Feeling him.
Standing there and dying over and over again, was the only time when I felt alive. He almost felt like a mirror, reflecting the yearning uncurling in my own soul. Yearning for a man I didn't know.
Begging for the moments I would hear his voice. And I could sit here and lie to myself the whole day, saying it was only because I didn't want to think about reality, but it was more than that. These delusional dreams were the only time when I felt like me.
When my lungs worked and my heart started to beat.
He was a demon, but he was also a salvation, and the messed-up part of my mind didn't want to let him go. Even merely thinking about it had my heart thrashing against my rib cage, inciting violence on the still healing wounds inside my body.
Yet I couldn't spend my days thinking of the faceless man. I couldn't waste my time trying to understand this uncanny connection I had with him. Shaking my head I refocused on the room around me, on the smell of lavender surrounding me and the thinning fog outside.
When I came to The Lighthouse B&B last night I was almost positive they were already closed, judging by just a couple of lone lights shining through the windows from the already rented rooms and the lack of light at the entrance. But the moment I pushed the doors open, an illuminated reception area greeted me and an elderly woman stood behind the counter, smiling widely.
Her warm welcome was probably the only reason why I was able to relax and actually chitchat without feeling like someone was watching me.
Since I crossed into the town the skin at the back of my neck felt cold, small stabs of awareness appearing out nowhere the farther I traveled. To call it a sleepy little town would be the understatement of the year, and as I passed by the pier, where the fog was the thickest and an actual lighthouse that didn't seem to work stood, I started turning around and looking at my rearview mirror, convinced someone was following me.
But no other cars were on the road, apart from mine, and no people could be found roaming the area. It was as dead as the forums mentioned, with only a couple of houses with their lights on and an eeriness surrounding this place like nothing I have ever felt before.
I stopped trying to make sense of anything the moment I took off from Portland, driving over here, and as I stood up from the bed, turning on the light, I unplugged my phone from the charger and scrolled through the messages I'd received.
Not that there were many.
Some would say I have completely checked out of my life over the past year, and while a part of me would want to hold a grudge against some of my old friends for abandoning me, I couldn't exactly blame them. There was only so much they could have done before giving up on me, and I know for a fact that I wasn't the easiest person to be around back then.
Especially those first three months after the accident.
I was barely functioning. I was barely surviving, going through days and wishing all of this would just end. Ingrid took all my grief-ridden anger and pushed it away, but not everyone wanted to hang around with someone who had no desire to be alive during their nights out. Everything bothered me.
Their happiness bothered me, because how could they be happy when I was that miserable? Why did they get to be happy when my entire life collapsed in a span of just a couple of hours?
I had no doubt that if it wasn't for Ingrid and her husband, I wouldn't have been sitting here in this room, staring at the fog-covered town out there. I probably wouldn't be breathing at all, and that's something my family never would've wanted. But when you're lost, there are not many things left for you to hold on to except for the idea of death.
Of nothingness.
Of eternal peace.
When you feel too much, you often just want to stop feeling altogether. Breathing, existing, trying to push through another day was harder than preparing for the Olympic Games, and when you're all alone with no one to hold your head above those crashing waves, it was even harder trying to fight.
Now, as I stood up with my phone in my hand, shooting off a quick message to Ingrid, I knew that I wanted to live. No matter what comes of this trip, I wanted to live my life. I wanted to do all the things my family might not have gotten to do. I wanted to live for Thalia, for the girl that would never get to accomplish all her dreams, because I didn't want her death to be in vain.
I guess Iwasfinding things to hold on to.
I scanned the room properly as I turned around, locating my small suitcase and the journals sitting next to it that I brought with me. Maybe they would've been safer back at home, in one of those boxes, but having them with me gave me a weird sense of comfort, as if my mom was still with me. As if her story was still being written, even though she was no longer here.
Mrs. Sarrendon, the receptionist from last night, told me that The Hollow Grind Cafe had the best breakfast in town, and that I should visit it once I woke up. I didn't dare mention the island last night. Maybe because I didn't want to be disappointed if she knew nothing about it, but also because I had a feeling not everyone should know what I was doing here.
I had a feeling that not many things happened in this town, and a stranger coming here and asking even stranger questions probably wouldn't help me. The meaning of "sleepy little town" definitely fits the vibe here, and while it did give me the creeps initially, I couldn't wait to explore it a bit.
Pulling on my boots after I finish getting ready, I tied my hair in a messy bun atop my head and picked the old metal key for the room. My hand landed on the doorknob when the sound of the church bells tore through the silence of the room, catapulting me back into the dream.
With my hands shaking, I turned around, half expecting him to be standing there, waiting for me, begging for things I couldn't understand, but he wasn't there. Nothing but an unmade bed and my things stood in the room, yet I couldn't shake off thefeeling of wrongness. My soul was getting torn into two opposite directions, while my mind tried making sense of everything.
I took a step back toward the door and opened it wide, locking it behind me, still trying to calm my racing heart. I couldn't keep on living shrouded in the past and the dreams that haunted me. I couldn't let life pass right by me.
My feet had a mind of their own as they led me away from my room, and through the small hallway lined with pictures of the town on the walls. There were so many memories etched into these walls. So many different people who lived here, or at the very least, they passed through the town.
One of the photos showed the lighthouse, shining brightly on one of the black-and-white photos, with a young couple standing right in front of it. I stepped closer to the photo when the vision of a small boat caught my attention, floating on the water in the distance.
