Shame Of Maastricht: The Revelation of Misery by Marie N. Hallen (books to improve english .TXT) 📕

“What? Do you love me?” This news seemed to shock Kate. She didn’t expect a girl to fall for her, especially within such a short period of time. “Are you sure?”

“Why can’t I love you? You deserve all the love in the world and too bad you got it after such awful events. I’m really happy to know that guy loves you. I personally wouldn’t trust him, but your words made me sure.”

“I really appreciate it, sweetheart,” Kate replied and hugged her. “I don’t even know what to say, I’m happy to know you even though it’s been such a short period of time. Thank you for joining us today. And...”

“I will join again, and again, and again, as many times, as you tell me. I want to do everything possible. Let’s go somewhere, maybe we will have to check the area around the supermarket ten kilometers away, there are a few storage facilities.”

“We don’t have a car.”

“I will find us a car. Just let me help. If I could turn the world upside down for you. I just don’t know what to do. I just want to be your slave. Want to serve you. And no, I don’t need anything instead. Want to take care of you, make you feel comfortable and safe. Would be happy to do little things for you. And big too.”

“Don’t make me cry… This is what I used to tell Luuk, almost the same words. But why slave? This sounds almost fanatic. You don’t even know me.”

“I feel like I’ve known you since I remember myself. And love you the way you are. Love your every feature, voice, your lips. You are so beautiful, I don’t know how he could leave you. Maybe I would just murder him for hurting you.”

“Please shut up,” Kate blushed and laughed and Sterre smiled with a foxy flicker in her eyes.

“Make me,” Sterre whispered in her ear playfully. As Kate didn’t react at once, Sterre grabbed her face and kissed her passionately, putting all the tenderness and flame in this long kiss. Kate didn’t push her away, just froze in embarrassment.

“You are insane,” Kate said and Sterre let her go. Sterre kissed her again and this time Kate replied with even more passion, making Sterre lose control completely and caress her all over her body.

“I wish you were mine. Don’t let me go...” Sterre cuddled Kate and kissed her cheek.

“You can live in my house for a while,” Kate suggested. “At least until we find Luuk. But I’m not a good housewife, lost all motivation since he’s been gone.”

“I can take care of everything. If you want me to stay today, I will.”

“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.” Kate smiled and made another cup of tea. “Sorry, I didn’t buy or cook anything since I don’t eat much.”

“It’s fine, you know I almost don’t eat.”

“You have to. If you want to be my slave, you will have to listen to me. I tell you to eat more.” Kate laughed again at her own joke and gave Sterre a few cookies from the bowl on the table. She didn’t refuse.

“You have no idea how much you mean to me, Kate. Just when I saw you, I got attached immediately, although I hate people.”

“I appreciate you too. I’m not really good at expressing my thoughts so whatever I say now will sound poor and will not reflect my attitude and appreciation, but I want you to know that I’m always here for you and if I can help you in one or another way, you can always rely upon me. But why do you hate people? I still don’t understand although I tried to. Is there any particular reason?”

“Yes but I’m not ready to speak out… I don’t really want to load you when you are in such a situation. It’s not something I could explain in a few words and not something I’m ready to talk about. But you know, I never thought I would ever roll down to such an attitude. I never thought something like this could happen to me. Do you know anything about black holes?”

“Not that much,” Kate confessed. “I mean I do know they exist and kind of devour everything they can reach with their gravity and so on, but I don’t understand their nature in terms of physics. Science is not my thing, I never could understand maths or physics…”

“I wouldn’t be able to explain it this way either… But the main thing is that falling into the black hole does not happen the way you could imagine it. Ok, have you ever felt like you’re falling into the abyss? And it devours you? Or maybe you can imagine how this would look like? But… What I’m trying to convey… I’m also not good at expressing my thoughts and explaining things… Whatever…” Sterre gasped for air, wiped a tear off her cheek and proceeded. “So when you imagine someone falling into the black hole, you think he would realize it, realize this is the end, die from fear, feel all the pain, all the associated emotions, I mean, he or she will experience something a dying or a tortured person would experience? All this negativity, the breath of death, fear of death, non-existence, deprivation? No… If you really watched someone fall into the black hole, or fall there yourself… You wouldn’t even notice it. If you watch an object being sucked into the black hole, you could only see it approach the so-called event horizon. A point of no return. But you would never see it cross this borderline and disappear in the black hole. Because the closer it gets to the event horizon, the slower it moves… Time stands still… And you would see it stop and freeze at that point. You could wait the whole eternity but never see what happens in the end. Although in reality it will be already gone, forever gone, unable to return and be recovered, but you will never know. Same thing about you. If you were falling into the black hole yourself, you wouldn’t have noticed anything. You may think you would see the darkness, the darkest matter, but no, there will be no darkness. Who said the black holes look dark, is basically wrong. Although the black hole is characterized by entropy - a complicated thing, so let’s just call it some kind of chaos, you will never realize you are in the middle of chaos where even the time dilates. So basically you will be falling forever, nothing will change for you, and at the same time you will be already gone. Same thing about me. I’m dead inside. I’m completely degraded, my soul is murdered, it’s dead and rotten. I’m devoured by this blackness. When I was younger, I thought this would feel painful, with lots of tears, inner pain and endless depression. But when you have the real depression, you can’t even cry. You have no tears, you are just numb and frozen in pain, but you don’t even feel this pain. I can’t even tell you how this feels… My uncle had gangrene caused by diabetes. It’s when your body rots. He got his leg amputated. I’ve seen his leg before amputation, it was black and rotten. Looks scary and it seemed to me he suffered terrible pain, but he said he didn’t. He didn’t have any feelings. I don’t know if he lied, but from his words I realized it wasn’t as painful as I imagined it to be. Same thing about my soul, this necrosis, it happens by insensible degrees. The sun was still shining, the trees were still green, I could still go shopping, travel, eat out or chill, but… I knew I was lost, forever lost. That thing killed me. All those smart books in psychology, all those affirmations like “love yourself, you are all you have - everything is bullshit. It doesn’t work.”

Kate was listening to Sterre and although Sterre never mentioned the event which led her to her condition, she could understand her better than anyone else.

“I do agree with you. Tell me more. I’m listening. Really smart comparison.”

“I wouldn’t say I have no friends. I have good relations with people around me, I have school buddies, I have no enemies or haters. I can’t say everybody hates me or detests me. I can’t find a single person with a hostile attitude. I wouldn’t even say that no one cares about me. Although I used to think so some time ago. But now… When you start talking to people around… When you let them enter your inner world which is inevitable during this communication process… They start torturing you with the questions which hurt you, cut your heart like a knife… Although they didn’t mean to… And you don't know what to answer - whether to tell them another lie and pretend it’s fine, or be open and direct, but face misunderstanding. I used to have one good friend who lived in the same neighbourhood. He played in a rock band and I’ve been to his show. I always liked his sense of humour, his attitude to life and he was the best person to chill with. I won’t tell you the whole story as it’s boring and doesn’t really matter now, but the thing is that when I opened up once and told him the real situation, he just distanced himself from me. It was painful to lose your best friend. Then I realized I would always have to lie and pretend… But I can’t take it anymore. Such communication drains me, it drains my heart. I never wanted to be toxic, I never wanted to be lonely, but that bad thing I can’t disclose now doesn’t let me live my life, doesn’t let me be myself and doesn’t let me communicate. No, I can’t say I really hate people… I just don’t let anyone hurt me after what happened. I always give a strong fightback. And I regret going to the therapist. What will I hear? I won’t hear anything new. I know it’s wrong. But even what I’ve just said doesn’t fully reflect and explain my condition. I just don’t want to live. I don’t want to exist. I want to disappear.”

“I think I understand even though I don’t know what happened. You don’t have to tell me the reason, don’t bring the bad memories back.”

“I tried to forget. Once I thought “What if I could erase my memories, my mind, what if I could forget? Would this save me? Would this help? No, it wouldn’t. Why? Because I would still feel something is wrong. It’s been wrong all my life, I’ve always known something was wrong, just didn’t know what exactly. Then I found out… But put it another way, it’s like to get your limb amputated and then forget it. Or to be born without one limb and then forget it as well. But the problem doesn’t disappear - you still can’t function properly, you still can’t move. You will always feel you are damaged. And in case with my soul, I will always feel I’m barren on the inside. Emptiness hurts. This emptiness… I never wanted it to be this way.”

“And what does the doctor say? Do you take any pills?”

“Not really, all those recommendations and conversations were so futile. You know what I hate most? Hypocrisy and pretense. Simulation… I know it’s all in our heads and things are as you see and perceive them, but in reality they are neutral. It’s us who choose what we see. It’s all in our heads, I know this. I know what we see depends on what we look at… All this bla-bla-bla… But, if your limb is cut off, you can’t use an adhesive plaster to cure it. Don’t