She wants to live in a world where hearts would get broken, but no one would remember. After all, cracked hope and severed arteries don't exist if you don't know it's there. The world would be a better place for it, she thinks, with none of this unhappiness weighing you down. Living in a world that accepts the action but skips the hurt is the most ideal. But this is not a world she finds herself in. Her heart is not free from the ache that people give her. Geoff says it's just as well, life's a bitch and then you die. There's no point in the drowning of sorrows. Sidney prefers to drown her sorrows in a plate of fries, extra gravy, no judgment.
*
It all comes down easy on them. Suburbia has taught her well, but hasn't prepared her for the truths of the world. Geoff dreams of lighter fluid and earth quakes. Hurricane fury in all its glory, he tunneled himself into Sidney's life with no warning. The realist for the eternal optimist, he'd always say, seeing through her disguise. It'll be your greatest downfall, was his warning, but couldn't compete with the look in her eyes when she'd kiss away the remark.
Sidney dreams too, but it's not the same anymore. There are no perfect trimmings or happy endings. She wakes and she wakes alone, she dreams and remembers the hurt. She's stifled and not even the world's best intentions can stop the blow. He's hurt her more than she's allowed herself to realize. Sometimes she's caught off guard when she remembers to remember, this is why she chooses not to.
It all goes by, fast paced in a blur. Her head is stormy, but her body stands still. Chaos and complacency, she doesn't know where her heart fits in anymore. Her bones aren't meant for this kind of damage. This isn't how it's supposed to be, she wants to say.
*
She thinks most of all, she wants to live in the first five seconds after she wakes in the morning, before she remembers that love isn't anything she knows. And that all she knows is that he's no longer here.
fin.
