The Big Fish by Madison Henley (best free e reader .TXT) 📕

“But that’s not it! Meredith, I just need- -”

Meredith looked out the window before standing up, gripping her tea in her hand.

“I’m going to be late for class.”

Gabrielle heard the bell from the door that let her know Meredith had gone. Again. Gabrielle shook her head and angrily clenched her fists wishing if she would’ve just waited until Meredith got home to tell her the news about Sweden and talked it out with her, how different things would be now.

***

Meredith shook her head into the wind as she walked back to campus thinking about her encounter with Gabrielle. Did she mean any of what she said back there? No, that was the venom. Did she want it to go that way? No. Meredith could not believe the words that came out of her mouth. What in the hell? All Meredith wanted to do was accept Gabrielle’s apology and put the past behind the two of them, not push her further away and possibly completely away.

Why am I so fucking stupid?

Meredith shrugged her shoulders and walked into her class wishing she just had someone to talk to. Someone to listen to her, someone to love her, someone to just fucking acknowledge her as a human being. Meredith wouldn’t wish this pain on her worst enemy.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Someone to love me would be nice.

When all shine has left me with nothing but a dark night. Missing stars and half a moon. I stare into the blank sky and wait impatiently for the sun to uplift my spirits. The few birds that flock in the sky even have someone to flock with. Then I am just there. I stir in my bed and look to the ceiling, wishing someone were there with me. I want to be held, I, I want someone to embrace me in their arms and stroke my hair as I snore softly on their neck and slowly drift off into a peaceful sleep. Instead, I lay alone and my mind begins to deteriorate. I think about how my life is so full of shit. I wonder, what is my purpose here? What is my purpose in life? Was I honestly put on this planet to sulk in my room every night and let the equator leave me behind as it circles around me yet again?

Meredith tapped her pen repeatedly on her desk trying to focus on her assignment rather than what her mind was focused on. Her throat began to burn as she swallowed down the fire. She batted her eyes hastily hoping to blink the forming tears away. Her lower lip trembled and her vision began to blur. She watched as her notebook paper became heavily stained with big teardrops. Meredith tried to stop herself, she wasn’t a crier and she was in class. Perfect timing. Meredith couldn’t control herself.

You're strong.

Meredith chanted encouraging words in her head praying to God to give her strength. Meredith bit her lip to stop the tremble but instead she inadvertently let a loud sob escape from her mouth. It was disguised as a sneeze to the class and Meredith heard one or two faint bless you’s come from the back of her classroom. Meredith continued taking notes as her professor spoke; wishing the part of her brain that continued to think would just shut down. Meredith kept her head down when she couldn’t take the burn anymore. She cried silently at her desk, exhaling a soft breath. She pushed her hair in her face to shield herself from anyone getting a view of her crying. Meredith stained her notebook with large puddles of salty tears, her words disappearing into smears soon after she wrote them down.

“A grand desire. The electricity that travels through the veins that lead to my heart. My rapid pulse. A smile that could create life and fulfill it with nothing but pleasure. Your beauty so pronounced, one will not simply envy but only commend. Timid you, your brown eyes hide in the light and shine through the darkness. Wake me up with your gentle touch and I shall never go to sleep.”

“Now,”

Meredith’s professor shut his book and walked down the rows of the class, deciding on which victim to call on.

“In your own words, tell me what do you believe Esme T. Eckel was saying…Meredith?”

Esme Eckle was Meredith’s favorite poet and anthropologist. She had read her books since she was a little girl. They spoke to her on such large scales. Her words were intense and hit you with whatever emotion she wanted you to feel. What Meredith was reading in class was called Infatuation. Meredith had read this book many times before as a child. It was her least favorite because she didn’t really understand what Esme’s point was. But Meredith was older now, and wiser, and as her professor spoke the last page of the book and the words yet again spoke to her on a level she could not describe. Meredith loved discussing the metaphorical meanings behind the touching words any day. But now? Meredith’s professor decided to call on her now? Fucking great. Meredith hurriedly wiped her eyes and cleared her throat, retrieving her voice.

“Um, Love.”

“Can you expand on that?”

“She was deeply in love with a person to the point that she had become obsessed with their personal.”

“Do you think that is possible? To love someone so much that every bit of them, including the negative, you appreciate?”

“I do. Love is the most powerful thing on Earth. It will make people do things they would never do on a regular basis. It changes a person, and it naturally makes you happy.