The Fall
I turned eighteen at Bar 25. The photographer and I were grinding against each other, both high, moving to the endless beat. When we opened our eyes he headed to the bathroom and two girls followed. My world was full of noise and colors and chaos, so I followed them. I pushed the door open and saw him there, his pants undone, his face twisted, the girls laughing and grabbing at him. When he came back to the dance floor I looked at him straight and said, Can we go home? I’m tired.
We got back to his place and I couldn’t stop crying. Why do I do this?
I screamed at him and grabbed anything within reach, threw it. I love you, you asshole, but you’re a coward. A freeloader. A hypocrite. You hate this world but you live off it. You hate these people but you fuck them. You hate drugs but you keep doing them.
I threw something too hard. It hit the wall and white powder exploded everywhere. He sat on the bed and stared at me without saying anything. Nothing means anything to you. Not me, not love, nothing. How am I supposed to open myself up to someone who feels nothing?
I’m not answering that,
he said. The rage kept building in me.
I went to the kitchen and grabbed the biggest knife. Back in the bedroom I screamed and stabbed the pillows, the mattress, over and over. He stood against the wall smoking, watching, smiling a little. Feathers everywhere, white dust floating through the room and landing on me. I have to leave,
I said, and let the knife drop. I threw some clothes in my backpack, looked at him one last time, and walked out.
I ran down the stairs screaming and crying. Out the door and toward the U-Bahn. From somewhere above, a voice called Sina, where are you going?
I didn’t look back. Down in the tunnel the noise stopped and something in me went quiet. I could hear my own heartbeat.
When we fought he wanted to finish it in my body. I closed my eyes and saw chaos, colors spinning. The tears kept coming. How had I gotten here? Love and pain dressed themselves in velvet and buried my broken body in broken dreams. He’d come into my life with sweet words and a rebel’s strength and now he was destroying everything I’d ever believed in—out of spite, out of carelessness, out of fear.
Nothing hit me harder as a young person than the realization that I couldn’t fix his pain. Not with love, not with my body. Small grey fears ate at me from the inside. Even the happy moments felt lonely and thin. I spent my whole life telling myself I was special. That balance would find me. That the girl in the mirror with bright eyes had something beautiful waiting. My tears tasted bitter but I smiled anyway. And when I felt the wind of the train moving through the tunnel, I opened my eyes and let go.