Cold Summer

He stood there at the window of the home as the sunlight that should have been warm drenched over his head and shoulders. It was late June, yet the sunlight felt cold to him, like Father Death’s hands wrapping around his throat and strangling him like some kind of madman. It was as if the world were trying to suffocate him and take him down for all he was.

He-he wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready to see death for himself, even though he had thought about it so many times. It wasn’t like anyone would miss him, on the contrary, he was a burden to them. At least--that’s how he saw it. All he did was cause problems. He caused the love of his life to leave him by being “emotionally draining” as she liked to call him. He wasn’t, right? He wasn’t going to try and get her back. If she was happier without him, he wanted her to be happy, even if it was at the expense of his happiness. But that made the Summer air feel no colder.

For now, he was going to stay there and let the cold, cold air drown him. He was just going to let it go over his head, fill his lungs. He wanted to know what it would feel like as it reached his brain and crushed down on it with a pressure comparable to that of the deep sea, violent and unrelenting. He wanted to know where this would lead him. He needed to know what rock bottom was, that there was no lower for him to go. If he got that low down into his own psyche, he would have nowhere to go but six feet under or higher than probably ever before. Either way, it would be a nice relief from all of this mess.

He knew that if he just let it be as it was, it would just be a flatline of emotions. He wouldn’t get better from this, he wouldn’t improve. He would just stay like this. So he could either stay like this, pathetic and sad, or he could fall so deep that he could only get higher from there.

It worked like that, right?

He sighed to himself, sitting down on his bed and opening his laptop. He had to input his password again, he really had to fix that, but he never really felt like it, to be perfectly honest.

Going to his bookmarks, he set himself up on his usual social media site. Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. Wow, he could actually feel his eyes closing, this was all so dull. Oh look, Amanda posted a picture of her new baby, boring. Hey, Chris and Jane hooked up, that’s gonna be over in a week.

Then.

Then he saw it. Sitting right there in front of him on his screen was a lovely little image. His chest went tight, his heart beating faster as he stared at the image before him, something he was very much not ready to see. Not yet.

His newly broken up ex, with her apparently newly together boyfriend, Alexander. The guy looked like a tool. Really, with those glasses? He was trying pretty hard for that hipster look. He couldn’t help but scoff, roll his eyes, try to put together just how he felt. He looked at her, almost wanting to comment something cruel. Not that he would but, he wanted to. Nothing could really change your desires, even if you didn’t actually plan on acting on them.

But he saw her face. Look at her. She was smiling. She was smiling so much more with the tool than she ever did with him. She actually looked happy. Standing on the beach, dressed up in her nicest dress, the one he remembered she had told him was her “lucky dress” that she always wore when she was nervous and wanted to do her best. And smiling. She was undoubtedly, undeniably happy. He looked for a few seconds, hands hovering over the keys as he felt himself calming down.

He closed his laptop. He wasn’t going to say anything, not even about how beautiful she looked on her first date. It would make her feel uncomfortable, like he was still being clingy. She really did look beautiful though, she looked happy. Suddenly, he could feel warmth coming back to him. As long as he knew she was happy, even without him being there for it, maybe he could get over this. He hoped so. Seeing her happy mattered more than anything.

Cold lowered itself from his head, slowly settling down as he went to the kitchen and put on a pot of tea. He was going to be okay. He would be able to do this. He was sure of it. Things were going to turn around, and Summer was coming back.