To Feel

With a sigh he returned to his room very late at night. He felt little to no remorse over what he had just done. He hadn’t hurt anyone, hadn’t hurt her. He didn’t regret it now, and not even the first time. It’s not like they had done anything bad. He had done way more before. And after all, she, or at least he hoped she had, enjoyed herself too. He could see she was slowly coming past her unusual shyness. He was helping her with that. For when she finally found someone to seriously love. There was nothing wrong with that. Nothing lost, but hopefully something gained. Maybe trust.

He couldn’t explain why he wanted to, why he needed the physical contact so badly. He wanted to blame hormones, but he new that wasn’t all of it. To just touch someone like that was so electric, made him feel insanely alive. It made him feel more than he ever felt, ever. Almost like a drug, almost like a curse, almost everything, to him anyway. Most days he wouldn’t even question it. But it made him feel real and alive. To him, that’s all that mattered.

He stripped off his shirt and threw it onto the floor as he climbed into bed. He easily slipped of his jeans, leaving him in only his sox and boxers. He knew he would be absolutely dead the next morning at work. But again, at the moment, it felt like it had been worth it. He tried to drift off to sleep, but he had far too much adrenaline flowing through his veins. He tossed and turned in his bed, trying unsuccessfully to get comfortable underneath his sheets. Because all he could think of was what it would be like, if she were with him in them. He wished he could have spent the whole night with her, just to keep the rush going. He stared at his hands, his arms, in the darkness and tried to picture her in them. He wanted so badly to still feel her bear skin against his chest. To feel her delicate body in his hands. So soft, so warm… a shiver ran up his spine. ‘No‘, he mentally scolded himself ’Your trying to get some sleep’.

However it continued to elude him. Of coarse she was special to him. Every girl he had ever been with was. It wasn’t as though he felt nothing, which is what people often thought. He wasn’t a heartless monster who cared for nothing more than sex. He was human, so he was made to feel. And yes he felt more for her than most of the others. Love? No. He had never loved anyone. He never actually looked for it. He never felt the need to. He thought that it was something that would come to him in time, so to look for what would only come at a certain right time would be pointless. To look for what he never understood was pointless. He knew someone things would be understood in time at the right time, and he never thought of it as anything more.

His mind finally began to drift off to sleep. His heart rate finally began to slow down and his body relaxed. His eye lids grew heavy as the sound of his overhead fan lulled him into unconsciousness. He wondered what she looked like when she slept. Images flashed behind his closed eye lids. Eyes, hair, skin, hands, breasts… images of her. They refused to part from his mind, so he let them become a slide show, a last glimpse of the night he had, before the darkness lend into a new day. Just before he fell asleep he felt it. A slight twinge in his chest. A faltering beat in his heart. It almost distracted him from the dream he was falling into… almost…


He stood in a hallway. It was very dimly lit. The walls were white, the carpet was grey. There were pictures, of at least two or three dozen people on the walls. He knew he knew who they were, he just couldn’t place names with faces at the moment. They all looked sad, like they had been taken during a funeral. He walked down the hallway, and entered the door at the end.

The next room was extremely small, and familiar. The interior was leather and a grayish color. It was his car. ‘Why is my car here?’ he wondered. But yes, it was his car. He would recognize it anywhere. Sitting in the backseat, was her. In her hands was a red, pulsating object, which was oozing a thick red liquid. She didn’t look nearly as shocked to see him as he was to see her. She gave him an inviting smile and said: “I knew you would come”. He tried to speak, be he couldn’t seem to find the strength to open his mouth, so she continued: “I know you weren’t really expecting me to be here… and I’m sorry if this is a bad time… but I really need to talk to you… about they way things are between us right now…”.

At that time he finally found his words:

“What do you mean… things are fine…” he found he couldn’t look her in the eyes.
“How are they fine? I can’t keep doing this… being this to you…”.
“Being what?”.
“Just some girl you can screw around with… just because you know you can… and then not talk to for months until you decide you need her again”.
“But… but I said we would talk more… I said it wasn’t like that…”
“Well it obviously seems to be going in that direction” the object in her hand flinched and oozed more liquid. “Do you really even care at all?”.
“Yes of coarse I do! I told you that…”.

She looked away from him. Her face was pale as a ghost, and she had dark circles under her eyes. They were red and puffy, like she had been crying for hours at a time. ‘She cried, over me?’, he wondered ‘Why? I’m not much to cry over…’. She shivered. She looked so cold to him. He was overcome with the sudden urge to make her warm. Not for his own personal gain, but just because she looked absolutely miserable, and he couldn’t take seeing her that way.

“I’m so sorry… I promise… I swear I’ll make it different this time.” he said.
“I don’t believe you. Because you tell that to everyone don’t you?” she paused for a moment “Listen I can’t do this. It emotionally drains me too much. I need a boyfriend not a guy to mess with”.
“I understand… I’ll date you if you want me to--”
“I thrive so much on emotions… I need to feel things… to feel affection and love…” she interrupted “That an only physical relationship can only hurt me…”. The object in her hand sputtered, and a small fountain of liquid flowed out of it.

He looked closer at the object, still not quite comprehending what it was. He felt his stomach roll. ‘Oh my god it’s her heart…’ he realized with horror. Mortified, he tried desperately to keep his balance. He leaned against the car door for stability. It looked as though it had been freshly cut from her, even though there was no hole in her chest. The beating organ oozed blood, despite the fact that it was not hooked to any veins or arteries. The blood ran down her hands and dripped onto her shirt and jeans. On the outside of it were names. Seemingly carved into it with a knife or some other type of sharp blade. They were boy’s names, thought most of them were just scars, or still healing. His name, was the only one that was still bleeding. He flinched inwardly at the physical depiction of her pain. He could feel it. Feel her pain. This was quite new to him. He had always been able to sympathize with people, but never had he been able to actually know the pain they were in. He understood now…
She said:

“It’s okay, your not the first to do this… and since this is me I know you wont be the last” she sighed and looked down at the throbbing heart in her hands.
“But… but…” still he couldn’t find the words for his horror and anguish.
“This is just a representation of my emotional wounds, for they are far worse than you could imagine. But it’s okay, really it is, I just wanted you to see what it was like… I’m so sorry… I just wanted you to understand… I thought if you did I would become more to you…” her voice barely above a whisper “Or even if you didn’t, just so someone can maybe… someone can be more to you… someday…”.

At last he couldn’t stand it anymore. Despite the blood that covered her clothes he tightly wrapped his arms around her. He felt tears running down his face for the first time in years. Her body felt so light and fragile in his arms, like she wasn’t there at all. For the first time, he realized as he took her hand in his, that her hands were colder than his. He was crying inconsolably, as though he had witnessed the most horrific thing in the world. But in fact he hadn’t really seen anything. He just felt. He felt the pain the she felt. It gripped his heart and held it tightly like a beloved child. This was a pain he that he thought no one should have to endure. But especially not her. No… not her… if anyone deserved to be happy it was her. But she showed him all of this, just so he could find love one day. From someone, anyone. ‘Why?’ he thought ‘I’m not worth this… I’m not worth anything…’.

He looked up, trying to see through his tears, when he realized she was gone. Horrified he screamed her name several times at the top of his lungs, only to find he was in his room, in his bed. Awake. Sweat coated his skin, and tears ran down his cheeks. His heart beat erratically in his chest. He took several deep breaths, in an attempt to regain composure of his body. It took over twenty minutes to do so. And when he did he came upon another horrible realization. He felt nothing.

Not like not being able to physically feel things, but emotionally. He had felt so much in that dream. He had felt fear, pain, sorrow… love. Now that he was no longer in the dream he realized that he had never felt any real emotions, ever. Of coarse he had felt mild joy and anger, but never anything like sadness or love. He felt empty now. And he hated it. It felt like he wasn’t even there. Like he was just living in an shell of himself. He wanted to feel, wanted it so badly. Repeatedly in his mind he thought ‘I want to feel, I want to feel! I want to feel something… anything… please…”. But nothing came. The worst part was he couldn’t even panic. He couldn’t do anything but lie there in bed and listen to the even beats of his heart and replay the dream emotionlessly in his mind. But nothing, in his heart, was there. Things were the way they always were, except now, he knew what he was missing.

He knew if he felt, he would more often than not, would feel pain. He knew there would be times when the sadness would feel like an ocean that threatened to down him. And he knew that he would feel hopelessness that would be like rocks tied to feet, which would drag him down to the bottom of this ocean. But he knew, that he would be willing to suffer all of that, for years even, if only, just for one more moment he could feel the love he felt for her in that dream, for just one second longer. So now he knew. Knew why some people he dated had a broken look in their eyes, as they saw through his lies and tried to understand why they simply weren’t good enough. Why the tears ran down their cheeks. Why they looked at him like he was a monster, and why they always came back.

It was all too real. Yet the clock beside his bed said he had only be asleep for a few minutes. He could see it in his head like a movie, in perfect clearness and color. Why would he even dream of such a thing? And why could he feel so much in a dream, and feel next to nothing in real life? It didn’t make any sense at all. His head was spinning and he felt slightly nauseated. Could it have been really her in his dream? Surely his mind could not come up with such a vibrant dream…



But then… a single tear ran down his cheek…



And if it can be said that hearts can physically break, if you could hear a sound as they broke, if it was a ripping cracking sound, then that’s what he would have said he heard. It was deafening in his ears… and the pain that followed… would be like nothing he had ever even dreamed of experiencing. It tore through his chest, forcing every molecule of oxygen out of his lungs. Instantly tears began running down his cheeks. He dug his fingers into his sheets and squeezed them so tightly that his knuckles turned white. He had to bit down onto his pillow to silence his screams. Never did he think, that when you truly feel, you could ever feel anything like this. He was frightened. Because he wasn’t even sure why this pain was overtaking him in the first place.

But no… wait.. The reason was vague but it was becoming clearer with every agonizing beat of his heart. He loved her. With everything thing he had he loved her. And he missed her. And he hated himself entirely for what he had done to her. He knew there was now way she would ever truly trust him, that he undoubtedly had lost her heart forever. That he had lost many hearts over the years, that he had in fact loved many over the years. But he never knew, because he never felt any of it. It was like he lived his entire life as a complete zombie and now he was awake, only it was too late. Because he had lost too much. And surely emotional pain like this must be able to kill, for who could survive something like this?

‘She did’ he thought ‘She loved people before and they made her feel just like this… I made her feel like this… and she has felt like this because of others for months, years at a time…’. He couldn’t even imagine what it must have been like. A wave of pain ripped through him, his heart beat at an unnaturally high and uneven rate. ‘But she endures it all’ he thought ‘Just so she can maybe hope to find real love one day.’. He knew real love must be something truly spectacular if it were worth all of this. Love must be the one thing truly worth fighting for. The one thing… that he had to fight for.

“It can’t be too late…” he whispered weakly. He quickly turned over and reached for his phone, which lie on the nightstand beside his bed. “If I can call her” he began to dial her number “I can talk to her… tell her I’m sorry… tell her I can feel now… I can feel… I can feel and I can feel for her… for everyone now and…” his voice was so broken by sobs that it was almost inaudible “ That I can love her… if she’ll only have me… and… we can… stop the pain… and feel love… together…”. His fingers clumsily punched in the last few digits of her number. It rang… once, twice, three times… ‘She has to answer… she has to…’ he thought frantically ’I can’t live without her… I can‘t live with this pain tonight…’.

He would listen to it ring for hours that night, but she would never pick up. He would cry and remain in agonizing pain throughout the night. She wasn’t there. No one was there. He was in pain, unloved and alone. He could feel now, but it was more feeling than he ever knew how to handle. And every time her phone rang without an answer, it sent awful ripping sensations through out his heart and chest. Had he the energy he would have ripped his own heart out with his bear hands, just to end it all. Any physical pain or death must be better than this.

To him, the phone seemed to ring endlessly that night. To him, the sorrow was endless as well.