Sand Castle: Chapter 15

May 2018

Everyone who says that time cures every pain is wrong. The days are passing by and the time was supposed to heal me, but for me, nothing has changed. In my life, there is nothing else but suffering. No matter what I do, no matter where I go, Tom is always on my mind, and he follows me like a shadow.

Love doesn't end because I know that I'll never see him, or he will never be mine again. I wish it were simple to erase him from my memory and my life. But I can't escape, and I can't forget, because love can't disappear just like that. I don't believe that I'll ever stop loving him. There will always be a part of him in me, and I can only hope that one day I will learn to live without him. I feel empty, and this feeling of emptiness is stronger than all the love and all the pain I have ever felt. I feel empty, without my heart and my soul. My heart and my soul still belong to Tom.

Every day, I wonder how he is doing in life. Today we live in a time of social media and the internet, where you can find everything about everyone, but I have never searched for Tom on the internet because I'm afraid to find out how happy he is without me. I don't have profiles on social media. Social media are for people who live fully their lives, people who are loved, people who have friends, families, careers... Social media are not for someone like me, who has nothing. Life, without love and passion, it can't be called life.

By the end of August 2014, as I planned, I came to New York. I was hoping for a new beginning and for a new life, but how stupid I was. For me, Tom is New York. On every street I walk, in every restaurant I eat, in every bar I drink, in every stranger who sits next to me, I can feel him. In every person, I'm searching for Tom's blue eyes, but there is no other pair of merry eyes like his. In every person, I'm searching for Tom's smile, but only his smile can make me happy.

Since the first day of my arrival, I instantly fell in love with New York, and I became attached to this city. Here, I have new friends, but I live in constant fear that I might see Tom at some corner of a street, in a park while I'm walking, or we might be on the same train. And I never listen to the radio. I can't, because I'm afraid if I ever hear his voice again, that would be more than I can take.

In February 2015, near my college, I saw posters announcing Tom's concert with his band. Every day I passed by the posters, and every day I stopped for a few moments, or maybe for a few hours, I don't know, to watch his pretty face. I was too weak, I couldn't resist, and I went to his concert to see him for one last time.

The concert venue was full, mostly with young girls, and everyone was singing his songs together with him. I think I was the only person at the concert who didn't know the lyrics to his new songs. That evening, I was standing in the front rows, and I was so close to him, but at the same time, he had never been farther away from me.

I can't explain why I've stayed in New York after my graduation. As if there was some invisible force that was keeping me in this city. Even though I know that I'll never have him, I still want to be close to him. I want to live in the city where he lives. I want to walk on the streets where he walks. I want to breathe the air he breathes... While my friends from Croatia are playing leading roles in theatre plays, and they are in every Croatian movie made in the past three years, I, who was more talented than all of them combined, am playing, and I'll be playing, only one role for the rest of my life: a trophy wife.

In the last year of college, I've met Samuel. He is the CEO of a company founded by his grandfather, and his family for years has donated money to my college for the theatre plays. After my graduation, he didn't want me to go back to Croatia, and he proposed to me. I said "Yes" because that was the only way to stay in New York. I came to the USA with a student visa, and after finishing my studies, the authorities would ask me to leave. Before graduation, I've tried to find an agent and a job, any job, I've applied for a scholarship for graduate studies, I've tried everything just to stay in New York, but if there was another way, I would have never agreed to be with a man I don't love, and who doesn't love me.

"I'll be back on Monday," or "I won't be at home the whole week," are my favorite lines from Samuel. He is seldom at home, which makes me utterly happy. He sleeps with his secretary, he's going on "business trips" literally every weekend in Las Vegas with his immature friends, and he has turned his parents' summer house in Hampton into a brothel. I don't understand why he decided to marry when he is not ready for such a commitment.

In the past two years, from the outside, I've always smiled, but from the inside, I've been weeping. I care about nothing. I only care to stay in New York at any cost, but the price I'm paying every day is too high, and I'm not sure I can take it anymore.

Samuel's role model, for a perfect woman, is his mother. He believes every woman should be like her. Every woman should stay at home, to take care of her home and children, instead of going to work. He also believes that every woman's heart can be bought with expensive presents and credit cards, but he knows nothing about women. Or it's just me, because I'm not like his friend's wives, who only care about their social status, and the beautiful dresses and the expensive jewelry they are wearing.

I despise myself for who I've become. I've completely lost myself, and I don't know who I am anymore. Since college, I haven't seen a theatre play. I can't because I want to be on stage, but in advance, I know that I'll never feel the joy of acting again in my life. Half of my heart died the day Tom got married, and the other half died when I gave up on acting.

This August I'll marry Samuel, and we'll have a big, perfect wedding in Hampton. His mother has planned everything, to the smallest detail. For every normal girl, these would be the happiest days of her life, but I'm not a normal girl, and this is not a normal life. I'm falling apart. It will be best for me to pack my things and go back to Croatia. I'm tired of pretending how happy I am, living this empty life.

I doubt my parents will find a strenght to forgive me for everything I did. When I was leaving home, my mother didn't come to the airport to say goodbye to me. My parents can't understand the choices I made in the past six years of my life, and they're not the only ones. I don't understand what I'm doing with my life either. If I go back home and tell them the whole truth about how much I suffered all these years, maybe they will tell me "It's all your fault, and you got what you've deserved". Or maybe I should go to the balcony of the penthouse where I've been living for the past two years, but I never accepted it as my home and jump. Only then will all of my problems be solved and my suffering end.