Page 1 of The Guru: Shadow

1

EMMA

PLAYLIST: SUMMER RAIN - EVERLAST

Silent scratches filled the empty room as words poured like a waterfall onto the journal pages. Faster than her hand could follow a wild mess of letters pressed forcefully on the paper. So many emotions overwhelmed her, engulfing her entire existence in a hurricane of anger, despair, and endless self-loathing. Her veins, intoxicated with burning rage, pulsated through her body while her heart ached from the darkness consuming it, whispering the painful melody of betrayal into her.

She should cry. Only the tears didn’t come.

Maybe I’ve used up all the tears for this lifetime.

Nothing seemed to ever work out for her.

Fucking nothing.

Her friends were busy building big careers, while she couldn’t even finish her studies, let alone keep a job longer than half a year.

My friends.

More like the few people who somehow haven’t abandoned me – yet.

To her, maintaining friendships was the most exhaustingthing on earth. Well, aside from existing. And working 9-5 in a dull job with no purpose.

The worst with those so-called friendships was that she always had the bittersweet perception of being too much, not truly belonging; like being a rabbit in an ocean of sharks with no shore in sight. No one seemed to get her, and at some point, she just stopped explaining.

Everyone kept going on with their lives, pushing themselves to new achievements, reaching all their goals – from promotions to babies – while her life spun right around like a hiccupping washing machine, until nothing was where it should be.

Welcome to my personal hell.

The one thing she had was Chris. Well, not anymore. He had been her fiancé. Emphasizing thehad. She and Chris had been a couple for almost three years. It was he who proposed out of the blue. She never planned nor expected to marry, ever. It was he who pressured her into getting engaged. As she remembered his endless talks of why she had to say yes, they mixed with the vivid images from a week ago, and it fed her rage like a starved lion presented with raw meat.

He fucking fucked Sami.

My best fucking friend.

He fucked her all the fucking time.

And she-she-!

“Fucking liars!” she shouted into the emptiness of the room. So loud it made her cat jump from her pillow with an angry hiss.

In a crushing moment of everlasting anger, fired by Chris’ betrayal, she had thrown every last bit connected to him out of the window of their fifth-floor apartment – except for the heavy stuff, as she had no intentions of crushing an innocent pedestrian underneath.

Said heavy stuff was now squeezed into their guest room. His music equipment, the couch, the chairs, table, an armchair, and some other things. At least what was left of it. Fuelled by anger, she had actually taken a knife and destroyedall of it. The couch and armchair looked as if a mass murder had happened on them, stabbed a thousand times with the knife until nothing of the upholstery was left intact. She had had the hope it would calm her rage and fill the bitterness of betrayal, but it did not. Especially when Chris let her know he didn’t care about the stuff and she should keep or throw it away.

So much about revenge.

Now she sat on the living room floor, leaning against the wall, her journal on her lap. Only a vast collection of books lay in staples in one corner; otherwise, the room was empty. Reluctant curtains, which did not want to come off, suffered the same fate as the upholstery. As they now hang there, tattered, and ripped apart, they gave the room a spooky, abandoned building atmosphere.

A perfect resemblance to her entire existence.

My life. An empty fuckhole of pain and betrayal.

The images of how she had come home early a week ago and saw Sami riding her fucking fiancé on her fucking couch into fucking ecstasy and oblivion still tormented her in her mind. So much, it felt like someone had stabbed her with a dagger in her heart and pulled it out, only to push it right back in.

The fire she had seen in Sami’s eyes, the grin flashing over her face when their eyes met, still let an all-shattering icy chill run down her spine. Sami wanted her to find out. Her best friend wanted her to find her fucking her fiancé. The grandest of all betrayals rooted in such depth that the everlasting pain of it made her sick to the level of throwing up. Smashing and destroying things wasn’t enough anymore. The only outlet left for her anger was pain and control. In other words, she needed to cut something open.

I need a release.

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