Story: Moving On After You by Jellorie Gallego

Moving On After You

by Jellorie Gallego

 

I've been exchanging punches and blows with a couple of close friends for fun. When you've gone to the point of inebriation, literally knocking yourselves out suddenly make sense. And with every grunt of pain and the unflinching strikes, I'm forced to consider whether I'm enjoying the sensation of being hurt or taking out everything through the pain.

Because I'm not yet over you. Words slip onto the pages I write, each and every letter drenched in melancholia. Songs rearrange themselves to form playlists that remind me of you. But we're done, and I know that.

Later that evening, in the late hours of the night, I'm waiting for the sun to rise as we drive past slow buses and trucks, rushing past by them. And every time our car overtakes, my eyes are blinded by the oncoming lights, and the feeling of not knowing, of whether this is the last moment, whether a car will crash onto ours, feels so exhilarating.

"What's eating you?", they ask once we've pulled to the side to take another cigarette break.

And i simply shrug and tell them everything is alright with the world. They can see that it's not true, that the very words I speak are laced with sadness. But they know better to prod.

The car roars down the highway. With every increment on the speedometer rushed by, we turn up the volume, shouting along to the mushy pop songs and high school emo songs.

With every person we dropped along the way, to their families, girlfriends, the comforts of their bachelor pad, the silence inside the car becomes louder. When it was just down to the last two of us, my friend breaks the silence.

"I don't know what's going on in your life but you'll live."

I nod and thanks him for the thought. The silence, it seems, wins out in the end. By the time dawn was breaking, the familiar sight of my gate greets me. I get down from the car and drag my stuff out. Every second it takes from opening the gate to getting my self to the stairs beside the house is a second too long.

I sit down and light a smoke. My roommate goes out and acknowledges me by lighting his own stick. And when the last of the embers of my smoke die out, I drag myself to my bed and succumb to sleep.

I wake up in the morning with body aches. My body, it seems hurt, but my heart whole. I'll live.