He had a face that felt like a sanctuary—
Pouty,kissable lips he'd proudly tell me how other girls had praised, and a small bunny-like nose that made him look younger than he was. Even the tiny mole on the right side of his face felt like a secret I was lucky to know.
With his hair always mismatched and his eyes wide like a newborn's, he looked incapable of causing pain. But that was the trick of it. Those same lips were blabbering about her, and those innocent eyes were shadowed with a guilt he couldn't hide as he scrolled through his phone with those trembling hands."Do you have more pictures with her" my best-friend added, while he spoke, my thumbs found the jagged edges of my cuticles. It was a mindless, rhythmic destruction. I wasn't just picking at my skin; I was trying to peel away the layer of me that felt so small in comparison to her, until the sting of raw flesh finally pulled me out of my head..I suddenly turned ghost in my own relationship,I sat up at the corner of the bed to have another slight glance at her face through the screen but my emotions could not let me be in that room for another minute.I stood up and went straight towards the bathroom,hiding my teary eyes while putting on a blank smile. "Deep breath in and out" I said to myself looking up at the bathroom's cracked ceiling in order to fail my tears to wail down my face. I could still hear his mumbled voice talking to my friend through the door, he didn't sound like the person I loved but more that of a stranger talking about a life I wasn't part of.Back outside I wasn't just looking at the picture,I was looking at the gap between her and me.I was measuring the bridge Id have to build to reach her level of "pretty"
and realising I didn't have enough materials.
I put both my hand on the widened cold sink,head bowed down and exhaled my last breath of pain.I looked up at my reflection on the mirror as I touched the corner of eye,checking if my mascara had smudged from the heat of my face.I had spent an hour on this face,hoping it would be a shield against his past.While completely broken from inside,I tried fixing the dress that I wore just for him.
There was silence outside now, the click of the bathroom latch felt like a starting gun. I wasn't just walking back into a bedroom; I was walking back onto a stage. I walked out with a smile so wide it felt heavy—a face that was even louder than the layers of foundation I'd applied. It was a mask designed to drown out the silence I'd just left in the washroom. My friend looked up from the bed, her eyes searching for the girl I was ten minutes ago. 'You okay?' she asked. I gave her an 'ehh'—a non-committal vibration in my throat that was easier than forming actual lies. I reached for a cigarette. I needed the smoke to fill the spaces where his words about her were still hanging. I settled down, the first exhale feeling like the only honest breath I'd taken all night. I lit the cigarette and watched the gray coil of smoke drift toward the ceiling. It looked like my thoughts—shifting, hazy, and impossible to grab. Across from me, he sat with those baby eyes and that mismatched hair, completely unaware that I was using the tobacco to numb the sting of his honesty.