When You're Gone

~When You're Gone~

  She had exams in the morning.

  Forte rolled over to face her alarm clock, the time reading a dull 2:16 and she groaned, pulling her covers over her more, squeezing her eyes shut as images of years ago flooded her brain, flashes of bright blue, mixed up words of statements long forgotten in a wonderful accent she loved so much, the odd copper color she was only graced at seeing near the end of her adventure before she left… Left… She laughed at that; she hadn't left, she was forced to go, because in a heartbeat she would have chosen to stay, even if it meant doing those god awful te-

  Not even now, half-asleep and eyes burning from exhaustion could she bring herself to say that word… Never would she be able to. Her mocha eyes never lowered from their stare at the clock, watching the time change minute by minute, a sullen look on her face, dark brown hair messier than usual. Forte sat up, running her fingers through her hair, looking around her apartment's room, the drawings scattered everywhere, then moving her hand to hold her head as another headache held her at a stand still. 'Advil,' she thought lamely, slipping out of bed quietly and trekking her way to the bathroom that was conjoined by a door, flipping on the light and groping around aimlessly for her painkillers. She shook the last two from the bottle and took them dry, looking at herself- so beat down, worn and messy- and tried to remember when she looked halfway decent. With a dark chuckle, she turned from the mirror and shut off the light. Her therapist said that if she lingered too much on the past, nothing could ever be achieved in the future, but her therapist could never understand what she wanted was in her past and could be brought into her future. If only she was given the chance… If only.

  She made her way back to her bed and flopped down on it, burying her face in the feather headrest and sighing, knowing that she wasn't going to get any sleep tonight and those images and voices were going to haunt her all night if she let them.

  "Get some sleep, luv…"

~~~~

  "I expect complete silence," the teacher barked, harsh voice echoing in the room, handing out thick packets of paper and answer sheets, stern face composed into deadly seriousness, his eyes narrowed. "But, as college students, you all can do that much, right?"
  
  Forte let her eyes drop to the exam in front of her, brain sluggish and eyes heavy. After she had escape from there, she enrolled into an art school, drawing one of her favorite things in the entire world. Sometimes, she caught herself doodling a quick sketch of his face, and she'd stop, crumbling up her paper and throwing it away before she could ever finish. With her unfortunate luck, it was nearing the end of the year, and she would have to live life for a few months without a way to escape the never-ending abyss of her mind. She picked up her pencil and started circling answers, drawing for the questions that required it, her head pounding. The second dose of Advil she took this morning didn't help at all.

  With a frustrated sigh, she laid her head down on the table, closing her eyes as a wave of relief rushed over her for a split second before her thoughts penetrated her little dream world, endlessly nagging. 'Just shut up,', she demanded, knowing it wouldn't be enough, but she tried everything, everything she and her therapist could think of. Her mind went hazy, sleep taking over her.

  'Wh-'

~~~~

  Her legs were as heavy as led, and she faltered in her step, collapsing to the ground on her knees, looking up at the copper-haired man, his blue eyes warm. "Oh, Fil. Are you okay?" he asked, holding out a hand and helping her up. "You can't push yourself too hard, you know? You could die if you aren't careful."

  She smiled and nodded, leaning her weight onto him. "Thank you, W-"

~~~~


  Forte awoke with a start, eyes wide open and senses at high-alert, ears hearing every little breath and paper shuffle, her sight vivid with color and detail, and her brain still in a misty sleep haze. She sat up, rubbing her eyes and staring straight at her teacher, offering only a smile she put on for show. "Sorry…"

  "Ms. Fil," he said.

  'Don't call me that,' she thought.

  "This is test time, not nap time."

  She looked down, her body tensing at that word. "I know…"

  "Do your test. Just do your test."

  "Just… Just do the test. Just do the test."

  Her body froze, every sense in her being shut down as that voice replayed over and over again and she closed her eyes, willed- forced- herself not to think about that and booted her brain back up, picking back up her pencil and finishing her exam quickly. The teacher eyed her when she turned it in first, but said nothing as she walked back to her desk and took out some paper, doodling aimlessly, but this time she didn't stop herself as his face began to take shape.

  She just wasn't up to it.

~~~~

  Fil was her real name, but one she had stopped going by after her little incident (as her therapist called it), opting to be called Forte instead, a word that rolled off her tongue so easily when she said it. She liked the feel of it, the way it meshed with his name, like she was going to endlessly torture herself with the unobtainable.

  Her therapist wasn't much older than herself- only 26, seven years older- beautiful and kind when she talked. Annamarie Deaton was patient with her, kind were other therapists had been cruel, warm when they were cold, the only one she had liked out of the two or three she had before. She only referred to that period of Forte's life as "the incident", which didn't bother Forte at all; she adopted it and started calling it the same after two or three weeks with her. Although Ms. Deaton understood Forte's problems better than the other ones, she never understood the way she felt about the mention of him, the revival of Her, and the careful words that might trigger her outbursts. Forte hated the medicine they had her on, the medicine for crazy, delusional people so unlike herself. In short, she hated therapy in itself, but she was forced by her mom to go, so she'd stop talking about that place, those people, all those "crazy things".

  "You haven't had an outburst in nearly a month." Ms. Deaton smiled. "Good job, Forte."
  
  The teen shrugged, looking out the window with bored eyes, as she often did during her sessions every Thursday. "I guess. Nothing's set me off… Well, today…" She let her voice trail off; one wrong word and they'd up her dosage.

  "What happened today?"

  "My art professor called me Fil. No big deal. I didn't say anything." Forte said, voice monotonous and apathetic, like she didn't care about anything in the world (it was close).

  Annamarie scratched something down- that was six things in thirty minutes. "Well, that's good. Self-control is often better than just blowing up. Take any other medicine beside what was prescribed in the past week?"

  She scoffed. "Lots of Advil. That damn medicine is making my headaches worse," she told her, brown eyes skirting over to her. "I don't get why you just can't take me off of them."

  "Its just procedure, Forte. You were diagnosed, so you have to take the medicine prescribed." Her therapist finished up her notes and smiled up at her. "Session's over. Anything else you'd want to tell me?"

  She wanted to tell her about the drawing she finally did of him, how she got through the picture without crying once- coloring and all- how his voice was haunting her thoughts all day, how his eyes burned into her own, even if he wasn't there.

  "Nope nothing."

~~~~

  The walk home was quite chilly, winter always this cold in New York. She couldn't remember was possessed her to move, but whatever had, she did. Forte liked the snow, the soft flurries that blew in just about everyday, because they were so pretty to draw, but she didn't like the cold that accompanied them- not at all. With a sigh that turned into a warm puff of air in the chilly temperature, she climbed the steps up to her apartment building, pulling her coat closer to her body. As she took the stairs one step at a time inside, a flash of copper and blue caught her attention, and she stopped, watching a figure dart up the stairs, her awe struck behind. 'That almost looked like…' She stopped her aimless staring and ran up as well, trailing the figure enough that she could see the end of the jacket he wore, the collar and his hair, but never his face, frustrating her beyond belief. The roof door opened and shut just as she stepped up to it, and she pushed it open without hesitation, stopping with heavy breaths as she stared at the empty roof-top, the blaring of car horns below her, and Forte looked down, tears streaming down her face.

~~~~

  Gone.

  So that's how she'd describe it, she finally decided- he was just gone. There was no hope, and it took her an awful three months, four therapists, countless sleepless nights, two dozen outbursts and two weeks in an asylum before she was too tired to fight the voices and the images, too bent on trying her make her life less miserable she strayed from the path, tired of living on the outskirts of society, always drawing herself away before she got too close, and she was damn tired of seeing his face in everything she did, his voice narrating what she wrote. She was so sick of it, so tired of it, so livid with the way she felt, that he wasn't here to make it all better because he wasn't her friend- she had almost forgot that part of the memories.

  He had tried to kill her.

  Forte crumbled up the drawings of the chambers, the faces, the cubes, the walls that had doodles on them, began tearing them up before she could look at them anymore, feel the guilt of doing so, and fighting back tears in the process, tears of anger because she had let herself succumb to her emotions over the past. Her therapist was right the entire time. Her sentient side that had been stored away after so many months of numbness was finally free, and the only thing she felt right now was burning passion, such absolute rage at her asinine ways. She was such a moron… Just like him.

  Her breaking point was broken. Vision was red, her mind blanked, and her fists tightened, blood boiling. She picked up her sketchbook and threw it across the room at a mirror, watching the glass shatter and a few pieces fall to the floor, reflection altered and disheveled as she swallowed down her tears, even if they already poured out of her eyes and down her pale cheeks. Forte curled her fist up and slammed it into what was left of the mirror, ignoring the splinters of pain, the blood that started flowing onto her arm, before she sank to her knees and sobbed, holding her chest as it hurt, the pain too great.

  She wasn't sure when she passed out from exhaustion, but when she woke up, she had first thought of it all as a dream, before she tried to move her right hand, finding it immobile from the cuts all up and down her knuckles and fingers and the shards of glass lying around her, her sketchbook nearby, surrounded by crumbled pieces of paper. Forte sat up carefully, wincing at her damaged hand then stood, stepping around the mirror shards and picking up what was left of her art book and flipping through it clumsily with her left hand, letting her right hand stay limp at her side. There were sketches of animals, plants and cars, random people in her college, the people she called "friends", and herself, stopping at the last and final page were one picture made it from the ones she was tearing up the night before, and she lingered her hand over it, careful not to smug the chalky pastel she used to color it. Tears blurred her vision and she set the book down on the table, turning away from it.

  She needed to clean up.

~~~~

  An hour later, the mirror's frame and the pieces of the glass itself were in the dumpster outside by the building, and her hand was wrapped tightly in white gauze, immobile from the bandaging she had done. Forte sighed with displeasure; no drawing for a while. She pulled the water from the stove and carefully poured it into her cup, letting the tea bag sit in the liquid for a moment as she turned to face the snow, eyes glazing over as she was lost in thought.

  Her entire body felt alive again, the voices and images gone, and even her mind felt clearer, like she could function again, correctly like she had before. Forte had never felt so clear, mind refreshed and body doing exactly what she wanted it to, weight lifted from her shoulders, like she was free of her past. She wasn't sure what had caused the emotional outburst she had had the night prior; all she knew was she felt better than ever, even if she couldn't move her hand, her knees were scratched up and there was a few blood stains on the carpet now. She didn't really care, because she felt alive and well again.

  She was brought back from her reverie as the phone rang, and she turned from the window and over to were it rested on the telephone hook on the wall, long cord hanging down. She picked up the receiver and held it up to her ear. "Hello?" she answered, grabbing her tea before she rested against the counter, and brought her mug to her lips.

  There wasn't even a moment between raising the mug and what happened next. The voice, it was so familiar, painfully sweet and fluid, thick as it oozed over her, leaving her breath caught in her throat and mind shut down. It was a surprise she didn't drop her tea. "'Ello? Is, this, um Fil…?"

  Everything, her past, her future, art school, the prior night, all the memories and voices, the pictures and the doodles, her therapist, the crazy house, her life, all came crashing back down at her, and she choked on her breathing, tears making words impossible. "W-"

  "Um… 'Ello? I didn't get the wrong number, did I?" he said again, worry in his voice, panicking over something so small like he was so good at doing. "Oh, if I did, I'll be so livid with that woman who had told me…"

  Forte's mouth opened and closed stupidly, and she was glad he couldn't see her. She set her mug down on the counter and sunk to the floor, holding her head in her right hand, disregarding the pain, and began to sob, first slow little hiccups and the tears, then her chest started to heave as a smile- the first real one in a long time- broke her straight-lined mouth and she started laughing softly, her heart breaking and mending, repairing and shattering all in this sweet moment of fate that was like poison to her.

  "Ah, is that, is that crying? Oh god, why are you crying?" his voice rose an octave as he panicked more. "D-Don't cry, because whatever you're crying over isn't worth it!"

  Her hysterical sobbing had turned into laughter as she held her hair back, hands buried into the chocolate locks, eyes closed tight as tears still poured out, and her stomach began to hurt, shoulders bouncing painfully into the counter's side. She couldn't believe it- after all this time… "Oh… Oh my god…" she finally said, her voice still holding the joy she had felt moments before, an euphoric feeling just erupting in her chest as she lay her head back against the old wood, mocha eyes setting on the ceiling above.

  "Um… Are you okay?"

  She smiled, even if he couldn't see it. "I am… I'm just fine… How have you been, Wheatley?"