1
Ava
Year: 2097. Location: Earth.
Are you content with your life? Will you ever feel brave enough to run away and live out your own story?
I come to these support meetings often. Sometimes twice. Maybe three times a week if I’m feeling extra masochistic.
The stale room, bright lights, and fearful tears from the others forces me out of my comfort zone. They pause, glaring back at me like I’m their anchor…
Like I can ease their pain.
I can only give them encouragement. I can be there to love them. But at the end of the day, I still don’t have anyone to love me.
So I keep returning, hoping things will change.
All the meetings do is force me to reflect, to look back on the uneventful life I’ve lived. To remember the people I’ve lived it with. A canyon of emotions, laid bare.
I relate to everyone’s pain. I absorb their tears like a fucking sponge.
But these meetings are not a place of clarity. Not really.
They are simply there to block out the noise. That’s it. A plain and simple therapy session without the obligation of any genuine change. These people accept me for who I am. It doesn’t matter how much I speak, how much I let them know about me.
Abundant words are not created equal. Everything is a line of code. There are a million ways to think of your life as a void.
Leftover are a bunch of clichés, apologies from others, and phrases such as, “life is complicated. Thank you for sharing.”
My father hurt me emotionally. That’s the truth.
He made it so that my heart was empty. Made it seem like I wasn’t meant for this world. He told me I couldn’t be loved every damn day of his life…
And then he did me a favor. He died. He left me, so I could travel forty miles a week to hear others speak to my pain.
I don’t hold grudges.
His funeral was tough. There was no clarity there either. Respectful, courteous words guarded his tomb. Words that kept his secrets safe. In his coffin, he looked meek and mild, just as God intended him to be.
But I knew better.
That doesn’t mean I didn’t love him. It just means that life is complicated.
There are no words to describe how I feel. Alone, maybe. Desperate to find a companion, definitely. I look for better words, searching for answers that might help me ease the pain, yet I find nothing.
I feel numb.
As much as I want to blame him, all men have let me down. Boyfriends were not any kinder.
Who wants to love someone who goes to support meetings all the time? Someone who codes for a living? I’ll tell you who. Not too many.
My boyfriends looked at me like another toy. Fresh out of the box. I degraded over some heavy use, and every single one of them left me to rust.
Not that it matters. I’m better off alone.