Our Time Is Up

"How does it feel?" she asked softly.

"How does it feel?" I muttered.

 

"How does it feel..." I repeated slowly, staring at the fan above me.

 

"Yes," she insisted. "How does it feel?"

"How does it feel as in... how does it feel what?"

There was a long silence.

 

"How does it feel going through the same loop for years? How does it feel watching her lose hope every single time? How does it feel seeing her every second week, only to begin the same cycle again by the third? How does it feel making her cry? How does it feel tearing open wounds that never really healed?"

 

My voice cracked.

 

"Or how does it feel watching her make you hate yourself a little more each time?"

 

I opened my mouth, but no words came out.

 

My throat tightened.

 

Tears gathered before I could stop them.

 

"No," she interrupted gently. "Not how it feels to her."

 

She leaned forward.

 

"How does it feel to you?"

 

"How does it matter?" I muttered.

She didn't answer.

 

"Does it matter at all? I'm at fault. I'm the problem. So why should we discuss how it feels to me?

 

I'm a hypocrite. A coward. Selfish. Weak. Pathetic. Opportunistic. Spineless. Dishonest. Manipulative. A liar to others. A liar to myself. Cold. Cruel. Hollow. Destructive. Toxic.

 

Just... wrong.Wrong for everyone.

 

A man who turns good things bad. A man who fucks up every situation he touches. That's the one thing I'm good at. Give me something beautiful, something worth keeping, and sooner or later I'll find a way to ruin it.

 

Sometimes I honestly don't know who the fuck I am.Someone comes into my life and makes it bloom, and I make sure to fuck theirs in return.

 

So how does it feel to me?" I laughed bitterly. "Should that even be discussed?"

 

The room fell silent.I took a long breath.

 

"That's not an answer," she said gently. "That's a verdict."

 

“So again,” she said softly, “how do you feel?”

 

“I don’t know,” I said.

 

“Try.”

 

I stared at the floor.

 

“Hmm... angry, I guess.”

 

“Don’t rush to the first answer,” she said. “How do you usually feel?”

 

How do I usually feel? I sat with the question.

 

“Empty.” The word surprised me.

 

“Empty. Angry. Disappointed. Like I failed.”

 

“Failed who?”

 

I looked up.

 

“Her.”

 

“It’s not about her,” she said gently. “It’s about you. How does it feel?”

 

I closed my eyes.

 

“It feels like I shouldn’t be alive.”

The words escaped before I could stop them. The room fell silent.

 

I looked away. “That’s stupid.”

 

“Why?” I laughed weakly.

 

“Because I don’t want to die. I just don’t know how to live like this anymore.”

 Tears blurred my vision.

 

“You know... I used to have dreams. Desires. Things I wanted. Now I feel like a sick man. A sick man only wants medicine. That’s all he thinks about. And she’s become that medicine in my head. Without her, everything feels pointless.”

 

I wiped my face.

 

“Sometimes I feel nothing at all. Completely numb. Then the next moment it feels like there’s a storm inside me and I’m about to drown in it.”

 

The words kept coming.

 

“I want to run away from myself.

 

“It feels like there’s a stone lodged in my chest. Like I’m carrying something heavy every second of every day and I can’t put it down.

 

“And the worst part...”

 

I stopped and looked at my hands.

 

“It feels like I’m pretending to be a person. From morning to night. Smiling. Talking. Working. Existing. But none of it feels real anymore.

 

“It’s like I’m trapped inside someone else’s life.”

My voice broke.

 

And then I completely fell apart.

 

I don't know how long I sat there crying. The words had stopped coming, but the tears hadn't. Years of guilt, anger, regret, and exhaustion seemed to pour out of me all at once.

 

Eventually it passed.

 

I wiped my eyes and looked up.

 

She was still sitting there.

 

I smiled.

 

She smiled back.

 

Then she glanced at the clock.

 

“Our time is up.”

 

I stared at her.

 

She smiled.

 

I picked up my bag and left.