Skyler — Letter 3 of 7 — 3 am & he dumped me

Everything changes the moment clock says 00.00 and rolls on the other end of the zeroes. 

The clocks were 7 hours 4 minutes away from whispering 00.00 when he decided to roll on the other end of the ‘relationship’.

He dumped me before we even made love - even before we messed the sheets. The certainty in his eyes made my heart tremble & hair levitate as my lashes fluttered like an epileptic butterfly. Oh words, I heard the words ‘Skyler, you & I have to go on without you & I’. Oh words, I heard them alright. They didn’t scare me one bit, but his eyes - they murdered me.

They say stars wake at night when humans are asleep. I’m no one to challenge that million-year-old wisdom. It’s 3am & my back is on the warm summer roof. My eyes, non-murderous eyes, see those uncountable stars levitated in the sky. In me, I feel like a prolific mother who’s staring at her babies who are asleep in the skies. They are asleep the way Roy is now. I can’t see him like I can see the stars. I know when I will see him, I will not see him like I saw him before his eyes assassinated me.

I will go on. I have learned to go on. Long before we were born, German human Friedrich Nietzsche had said, ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’. I will say it also leaves you a little more miserable. 

He was honest. That’s what I liked in him. He told me he wants to see June. He told me he didn’t want to see her before he told me that he wants to see her. Everyone who 'goes on' after the lightening of honesty strikes on them unannounced, does become stronger, also more miserable. 

I’ve never seen June. And when I do see her, I will never see her like I would’ve seen her before Roy had told me she’s the one.

I know I’m 18. I know I’m a girl in that part of the world where the ‘ball is in my court’ for another 7-odd years before everyone becomes an epileptic butterfly and embarks on an unbroken mission to tie me to a boy who guarantees them - with words & visible moolah in his accounts - to stay with me till God calls me home in the skies & lets me sleep with my babies - my stars.

I know I will find another boy who will ‘stay’ - I know that. Roy wasn’t my Peter Parker & I wasn’t his Mary Jane. I know that. And that’s alright.

What’s not alright is that I will no longer pick the mushrooms off my pizza & put them in a tiny canister & then hand it over to him at school the next day. I don’t like mushrooms; he loves them.

What’s not alright is that he will no longer count my teeth every time we meet. What’s not alright is that I will no longer write letters to him. What’s not alright is that he will no longer give me stolen nail paint. What’s not alright is that I will no longer lay with him - without words - without fears. What’s not alright is that he will no longer stick notes like ‘The Girl Who Can’t Get Laid’ on my back.  

Oh, I tell you there’s a lot that’s not alright. It’s 3am & I’m more than a little more miserable than I was when I saw the stars sleeping yesterday. 

I know I will go on. Most of us do.

Water texted me minutes before 00.00 & reminded me of a boy who had been waiting for Roy & I to break up. How he would like to take me out whenever I’m 'ready' now that the break up has happened. He’s a fine boy - school soccer team captain with a cut in his left eyebrow that makes him look attractive. 

I will go out with him when I’m ready. As I don’t know how to know when I’m ready, I’ve told myself I will be ready in 17 days. I will tell him when I see him that I will go out with him. And when we do go out, I hope he doesn’t sit to my left as that’ll inevitably remind me of Roy’s words ‘Skyler, whenever you will look to your left, you will find me waiting to count your teeth’ & I will break down & ruin my new first date & reveal to the boy with the attractive eyebrow cut that I’m not ready.