I hate that she won't look at me. I hate that I'll never deserve her. I hate every fucked-up thing I've done to her, and every awful word I've ever said to her.
I hate it.
I hate it.
God, I fucking hate it.
"Brielle," I whisper, trying to tell her…something.
She shakes her head, just once. Then she walks past me, her steps slow and deliberate, every one tearing at my soul and shaving years off my life. She stops at the door, one hand on the knob. Her shoulders slump. Her whole body seems to shrink, folding in on itself.
"You're right," she says, her voice ragged. "You are nothing but a monster."
She doesn't look at me again before she walks out.
I watch her go, not moving, not breathing, until the sound of her steps fades down the hall. Only then do I let the mask drop.
My knees buckle. I sink to the floor, my back against the wall that's still warm from her body. My hands shake. My jaw hurts from how hard I bit down to keep the words in. There's still blood on my tongue.
I stare at the closed door, remember the way she stopped breathing in my arms on the side of the road the night I realized I'd never deserve her…and I want to die.
I don't even remember walking down the hall to my home office. I just find myself there. The room is too big, too empty. My footsteps echo. The silence mocks me.
I go straight for the bottom drawer of my desk, reaching for the bottle of Lagavulin inside. It's been in there so long that the label curls at the corners. I unscrew the cap and drink anyway. I don't bother with a glass or ice. I just want the raw burn sliding down my throat and clawing at wounds it'll never be strong enough to cauterize.
I pace the room with the bottle in hand, like a lion trying to pace away a cage. Except even if I manage it, there's nothing to hunt and nowhere to go. There's just…fucking nothing now.
I drink until my hands stop shaking. I drink until the urge to call her, to beg, to explain, no longer feels like a viable option, one that might bring her back.
At some point, I sit. The bottle's mostly empty. My head is a war zone, every second replaying on a loop. The way she looked at me when she said she loved me, the sound of her knees hitting the floor after I told her to crawl to me, the tears carving tracks down her perfect cheeks. I see her everywhere. In the empty chair across from me, reflected in the glass, in the books on the shelves.
I almost make it to dawn before my phone lights up.
I watch it vibrate on the desk twice before I pick it up.
Her message is short, efficient, and final.
I'm done.
I stare at the words, expecting relief. Or maybe rage. But all I feel is the yawning emptiness that comes when you've lost everything. No, not lost. It wasn't taken from me. It didn't disappear. I tore it down around me, shattering it to fucking pieces.
It's over.
This is what I wanted. For her to realize there's no fixing me. No fixing us. That monsters like me don't get happy endings, that I will never, could never, deserve her.
But reading those words, I finally understand what my uncle meant on his deathbed, when he said real punishment isn't handed down by someone else. It comes in the silence, when there's nothing left but your own goddamn memories and regrets.
I tip the last inch of Scotch into my mouth and let it burn. I want it to kill me. I want it to shut off my brain for good, or at least long enough to give her a chance, one she's never had with me.
I set the bottle down. It spins on the desktop, then wobbles and falls, the thunk so loud it actually makes me laugh.
The laugh turns into a scream. I don't recognize the sound at first. I don't recognize myself. I sweep my arm across the desk, sending the monitor, the lamp, the books, the laptop, all of it crashing to the floor. I grab the bottle and hurl it at the wall. It shatters, a hundred fragments fanning out in a perfect, glittering radius.
I keep going. I rip shelves from the wall and smash the coffee table with my heel until the glass gives. I grab a heavy brass paperweight and drive it through the screen of the television.
I pick up a fistful of broken glass and squeeze, just to see if I can feel anything at all.
Turns out, I can.
