As I get closer to the beach, the sun starts to burn my skin and turn it red. I kept walking away from Arine because my heart was so full of emotion, and I was afraid that if we kept talking in this state of mind, I would say something inappropriate to her. While I understand that I have no right to feel this way towards her because I am nothing to her, the memory of what happened in the cliff still stings me to my very core.
'Nilliam...' she said to me. 'Nilliam, please listen to me first.' She's standing right behind me.
As I continued walking, I didn't give her another glance. Then I suddenly feel Arine's arms tangled around my hips, hugging me from behind.
'I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' she sobs, tears streaming down her cheeks.
I come to a complete halt and pose like a statue. I can feel her face leaning against my back, despite the fact that her arms are still tangled around my hips.
'Stop it, Arine; let's talk about it another time, just... not now.' I responded to her.
After a while, she says, 'I... I like you, too. I like you a lot, Nilliam,' she continued.
I can feel my heart racing in my chest when I hear Arine say those words. My brows furrow and I feel the pressure in my lips as I grow increasingly irritated with her. I grab her arms and pull them away from my hips before turning around to confront her with my words once more.
'You like me, too? You f*cking like me?!' I burst out laughing. I'm not sure I'll be able to feel what I'm feeling right now.
I can feel my rage rising inside of me as I look into her tear-filled eyes. Someone, please, put a stop to my pounding heart.
Then she said, 'Please, believe me, Nilliam,' and she sounded sincere.
'I admire you, Arine, but I wasn't expecting you to be this way.'
She looked at me with wide eyes, as if confused by what I had just said.
'What do you mean by that?' Despite the fact that her tears continue to fall down her cheeks.
'How come you like too when you're in a relationship with someone else?'
'What?!' she exclaimed, stunned.
'Arine, stop playing games with me. Stop acting like you're innocent when you're a b*tch!!' I couldn't hold back my rage any longer, so I let it all out in a single breath.
Arine then slapped me across my face. My cheeks were burning, and I could feel it in my skin as it happened.
'This is done.' I uttered as I looked into her eyes.
This is totally over. Following that, I turn away from her and walk away at a breakneck pace.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I can still feel the rage building up inside of me when I get home. It burns on the inside, and it burns very deeply. When I first entered the house, I noticed my mother crying quietly in the living room. She quickly wipes away her tears, not wanting me to see them, but it's too late. I've seen them already. I hear her crying. When I see my mother crying in the corner of the living room, the rage I was feeling within me starts to fade.
'What happened? Ma, why are you crying?' I inquired, but all she had to say was a smile.
'It's nothing, anak,' my mother says. 'I was just... something caught inside my eyes.'
What is she lying about right now? I don't feel good about this situation.
'Please, Ma, don't lie to me. Tell me what happened?' I asked once again.
'Nothing, really,' she stated. 'How was your day at the beach?' She asked abruptly. 'Did you get any time to write in peace there?' she added.
'Ma, don't change the subject!' I said, slightly raising my voice. 'Can you tell me why you were crying?' I saw you! I muttered, 'Did Dad come here today?'
'No, no, anak, not at all,' she said, 'He didn't...' But because I know she's lying, I get up from the sofa and look around.
She's lying to me about something right now. She's covering for my father again. I take a few steps back and look around the living room, her room, and the kitchen. There was a cigarette butt in our kitchen trash can, which I discovered. My suspicions were right; my father was here.
'Ma, tell me what he did to you this time?' I'm getting enraged all over again.
'Look, he... he had simply wanted to say hello to us', she explained.
'But, ma? Why are you protecting him?' I have told you, you must tell me if he visits here again.'
'I'm so sorry, anak.' She drew closer to me and took my hands in hers.
'Well, then, why were you crying if he was just saying hello? What went wrong this time? Did he hurt you?'
I move in closer to my mother to check for bruises on her body or on her face. I was once again correct. Her arms have bruises on them, which I perfectly see.
'No, no, anak,' he says, 'You don't understand.' My mother's voice was starting to shake. In my ears, I can hear her tense voice trembling.
'Maaaaa!!! I yelled. 'Stop doing this to yourself!' I raise my voice as I feel a surge of rage inside of me.
This f*cking bastard has come over here solely to inflict pain on my mother. He's causing me a great deal of frustration right now. My fist wanted to punch him across his f*cking face.
'Where is he? Ma, where is he right now?'
I want to beat the living hell out of him and teach him a lesson so he never returns here and never hurt my mother again.
'Nilliam, anak... please calm down.'
'How is he able to do this to you? I thought he's done doing this?'
'Nilliam...' my mom sobbed.
'I'm going to put him to death! I'm going to kill him!'
This is becoming too much for me to bear. I can't seem to keep the rage inside of me in balance. I'm looking for something to destroy. I want to beat someone up.
'Aaaaahhh!' I let out a shrill scream.
I stomp on the sofa in front of me, kicking it hard enough that it moves. Even the middle table next to me took a thrashing and was completely destroyed. I pick up the flower vase and throw it through the wall with great pleasure. I slam the wall with my fists and kick it with all my might. I'm not in any physical pain; all I can feel right now is rage. I continue to punch the wall despite the fact that my fist is bleeding. I don't care about anything anymore, and I couldn't give a damn about my surroundings. All I want to do is get all of this rage out of my system. Everything I want to do is... Everything I want to do is...
I then turn my attention to my mother. I completely lose sight of the fact that she is still there, witnessing his son's rage. I dashed to her aid when I noticed her arm was bleeding. My attention was drawn to a blood-splattered piece of glass that had come from the flower vase that I had thrown through the wall. When it struck my mother's arms, she bled profusely.
As I applied pressure to her bleeding cut, my voice broke out in 'Maaa... ma.'
I dash to the kitchen to get a towel to apply pressure to my mother's bleeding arm. F*ck! What exactly did I do?
'I'm sorry, ma, I'm sorry. 'I didn't do it....'
My mother was just staring at me. Her eyes and face were somehow communicating with me. They appear to be terrified or frightened. I look her in the eyes again, and I can see the fear in her expression. I've seen that kind of terror before. It was the fear she felt every time my father beat her to death.
As I sat in the corner of the room, I was so disappointed in myself. Being hurt again is the only thing I don't want my mother to go through. I don't want her to go through the agony that my father caused her AGAIN. I don't want it to be able to enter her system AGAIN. But wait a minute, what did I just do? I was like my father earlier. I JUST HURT MY MOM!
I stood up and dashed out the door to my spot uphill behind our house, which was a quick dash outside the house. At this point in my life, I couldn't bear the thought of looking into my mother's eyes. I start crying as I sit on the bench I built, my chest resting on my knees and my arms wrapped around me. Right now, I'm ashamed of myself. I'm disappointed in myself, and I'm so STUPID FOR DOING THAT IN FRONT OF MY MOTHER. Even though I tried everything I could not become like my father, but a single burst of rage that I felt inside turned me into a monster in an instant.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I stayed there until the sun went down, still thinking about what I had done earlier in the day to my mother. When I look up into the sky, it appears to be devoid of anything. The moon isn't visible, and neither are the stars.
'Where did they go?' I thought to myself.
The wind, which I normally feel whenever I come here, does not appear to be present today, which is unusual for me. Even the crickets and small bugs that I am used to hearing at this hour have gone deafeningly quiet, or perhaps they have simply abandoned me here. My emotions are being suffocated by the deafening silence.
'Do they have the same feelings about themselves that I do? Even the rage?'
Right now, I'm feeling extremely lonely. I'm completely exhausted. Everything appears to have deserted me today.
'It feels so... cold inside of me,' I thought. I kept my voice low.
I'm conflicted about my emotions and my own thoughts and feelings. They are fighting a battle within me. The voice inside my head tells me that it's okay to be this way from time to time, that it's normal, but I believe that everything is wrong with me. Being this type of person, in my opinion, is completely wrong. The fact that I'm feeling this way suggests that something is wrong within me, that something within me is telling me to stop feeling this way. And there's a part of me that agrees. It's starting to irritate me. I don't want to be in this mental state any longer. This is not the type of person I want to be in the future. I used to think that being emotional was a blessing because it allowed me to understand how others felt or even how non-living things felt because I could understand them simply by looking at them, but I was completely wrong. On the inside, it's exhausting. Having so much emotion bottled up inside of me is exhausting. It makes me lose myself, and it makes me feel nothing for feeling so much all at once.