06

She washed her hands three times, staring at her gloomy reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her face is so tired: dark half-moons border her grey eyes. Blowing a wisp of hair out of her ashen face, she turns away from the poignant image of the twenty five year old. 

Clarissa was so lost in her thoughts, that she didn't hear Emma come into the bathroom. 

"so, I'm taking it last night was fun." She had spoke seeing Clarissa's image. She was still in her dress from the night before, it had seemed that she fell asleep in her clothes, as the dress was slightly wrinkled. 

She didn't understand it. Last night? Where was she last night? 

Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion as she turned to Emma. "Last night? What about it?" She had asked her. 

Clarissa didn't understand Emma at times. Sometimes it felt like she was a hologram, she couldn't exactly explain why seeing as though Emma was a human being. Her voice sounded so angelic too, kind of like those audios that help you go to sleep at night. 

"Well, the bar." Emma clarified as she sent a smirk over towards Clarissa's direction. 

"The bar? No..? Wasn't I still on the couch last night watching disney movies with you?" The girl had asked as she felt honestly confused about what had happened. That was the last she remembered anyways. Her head was throbbing, as she felt slightly disjointed. She had no recollection that she even went out last night, so why was Emma making things up? 

"Well that was after you came home." Emma told her as she walked out of the bathroom, and into the living area. Clarissa had followed. 

"I'm sure it'll come to me at some point, maybe I'm too hungover. I am feeling a bit sick right now." She had told her friend and walked towards the fridge to see what there was to eat. She opened the door, and frowned seeing as the fridge was almost vacant. "I think I'll go to the store to get some stuff, do you need anything?" 

"Not really, i'm headed work shortly." 

"Ah.. okay." 

And with that, Clarissa had went into her room to change into something comfier. She threw on a beige sweater, and jeans as it was starting to become winter, it would become colder there in New York, she wrapped a scarf around her neck as she was walking out the front door with what she had needed.

Talking about things was difficult for her, specially if it came to her parents. They didn't really believe in her as much as they could have, or supported her with her decision when she had moved to New York from California with Laurence at the time. It seemed almost so long ago, since she had moved, but really it wasn't. Her parents had originally wanted her to stay, but after when her father passed away mysteriously two years prior, she didn't want to be their with only her mother and her step-father, whom married her mother shortly after her father's passing. He was an okay guy, but she did prefer her father. She always had a special bond with him, was more closer to him than her mom anyways.

It had seemed almost sudden, everything was moving and happening so quickly at that point that she had wished it slowed down. Her mother was getting older, more crankier. She could have sworn one time her step-father wanted to put her in an elderly home, seeing as now her mother could barely take care of herself. 

There was a lot of yelling that day, when she had told them she was moving with Laurence to a more buisier state across the world. She couldn't blame them though, considering now that she was on her own without any moral support from the person she cared about. But she knew she couldn't go back to them. Not yet at least. She didn't want that satisfaction of seeing her step-fathers reaction if she told them about what happened with Laurence. 

Unless they already knew.

No, that was impossible. 

Clarissa heaved a heavy sigh, and drove on the freeway, as expected it was slowly starting to snow. She didn't know how much time had passed since she had moved into the loft because to her, everything felt like a dream. On some days, she had wished her and Laurence were still together. On others, she had hated him with everything she had. The snow had made things feel a little more magical, than deadly. With small white specks hitting her windshield wipers, she continued to stay lost in thought, before she started to talk to herself quietly in her car, thinking back to a point in time where her and Laurence were sitting in the kitchen, talking, she remembered it perfectly as if it was like yesterday. 

"I think what I want is for someone to know me. Really know me. Know me better than anyone else and maybe even me. Isn't that why we commit to another? It's not for sex. If it were for sex, we wouldn't marry one person. We'd just keep finding new partners. We commit for many reasons, I know but the more I think about it the more I think long-term relationships are for getting to know someone. I want someone to know me, really know me, almost like that person could get into my head. What would that feel like? To have access, to know what it's like in someone else's head. to rely on someone else, have him rely on you. It would be something cooler I think, harder to achieve than one built on biology and shared genetics. Kind of like Rupert and Emma eh? I think that's it. Maybe that's how we know when a relationship is real. When someone else previously unconnected to us knows us in a way we never thought or believed was possible." 

His response was something different from hers clearly, maybe that's why things are so different now. 

"I think a lot of what we learn about others, isn't that what they tell us? That it's what we observe. People can tell us anything they want, however they want. They tell stories to us that has either happened to them, or to a friend, and what makes it feel real is the feeling we get when they tell it. Then, we decide for ourselves weather it is real or not."  

Clarissa had a hard time trying to figure out if what they had was real, or if it was all in her head. Maybe, she was the issue in the relationship as she had expected things from him maybe far too much. Her parents had never met Laurence, she didn't know why she didn't want to introduce him to them, she couldn't really get it. 

i'm thinking of ending things.

Was something she had often thought in their relationship, mainly because she knew that he could do better than her. Find someone more attractive than her, someone more athletic, outgoing, and less intrusive than her. What was it all for anyways? 

The girl had now pulled up to their local store that was near the loft, at least a fifteen minute drive towards the grocery store. She had parked, got out of the car and walked up towards the sliding glass doors to go inside. She knew what she needed, it was just the matter of finding it. 

"but, isn't being alone closer to the truest versions of ourselves, when we aren't linked to another, and not diluted by their presence and judgements? We form relationships with others, friends, family. that's fine. Those relationships don't bind the way love does. We can still have lovers, short-term. But only when alone can we focus on ourselves, know ourselves. How can we know ourselves without this solitude?" Clarissa had heard one of the customers express. She turned her head to see a small chubby lady, talking to the cashier worker as she walked into their store. 

She had took a look at the worker, and felt like Clarissa had knew her from somewhere. She couldn't explain how exactly, but the worker had black bushy hair, pairs of dark brown eyes, and on her arms were red splotches of a rash, that seemed to just be there. She couldn't tell if it was acne or anything, but it intrigued her. 

"I'm sorry what did you just say?" Clarissa had asked the customer. It felt like the woman was somehow in her thoughts, and that truly scared her. 

"Well, I mean, maybe that was the point, trying to get closer to ourselves and understanding our own needs. Maybe that's why people choose to have short-term relationships, to focus on themselves and find what they need within themselves." The lady had said in a much shorter version of what Clarissa had just heard. 

This day had really confused Clarissa. 

She couldn't remember what she did the night before, and somehow everyone else just seems to be interrupting her thoughts. 

Clarissa took one last look at the two ladies and blinked, before going further into the store in search of what she needed mumbling something under her breath that people couldn't hear.