They Break Up At The End

By Solé Elise

Before 

A car full of teenagers on the road to nowhere in particular. Some song with lyrics that no one really knows, but they can all relate to for some odd reason, blasting on the radio. 

A boy behind the wheel, whose name I can’t really seem to remember, holding the thigh of a girl in the passenger seat whose personality is that of a ghost, unknown and unseen. 

Another nameless boy accompanies me in the backseat. He is faceless, not memorable- words flow from him; he thinks he is speaking to me. His words fall upon deaf ears, as my attention is to the couple in the front. 

Their faces are not memorable as they laugh and whisper sweet nothings to each other. With every laugh, their love warms the moving vehicle. I watch them with great fascination, curiosity looming. 

~ 

Time and time again I do this. I get in the car with the people I call friends. Friends whose names I can’t remember, faceless and in love. We do the same thing, our days never ending and on repeat. They seem to be content with the normalcy of nothing that they call life. 

Each of my three friends, in relationships and in love. So in love, in fact, that it seems to be all they talk about. Each one of them, blinded by the concept of forever. 

The boy who accompanies me in the back speaks of a girl whose name I cannot remember.

God, what is her name? 

He tells me how they met, explaining that it was love at first sight. It was something along the lines of the library or the local coffee shop, I’m not really sure. He tells me how she has dimples, her skin is the color of chocolate, her hair is dyed red, and her eyes, well he went on about her eyes for days. Her eyes, something I will never forget, eyes that I have never seen with my own, only to be sculpted with my mind. If I remember correctly, and I do, her eyes are the color of honey when the sun hits them just right. Her eyes, he says, remind him of the sweet iced tea his grandmother would make on a hot summer’s day. Her left eye has exactly six freckles underneath it. You can only see them if you are paying attention and are close enough.

The couple in the front, two of my three friends, are in love with one another. 

When they met me, saving me from being a nobody, as they like to say; they were already together. They were waiting for the day they both turned eighteen, planning to run away and get married. He wanted three kids, she wanted four. She wanted a home, not a house- in the middle of nowhere with green grass and a white picket fence. He really only wanted what she wanted. 

They had already decided that at such a young age, they were each other’s forever. In their minds and in their hearts, they were to be together forever. 

~ 

The car comes to a stop at a house that I recognize as my parents, surprising me. I don’t remember where we had gone, or what we did, or even when we had left. I get out and mumble my goodbyes, receiving similar statements from everyone in return. 

The car drives away taking my three friends along with it, each going to their own homes.

I exhale, my breath becoming a cloud of smoke in the cold January air. Snow crunches under my shoes, each one louder than the last. I look around, there isn’t a soul or sound in sight, not even a random stray cat. The sky is dark, not even a twinkle of the nearest star, there is no airplane, no wind, no anything. Everything appeared to just be as it had always been- stagnant. 

~ 

Walking into the house, not a home, but a house; I could hear the snores of the dog, the clicking hands of a clock that I can never seem to find. 

I can’t remember what time it was, but it was late. I’m unsure of when I made it upstairs, telling my sister's mom that I made it back. I don’t even remember putting my pajamas on or dreading school the very next day. 

But if nothing else I do remember my phone vibrating, indicating that I got a text. As I lazily looked at the screen, the girl who sat in the passenger seat texted me. A text which I didn’t know at the time would change the course of not just my life, but everyone’s around me. Who knew that three little words could have such an everlasting effect. 

We broke up. 

Wait…what? I was just with them both. I watched as they laughed and whispered sweet nothings to each other. Is that all it was? A whole bunch of nothing? They were just in love, they love each other. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the words that were on my screen. A million questions and thoughts raced through my mind. 

Still shocked, I called my friend, each question searing my tongue. She answered on the first ring, I couldn’t even utter a quick hello before I heard crying. I don’t know if crying is even the right word. She started speaking, she was trying to explain the how and the why. I could only

make out every other word. The rest was lost in her not being able to breathe, her screaming out in pain as if someone stabbed her and twisted the knife. 

Minutes, maybe hours had passed, I’m not really sure. I stayed silent on the other line, it wasn’t the time for questions. My heart ached for her. After some time had passed, I heard her bedroom door open, I assume it was her bedroom, someone came in, a woman, her voice laced with concern, saying something along the lines of “breathe, you need to breathe baby.” 

More time had passed, I can’t remember how much, but I ended the phone call. Someone more equipped than me was handling the situation. 

My head hurts as I fall asleep, the question of how long is forever at the front of my mind. 

~ 

My alarm clock goes off, reminding me that I am not yet free of responsibility. Getting ready to go to a school whose name I can’t remember with teachers whose voices seem to sound like waves crashing. Autopilot is automatically switched on as I get ready in the morning. I never remember how long it takes me to get ready, or what I wore or if I grabbed an apple as I walked out the door. 

At some point I make it to school. Many of my peers arrive as I do, 99% of them I do not know. 99% of them faceless, I walk by them as if they are a blur. 

Class to class, none of which I learn anything that will be useful in the real world. I watch faceless boys attempt to flirt with faceless girls who pretend to be interested out of politeness. Somehow I find myself in the cafeteria, food on a tray, that I have no memory of receiving. I watch my peers interact with one another, my eyes going from person to person. A boy I recognize, one of my three friends, the one who accompanies me in the backseat, walks towards me. 

What is his name? 

I mumble a quick hello, looking down, my tray once full of food is now empty. When did I eat it? 

Looking back up at him, he starts to shake his head. He doesn’t exactly look at me or at anything, he just starts speaking; his eyes glassy, as if in a trance or perhaps deep in thought. At first it was barely a whisper. I held my breath to listen and all too quickly his voice began to rise. The other faceless students looked at us and then quickly looked away. The embarrassment evident on my face. The embarrassment quickly faded and was soon replaced with nothing but shock. 

We broke up. She broke up with me.

He repeated it over and over again. She broke up with me. And again he said, she broke up with me. She broke up with me. His voice cracked a little every time he said it. Before I could even come up with a reply, he walked away. 

My mouth slightly opened, but nothing came out. The only thought on my mind was, what about her eyes? 

I don’t know how long I sat there, or much after that, I think a bell had rung and then a blur of faceless children walked around me in all directions. 

I blinked, once maybe twice and suddenly I was hearing the hands of a clock tick, the same clock that I can never seem to find. I was inside of a house, not a home, telling my sister's mom that I’m back from school. 

~ 

Blinking again, I find my head hurting. All three of my friends, so in love just the night before, find themselves to be alone? I don’t really know the right word for it. Alone doesn’t seem adequate. Neither does empty or hurt. 

Broken. Broken is right, broken is enough. 

I cannot understand how this could have happened. Love is supposed to be forever, it doesn’t just end. So I don’t understand how this may have happened to them. I have never felt so strongly about anyone, as they have. Maybe that is why I don’t understand. Love just seems so foreign. 

I grew up watching movies where love always conquered all. The knight would swoop the princess off her feet and they would ride off into the sunset. The boy would profess his undying love for the girl next door, they would end up living happily ever after. The same thing happened in all my storybooks. 

Then I guess real life settles in. Love appears to not conquer all. It appears to fail those who swear by it. 

~ 

Days, maybe weeks, had passed and I hadn’t heard from any of my three friends. Each of them dealing with heartbreak in their own way. Too much time couldn’t have passed though, it was still cold outside, it was still January. Maybe it was the middle of January or near the end. I can never be too sure. 

Everyday became one day, the mornings, the afternoons and the evenings blended together. I lived the same day over and over again. My faceless peers blurred around me in the halls of a school whose name I cannot remember. My teacher's wave crashing voices did nothing but crash.

During 

Blinking, I was in the gym, all I heard was the sound of waves crashing. Faceless boys and girls talking to each other. A majority of the conversation seemed to be about the snow outside, they were wondering if it was going to stop snowing. 

If they had paid attention to the hour by hour weather forecast, they would know today would be the last day for snow. 

My eyes darted from peer to peer, each one faceless, my ears listened to every conversation around me. My heartbeat was loud enough that I could hear it. I held my breath and my heart stopped beating just so I could listen to those around me. 

Suddenly in a blur, I saw a face. To say I was shocked is an understatement. The only time I ever saw anyone’s face is when I was with the people I lived with or when I looked in the mirror. Even then sometimes, I was a faceless blur too. 

I followed the face with my eyes, my head turning as I watched it. I was scared to blink, thinking I might lose it. Trying so hard to blink, I did exactly what I wanted not to do. I blinked. And with the one/third of a second it took to close and open my eye, the face was gone. 

 I started to panic. My heart started racing, and my head started pounding, there wasn’t enough oxygen in the world to keep me breathing. Quickly I started looking for the face, my feet moving before my mind could. 

In what seemed like hours, it couldn’t have been more than two minutes, I saw it again. I saw the face. It was attached to a girl, three maybe four inches taller than me. Her hands were in the pocket of her hoodie. She was talking to what appeared to be a friend. She laughed at something her friend had said, her pink braces showing. 

She pulled her phone out of her pocket, changing the song. I couldn’t help but wonder what she was listening to. She pushed her left airpod deeper into her ear, like she wanted to be able to feel the music. 

Waves started crashing together, a teacher was talking, possibly giving instruction on today's meaningless activity, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from her. As if on cue, like she could feel my burning stare, she looked away from her friend and directly at me. 

We stared at each other, as if we were the only two people in the room. 

I was always told that you can’t feel the Earth spin on its axis and that if it stopped spinning you would go flying across the world. Whoever said that to me, was both correct and incorrect at the exact same time.

I have always been able to feel when the earth was spinning. When our eyes met, I felt the Earth stop spinning, I did not go flying across the world. I stumbled a little, like I had an accidental misstep. Almost as if gravity let me go, just for a singular moment. It was such a small movement that you could only see it if you were looking, and I mean really looking. 

Apparently, she was really looking. She didn’t tear her eyes away from mine, the corners of her mouth tugged upwards, ever so slightly. She saw, she knew, and she felt. 

Everyone around us stopped walking, talking, and breathing- it was almost as if they weren’t there at all. Call it fate, the universe or an accurate weather report, but the snow stopped falling. Everything around us just stopped. It was almost as if someone paused the show, scared of what might happen next. 

I do not remember how long we stood there staring at each other. Seconds, minutes, hours, or maybe days have gone by, I will never be sure. As quickly as everything stopped, I blinked or she blinked, maybe we blinked at the exact same time, everything started moving again. 

When I tore my eyes from hers the world around me was different. The boys and girls, my peers around me all had faces. They weren’t faceless blurs walking past me. Each of them had names, families and personalities. 

My teacher was across the room talking to a girl, with brown eyes and bushy eyebrows. Words came out of his mouth, coherent, and not the crashing waves that I was used to hearing. 

My whole world had changed in a second. This is what he must have been talking to me about. The boy who accompanied me in the backseat, his name suddenly coming to mind, Marcus, this is what he was telling me. This is what love at first sight looks and feels like. 

~ 

Oh. So this is love. 

I don’t know this girl, I had never met her nor have I heard her voice. But; I looked into her eyes, and they told me everything I ever needed to know about her. She quickly consumed my every thought and my every breath. 

But how can I be sure that this is love? More times than not, feelings are not facts. Feelings are a reflection of your thoughts and experiences. This is why, everyone can have different feelings about the same experience. 

Truly though, I don’t think everyone else in the room knew what just happened. No one other than she and I knew what had just occurred. The rest of my peers carried on their previous conversations or continued playing whatever games they were playing before. It was almost as if someone unpaused the show, nerves calm and ready to see what’s next. 

~

Unlocking the door to my house, not a home, but a house, I am met with complete silence. I didn’t hear the dog snoring or the clock ticking. Going from room to room, each one empty. The silence was almost unnerving, especially after today. 

I desperately needed to tell someone what happened. I needed to ask questions and I needed immediate answers. 

Marcus. Not only would Marcus listen, but he would be able to answer my questions and tell me if my feelings were true. 

 I quickly grabbed my phone and dialed his number. 

1….Pick up 

2….Please answer your phone 

My leg started shaking with anticipation. 

3….”Hey Chica.” Thank goodness he answered. His voice was light and airy, almost as if I caught him in the middle of a laugh. He sounded different from the last time we spoke. 

I didn’t even utter a greeting. Very quickly, I told him what happened. I explained to him in great detail the events of today. I talked as fast as I possibly could, scared I would forget something or leave out an important detail. I told him that after I tore my eyes away from hers, I looked for her everywhere. My eyes followed her every movement for the rest of class. Even after class, I looked for her in the halls. My heart raced every single time I saw her. 

Marcus didn’t say a single word. He made the occasional, “mhm” or “mmm" to show he was listening. He let me ramble on about a girl, whose name I don’t even know. 

With my closing statement, I let out a rough exhale. He didn’t say anything for a long minute. I didn’t dare say anything either. The only sound that could be heard was the hammering of my heart and our steady breaths, every once in a while syncing together. 

“Vi, it sounds like you already have it all figured out. You answered a question that you didn’t even ask out loud.” His tone was light but serious. He didn’t say anything else. We sat there on the phone, just breathing. His statement, the name, and his tone completely caught me off guard. 

Vi…who is Vi? 

Oh. I am Vi, because my name is Violet. This whole time I’ve had a name and it is Violet. My friend, his name is Marcus- and together we are Violet and Marcus. We are only one-half of a whole. The other half of us is Theodore, but everyone calls him Theo. Then there is Samantha. Together the four of us make a whole. 

~

Wiping the steamy mirror with my hand, my reflection stared back at me. I am, for once, not a faceless blur. I have features and a name, I have a purpose. My friends, they also have names, they have lives and families. Most importantly, they have faces. Faces that I know and remember. 

Violet. The letters of my name swarming around me, coming together to create a whole. Violet. My name is Violet. 

“Violet. Violet. Violet. Violet. Violet. Violet. Violet. Violet. Violet. Violet,” I whisper my name over and over again, scared that I’ll forget it. 

The conversation with Marcus replayed over and over again in my mind. I answered a question that I didn’t even ask out loud. I knew the answer all along. In the case of the girl whose name I do not know, whose eyes told me everything I ever needed to know about her, I do truly love her, in love with her, something along the lines of love at first sight. 

~ 

January came and went. As did February. Each day of the 28 day month was filled with visions of a girl that I do not know. Everywhere I looked, there she was. I don’t know if it was peer coincidence or the fact that I sought her out everywhere I went, but there she was. 

Marcus, Theo, and Samantha had all known about her. She’s all I seem to talk about. I have never actually spoken to her. They know that too. 

It seems that they all cast their own heartbreak aside to help me. Theo. Samantha. They are no longer together, no longer Theo and Samantha, sit on opposite sides of me. Theo, staring right through me to look at Samantha. Samantha looks at me, not through me but at me, she acts as if Theo isn’t there at all. I believe that he is waiting for her to look at him, hoping to see if she still holds their future in her eyes. Marcus doesn’t think I notice, but as I speak, he stares off into space. His eyes swelling up with tears, shaking his head, bringing himself back to reality. Every few minutes he does this, as if on repeat. Hailey, the girl with honey brown eyes, the one that Marcus often finds himself thinking about- I knew her name is Hailey. 

For 28 days straight, my three friends told me to talk to her. All I’m supposed to do is ask her for her name. Strike up a conversation they say.

~ 

March is one of those months that no one really seems to care about. It is near the end of winter and near the new life that spring brings. I don’t think anyone looks forward to the month of March. No one looks at the date and says “Oh look, it's March, how wonderful.” No one says that. When April comes around, don’t ask what I did in March because I will not know. 

March. March. March.

Days. Days. Days. 

For 13 consecutive days in the month of March, I’ve seen her. This makes 56 days in total. I’ve seen her for 56 days. We have not spoken, yet we share the same room. For 56 days she watched me watch her. We watch each other, constantly playing the game of who will speak first. 

Day 57 (14th of March) - Again, nothing. We watch each other from opposite sides of the room. It’s almost as if we are on parallel planes of time. The room is spinning around us, the two of us walking towards each other, yet never quite meeting. Every time we get close, fingertips close enough to touch, the room starts to spin in the opposite direction. We start to walk backwards, never quite touching, not really ever meeting. 

Day 58 (15th of March) - A girl approached me. Not the girl I was hoping for, but a girl nonetheless. Delilah, her name is Delilah, she tells me all her friends call her Lilah. She claims that I can call her that since we are now friends. “Lilah” and I are not friends. 

Day 59 (16th of March) - Delilah goes on and on, she talks about something she learned in church, just the night before. She looks at me as she is speaking and I’m looking through her, not at her but through her. I give no indignation that I am listening to the words that are coming out of her mouth. My eyes are trained on the girl whose eyes are trained on me from across the room. 

Day 60 (17th of March) - I like the number six. The number six is composite, it can be perfectly divided by the numbers two and three. Three is what an eight makes when cut vertically. Zero is a prime number, it is perfectly symmetrical horizontally and vertically. Zero is also a perfect square. This makes sixty the perfect number. March is the third month of the year, today is the seventeenth day of the third month of the year. Seventeen and three add to make twenty, twenty is even and composite, it is also a perfect number. 60 is safe, making it the most sacred. 

Delilah is once again speaking to me, something about what she learned in church the night before. This time though breaking the routine, she stops speaking when she realizes I’m not listening. 

“What are you looking at?” she asked me, not in an accusatory tone, but in a curious one. 

I don’t feel obligated to answer, so I don’t. Delilah is not my friend. Quickly though, she realizes her question will not be answered. So instead she follows my stare. Delilah is not stupid, a little ditzy but not stupid. She knows who I’m staring at, and she knows they are also staring at me. Delilah might not know why we are staring at each other but I’m sure she feels the tension. Back 

and forth, back and forth, Delilah’s eyes go from left to right, trying to figure out how to assess the situation. 

“Oh.” she says. All she says is oh. Her statement caught me off guard, making me break concentration, forcing me to look at her. Delilah doesn’t look at me but I know she can feel me looking at her.

Moving quickly and efficiently, Delilah left her spot from next to me and worked her way across the room. My mind didn’t register what was happening in time. By the time my mind and reality caught up, Delilah was standing across from her. All too soon, lips began moving, words, sentences, and paragraphs came from Delilah’s mouth. Completely out of earshot, I couldn’t hear a single word being said. 

Panic and fear pierced my veins. There is absolutely no telling what Delilah was saying. Against my better judgement, I started to make my way across the room to them. Almost as if the universe knew my intentions, the room started spinning. My peers around me began to disappear. One by one they all vanished and silence ensued. 

As I made my way across the room, the closer I got to her, the room started to spin backwards. My heart dropped, the universe wasn’t going to let me make my way to her. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes, I can’t go another day without hearing her voice or touching her hand. 

She looked away from Delilah and looked at me. She looked at me directly in my eyes, her eyes never moving away from mine. She could sense my fear and panic. She understood, she knew, she saw, and most importantly she felt. 

Without a second thought, leaving Delilah mid-sentence, she made her way to me. The universe pushed her back as well, but she didn’t stop. She kept making her way to me, closer and closer she came. 

Closing my eyes tight, I just wanted this nightmare to be over. The closer she got, the harder the universe pushed her back. 

She was never going to make her way to me. A single tear falling 

Suddenly the smell of sandalwood filled my nose, a warm presence attached to it. “Hi,” a soft but raspy voice said. 

I couldn’t open my eyes, not yet. There’s no way she’s next to me. This could be the universe playing some sick joke. “Open your eyes Violet,” she rasped out, almost as if it pained her to say. Almost as if she screamed for me and I could not hear her. 

Slowly opening my eyes, the most beautiful girl I ever had the pleasure of laying eyes on, stood in front of me. “Hi”, she said.

After 

It appears that no one talks about the morning after a breakup. No one talks about how eerie the silence t is. The house was just so silent. My sister, her soft snores, sleeping peacefully in the room across the hall from me. I could hear the dishwasher ending its cycle. I could hear the birds chirping as the sun rose. The sun still rose, and the birds still chirped. The joggers in my neighborhood, doing their morning jog without a care in the world, not breaking routine. 

I woke up alone. 

No one was on the phone with me. 

No good morning text. 

No, ‘I know you're asleep but’…..text in the middle of the night. 

The Earth was still spinning. The world was still going on, just as my own personal world had just ended. 

My eyes glistened over and one by one the tears fell. My breath hitched as a loud sob escaped from my lips. My mind started racing, the events of the night before, replaying over and over again in my mind. Suddenly, I wasn’t able to breathe. My sobs became broken and loud screams. 

I couldn’t focus on the world around me, I didn’t even hear my sister’s mom, my mom, our mom, come rushing into my room with my sister following close behind. 

The tears wouldn’t stop falling and I couldn’t catch my breath. A soft warm hand, one that I recognized to be my mother’s, rubbed soothing circles into my back. As comforting as her intentions were, they were everything but. Her hand felt like a hot branding iron on my skin. Her hand did not belong there, I wasn’t hers to touch. 

Pulling me into what she thought was a comforting warm embrace, my mother rubbed circles into my back and rocked us back and forth. 

Back and forth. 

Back and forth. 

Everywhere she touched me felt like it was on fire. She didn’t say anything for a long while. I kept trying to speak. I kept trying to explain to her that she was hurting me. I kept trying to tell her that her touch was burning me and I felt like I was on fire. I tried to form words and sentences, each coming out jumbled and incoherent. I tried to tell her what was happening and the things that happened the night before.

“Breathe Violet. Don’t say anything, don’t try to speak. Deep breathes baby.” Over and over again she repeated it. Back and forth, back and forth she rocked me. Almost like I was a newborn baby, I started to calm down. My eyes started to dry, and the sobs and the screams became quieter and quieter until there was nothing just silence. 

Removing myself from my mother’s embrace, I closed my eyes and exhaled. All I could see was her. 

Inhale 

Our first kiss comes to mind. I could see it clear as day, like a movie. 

Exhale 

The image of the two of us holding hands, laying in bed, and laughing came to mind. Inhale 

Us fighting and arguing suddenly appeared in my head. 

Exhale 

Me walking away from her. 

Inhale 

With a shaky exhale and an accelerated heart rate, I opened my eyes. Instantly they glossed over, tears threatening to fall. 

I looked around my room, my mom looked at me and my sister stood across the room, arms crossed against her chest looking at me. No one said anything. The three of us, in the same room just coexisting. Yet, I have never felt so alone.

About the Author

Solé Elise, Virginia State University

Solé is an aspiring novelist. Her biggest goal in life is to be apart of something greater than herself. She wants those who feel lost and unheard, to read her stories and realize that they are heard and seen.