When I Wake Up by Ana Paula Macedo Read Free Book Online

consumed me. It was true that my pain had diminished somewhat. Roy’s touch seemed to ease my pain, but it has not soothed my despair, for the worst of it, emptiness was still there.
    All I wanted was for Roy to fill this void in me. Because if he could not do it, I would feel even emptier, because I would no longer be able to put my hope of being happy in that passion.
    Not that I had spent that last week upset. That was not it. Roy made me cheerful, made me have fun and felt good. He increased my self-esteem, but I needed something more. What I needed was the healing of my soul and my emptiness. It went far beyond good times. Now I was with him, yet the emptiness refused to leave.
    My emotions made fun of me. They quickly passed from one organ to the other making me realize all the empty holes that were inside me. And a horrible voice screamed inside my head: “Sophia, you will never be totally happy.” How I wished to stifle this voice, to call it a liar, send it away, but it was persistent and the more it cried out, the more it was heard inside me. I thought I'd cover my ears to avoid hearing that voice, but I ended up realizing that it would not solve my problem because the voice was inside. Now I realized that beyond my emptiness, I would also have to fight that voice, which had deliberately declared war against me and Roy inside my mind.
    Yes, it was true, Roy did not bring me a complete cure, but it was somewhere. If it was not with Roy where is it hiding? What could I do to find it?
    As if taking me out of my daydreams, Roy approached me with a bottle of champagne and two glasses and invited me to go into the yard of his house, where we could watch the fireworks that would begin in five minutes, saying goodbye to the old year and welcoming the New Year
    I would like to say goodbye to my pain, to my despair and bury them along with the last minute of the year. I wanted to toast to a new Sophia that I'd like to grow within me. But could I be able to separate myself from the old Sophia, the one that composes me, and embrace a new, unscarred and unmarked one? Maybe even wear a blazer of a realistic Sophia and make me up with mascara that would not let anyone steal the emptiness that I harbored within myself.
    Roy was there by my side. That to me was another sign that the New Year would be different. Maybe it would not be better, but it sure would bring new experiences for me and a chance to recover and maintain a great love.
    In addition to my emptiness, now I carried with me the fear of letting Roy escape from me. I didn’t think I would be able to handle this. Losing him, no. But every time I looked at him, that fear welled up inside me. Now he confused me, because I was afraid, not that he'd leave me, as would be the natural thought of someone who fought so much for love and suddenly, by chance got it. In fact, I was afraid to end up giving him up and never getting the chance to have him back. That thought made me embarrassed, it saddened me and reignited the insecure Sophia who lives within me.
    We sat side by side, with a minute left to midnight, just living in the moment and opening a bottle of champagne for us so that in a few seconds we could toast to welcome the New Year being born and dismiss the one that would die.
    He handed me my glass of champagne and said, “Happy New Year, Sophia.”
    “Happy New Year, Roy.”
    “To us and to our future.”
    We toasted and the fireworks gave us a show in the sky. Our eyes could barely keep up with the beauty of the drawings that formed in the air. Every noise, brought a scene into the sky and for a moment I lost myself in that real scenario, which consisted of fireworks in the air, and Roy and I holding our glasses of champagne. We held each other’s head, our lips meeting, just Roy and me, there in front of that lake by his home, watching a New Year’s show in the privacy of the backyard of his house, looking as though we had ordered that scene.
    I looked at