was like touching a cloud. The caterpillar stopped moving for a second, but it fastly climbed on her hand. It seemed curious about the new surface. Rosamund let it do, thinking about putting it back on the leaves afterwards. Before she knew it, the caterpillar took a plunge and penetrated her skin as if it had been a liquid surface. She freaked out adn ran to the hospital. In the emergency room no one believed her, there was no entry point and the tests they ran didn't show any abnormal body inside of her. Yet, she could feel it, moving swiftly under her skin, up to her arm and into her brain. 

Rosamund spent the following two days going to the emergency unit trying to find someone to help her, but it was clear no one believed her, caterpillar don't enter into human bodies. After two days the caterpillar had finally found a cozy spot in Rosamund brain where it would spend the rest of his days. At that same time she started behaving in a different way. She had always been an extroverted person, who had lots of friends and would throw parties. Rosamund loved hosting parties. She became a silent person who stayed alone most of the time. Her friends started worrying about her, but she shoot them out. 

Rosamund's mother, worried about the strange behavior of her daughter decided to pay her a visit. She found that plants had taken control of the house as they were everywhere. Her daughter was in the kitchen eating a salad of what seemed to be random leaves picked from the garden. 

-Rosie, are you ok? 

-Ugh, yes, mother. Leave me alone.- she mumbled while chewing on the leaves. 

Her mother tried to get something else out of her, but she wouldn't answer, focused on slowly chewing the leaves. Rosamund mother's mood wasn't soothed at all, and she decided to find some help for her daughter, who was clearly having some kind of mental breakdown. 

The psychiatrist, an old friend of Rosamund's mother, went to Rosamund's house two days after her mother's visit. He rang the doorbell, but there was no answer, he circled the house from the outside, trying to see if Rosamund was home, but there seemed to be no one. What there was was a very large cocoon in the middle of the garden. He wondered what it was for as it clearly wasn't something produced by an animal. Giving up, he called Rosamund's mother and told her that he hadn't found his daughter. 

Rosamund was reported as missing two days after, and was never seen again. The large cocoon remained in her garden until it rooted over as whatever was inside of it wasn't unable to complete its metamorphosis.  

Tree

We moved here almost two months ago in mom's desperate attempt to save her marriage. She thought that moving from the city to the countryside would make dad love her again. It didn't, of course, but all of us knew that already. Yet, she was blind to it, as she was blind to the shadow that loomed over the house. 

It's been almost two months and I still haven't been able to sleep a full night in here. Mom says I'm overreacting and that it's all inside my head, that I'm too old to say that kind of things. But I know better, I know there is something very wrong, I know that we need to get out of here, that I need to get out of here. My sisters feel it too, but it's not too bad for them, they can escape it, their nights are not haunted with nightmares. Mine are. 

My nightmares are always similar, dead people come to me and tell me how they were wrongfully executed, or how they were killed by a loved one, or how they decided to take their own worthless lives. They come to me at night with tales of death and horror, tales that make me wake up terrified, clutching to life. I'm never able to sleep after those dreams. 

Tonight I realized where they come from. I had just woken up from a specially crude one when I heard the tree outside my window rattling against the glass. It's a large tree and blocks out most of the sunshine that would enter in my room. Dad has said at least one thousand times that we should take it down, but no one does anything, so I'm left with a gloomly lit room. 

Tonight the tree branches spread like tendrils, trying to get me. The tree has been calling me. I know. It has been sending me all these nightmares as a message. I'm next. It has decided that it needs blood, and it has to be mine. And I can escape it. No matter what I do my blood will end up nourishing it. If I try to escape it will find me and have me get back. The question is not how, the question is when, it's how much longer will I be able to hold it back. How much longer do I have to live.