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Chapter 2- The colors in his voice

It's not like I was interested in seeing them, much less now. Yes, I'm a masochist under my parents' pressure, but I don't get to such a point of stupidity when just hearing the news I can't stand for long. A part of me, a very relevant part of me, did not stop wanting to accompany him in that dark denouement from which there was no return.

I could understand the act if it had been on my part, but him? If I saw those images of him there, covered by a white blanket and bloodstains, he might already be committed to a psychiatric hospital for falling into the pits of insanity.

"We are at the same university, Eron Montjoy. You can talk to me confidently," the girl takes a deep breath. "Are you holding up well?"

Something in her tone changes from sly to soft, understanding, hesitant, as if he is seeking to comfort me with his voice and... it makes me sick.

"Sure, that after six months of so much crap, people are still talking about what my coward of a best friend did makes me feel like I'm in Walt Disney Park, you unwelcome girl. Cowards ran away, and he did! He killed himself, and that's it! Can you just leave me alone!?

It seems my tone was curt, broken, and loud because the passengers fell silent and focused on this abandoned area in the back, thirsty for more morbidity that would serve as a new gossip topic for them. My eyes, burning with the desire to release tears, focused again on the author of the ill-timed question. Before I formulated a sentence, my body began to tingle, and I felt every part of me like trembling jelly. I am afraid.

Several accusing voices make their echoing presence known. They don't even give me time to feel prepared for the attack.

"He's disrespectful," "They didn't teach him to be a gentleman," "He's loud," "He looks like a bum," "Why don't they take him down from the unit," "Human scum in this generation" "In my day young men were nice" "Because of people like him, they say we men are disgusting" "He was a friend of whom?"

"Stay away from him; the misery is contagious."

And there's that voice outside the murmurs of my surroundings. I haven't heard from the one for six months.

You are very direct and sincere. But that's part of you, and no one should change it.

No, please...

My pupils move desperately in the face of so many strangers watching me and judging me without knowing me or my name. I'm dissociating so much from reality that I don't know if I'm crying or not.

Vaguely, I felt the girl start to hit my cheek. I don't know if she's hitting me or not, my skin doesn't feel any contact. My chest, on the other hand, hurts a lot because it stops receiving blows in the form of words, and that wears me down; that hurts.

The shiver running through every inch of my arms tells me that I haven't collapsed yet.

"Mind your own business, people! Can't you see he's fainting?" The girl screams in the distance. Wasn't she next to me? Why don't you come to help? Shit, someone call 911!

"As rude as he is!"

My throat burns, and I can even feel the choking taking over.

"Eron!" Her voice reaches my ears, lost amidst all the commotion...

"React! You're breathing, don't let yourself be fooled! Think... think of... The music! Listen to it, get drunk, don't close your eyes!"

In spite of that, the environment is moving at a speed multiplied by a hundred times, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to support the weight of my anatomy.

"I'm..." The colors are disappearing along with my voice, "I regret...."

"Please call emergency!" The girl begs again in echo.

When I close my eyes, I again hear Milan Montjoy's loud, shrill, and worried voice reprimanding me for not having eaten something and reminding me that I would lose even more weight if I continued like this.

Then, there is the sound of something cracking. It must be the bursting of cracks forming in my heart.

×-×-×

I want to cry like a wretch when I realize that my body is lying again on a filthy hospital gurney. I feel a stabbing pain in one arm, and only then do I notice that a needle is pricking my wrist to give me serum. To complete this whole gloomy spectacle, I feel pain at the top of my head. I bring my free hand to that place, and, to tell the truth, when I touch the fabric of a bandage, what I want most is to tear it off and run away. I shouldn't be here.

"Eron?" asks a sleepy female voice.  Her dark pupils stare at me with something I take in as relief.

Why would anyone be relieved to see a person like me in their senses? Maybe it's because she can get the hell out of here, feeling guilt-free.

I try to open my mouth to say something to the girl, but it's not my voice that escapes, but that of a third party I don't know.

"Is Eron Montjoy of age?" asks the intruder. I think it's the doctor.

"He is twenty-four years old, Doctor," says the girl.

I hardly realize that she is the snoopy one on the bus. Anyway, it doesn't matter, I can't complain to her. I don't even have the strength to say anything. I feel fucking useless lying here.

"Is the young man carrying his ID?

I hope my bag is here. After looking around the room and locating it, I pointed out where it was lying to the busybody.

In another situation I would have told the doctor to stick his formality somewhere else, but now I'm not in the mood to sink into more garbage. That's why and that's the only reason I'm not screaming to get out of this shit.

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