「𝗠𝗘𝗟𝗔𝗡𝗜𝗘」

𝘐'𝘔 𝘈𝘓𝘓 𝘖𝘜𝘛 𝘖𝘍 𝘏𝘖𝘗𝘌,

𝘖𝘕𝘌 𝘔𝘖𝘙𝘌 𝘉𝘈𝘋 𝘋𝘙𝘌𝘈𝘔,

𝘊𝘖𝘜𝘓𝘋 𝘉𝘙𝘐𝘕𝘎 𝘈 𝘍𝘈𝘓𝘓,

𝘞𝘏𝘌𝘕 𝘐'𝘔 𝘍𝘈𝘙 𝘍𝘙𝘖𝘔 𝘏𝘖𝘔𝘌

- 𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘪𝘥𝘰𝘭, 𝘦𝘺𝘦𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘢 𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘦

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-

I storm out of the washroom, deftly wipe the last tears from my warm cheeks and hope that no one catches me. But on the one hand, it wouldn't matter to me, as unimportant as simply snapping my fingers. A constant back and forth in my thoughts, standing between two stools, because you never know whose voice and the associated opinion is the best possible in the situation.

I just didn't want to appear as fragile as the waves of feelings that sometimes come over me. My thoughts creep back to my nightmare from last night. It's actually so unimportant, always the same crap that never seems to pass because I can't just shut it down and forget it.

Maybe because it's always so frighteningly real. With a quick glance to the left and right, I make sure that I won't bump into anyone unintentionally. Then I take a deep breath and try in vain to calm my racing heartbeat, which is so inhumanly out of control.

For a millisecond I can perceive another, calm one, only then does the slight impact occur because I missed someone in my panic. My gaze is probably filled with horror. "Where do you have to go so urgently that you don't even have time to look straight ahead?" the blonde, lanky boy asked me and seemed visibly amused, while I felt as if I had survived a danger where there was none.

As soon as I look into his brown eyes, I feel warm. All knots and tensions caused by panic dissolve as gently as someone else's loving touch.

There is a bright glitter in its brown that seems so rediscovered. As if he had lost it a long time ago, so much hope that had fallen through that it no longer suited him until he regained it on a path that was not easy to follow.

"Sorry ..." I murmur, forcing a smile in front of Newt. He grins at me somewhat stupidly, whereupon I uncomfortably smooth my hair, aware that there's nothing unusual there.

"Don't do that," he said in a gentle voice. "You're really very pretty, Melanie."

Hearing words like that from him releases needs and feelings in me that make me very happy. An unconditional happiness because it is not connected to any coercion. Just my feelings.

I gently examine his face and his soft, blonde hair. Out of the corner of my eye I see him lift his hand and then tenderly tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. He's smiling and it's so encouraging that I think he knows, unspoken, how many tears were lost on me in the washroom.

“Are you going to lunch with me and the others, hmm?” he asks urgently. “Please?”

A genuine smile appears on the corners of my tired mouth. “Yes,” I reply. “With pleasure.”

I feel something in every bone, in every organ and in every pore of my skin. But it is so almost unnoticed that there is no possibility of seizing it and therefore naming it. For a long time, I viewed Newt as simply a closer friend, until a realization so unbelievable popped into my head that it took my breath away for an unspeakable amount of time.

Things that go far beyond just friendship. Thoughts and wishes that friends don't have about each other. At least they shouldn't. Not when you know whether there could even be the slightest chance of a response.

Moments simply arise that come about without intention and are completely unplanned, making you realize that you don't have to know a person very well to fall in love with them.

You don't even have to have exchanged endless words with him because your whole bodies communicated with each other. The shameless eyes that see so much and then plant whole worlds of emotions as thoughts in your head and the hamster wheel that starts spinning without seeing the end of it all.

Because for now, you are trapped. Not in yourself, but in the part of yourself that craves the other.

Trapped in someone to whom you have revealed yourself in such a way that very different things are intended. Always pain. Less always forgiveness and so much love ...
if you're lucky,
then
so much
l-o-v-e.

In that moment you realize that this feeling finally makes sense. That when you read about true love in books, when you hear that it must be true love, you can understand how some parents treat each other. Everything - love - is so much faster than that consciousness. So that you only get along stumbling and short of breath with complete uncertainty.

True love, one of so many things over which human have no influence, no matter what position of power they may be in. This is something that finds you without any reason, without any comment to be found and without you being able to defend yourself against it in the slightest.

You are exposed to an unprotected incapacity to act, so open and naked that you can already feel the loaded weapon with the cold barrel on your red heart.

For me, Newt is the sun itself, and I am so much rain falling on cold panes, like crystals that only start to sparkle when you look closely.

He reminds me of the colors she has. Bright yellow, like his wind-blown hair. And when he laughs, clouds seem to move away from the sky to make way for an abundance of light. His act, confident and faithful. Full of everything I never thought a person would have inside them.

Because it turned out that everything went well. That I ate lunch with Newt, Thomas and Minho said something in between and I felt Gally's annoyed look on me. But even this didn't feel at all offensive at the moment. Not derogatory or strange, as I always seemed to imagine.

Maybe it has become irrelevant to me, it simply doesn't correspond to any importance on my part.

I can finally see everything that is physically in front of me that I was so blind to before because I was focusing on things that don't exist in any time period, that are intangible, and that no one else can look at but myself.

It doesn't matter if I dream something bad about someone because although reality and fantasy go hand in hand, they are still two different things.

If I dream of getting out of here, I won't be there when I wake up. If I dream that everyone is laughing at me, it does not mean that I will meet the same people around me. And part of me feels so tiringly sad that I didn't see it sooner.

Because I didn't saw it ...
I

didn't

saw

it.

I wasted so many thoughts, so many moments that could have been undoubtedly beautiful, spent in bitter fear that it made me embitter myself.

Then I ask myself
in dead hours in my hammock,
surrounded by everyone,
but still full of loneliness:
have I lost myself through this?

Because finally, since I can see, it hurts so much - this truth that I was missing.

There is no one in any universe who could have lived my life for me. And I didn't do it myself either.

Instead, I vegetated to myself, playing with an all-encompassing darkness that is so much more dangerous than death could ever be.

There was beauty in every single day. If only it consisted of me not dying from my nightmare. Now I mourn all the beauty I missed.

The one I missed, the one I looked away from to focus on all the bad. Except for a masochist, if someone is given the choice between pain and no pain, they will always choose the latter.

I'm not a masochist, but I always chose pain because I thought it was the easier route.

If I were still trapped in my old emotional world, my wrong thought structures, then while eating I would have missed how energetically Thomas talks about things that excite him and how Minho rolls his eyes while forming a narrow smile at the corners of his mouth is much more extensive beneath the surface. That Newt looked after my well-being and when he didn't have the impression, his expression softened so that he included me in everything.

That he evoked gestures that were filled with love and uttered words that embraced my soul.

After all the unlived days, there is finally a peaceful glow on me that goes through every centimeter of my energetic body.

There is freedom in me.

Freedom in what I see.

And it couldn't make me happier, that's beyond doubt and undeniable. A happiness that, after joy, a boundless gratitude reigns over me.

Although saying thank you suddenly feels so immediately small and powerless.

Thanks.