I shake my head against the memory of Liaden’s voice cracking as she hit me with just how much of a scumbag I'd been to her. Using her to ease my own pain, losing myself in her untilshefelt lost, too. Don't worry, sweetheart, I think to her. I'm going to make it all go away. Just watch.
So it feels like she's watching over me as I pop the first pill out.
I'd like my final thoughts to be of her, so as I pop the small blue and green capsule in my mouth - one - I think of the moment I first saw her, the gorgeous smile that instantly gave me so much unexpected joy.
Two - the first appointment, the first lines of my ink on her pure white skin. Someone else will finish it. She wouldn’t want me to touch her again, anyway.
Three, four, five - her singing to me at the karaoke night, her voice pulling my soul apart and glueing it back together in a better shape.
Six - the first time I made love to her - no! That was bad, wrong. That was the first step to me defiling her, defiling us, with my compulsion and my addiction to the peace her cunt offered.
Ok, try again...
Six - the way my family warmed to her when...
Mom. Dad. Eli.
Oh, fuck.
I spit number six out into the sink and stand there, trembling as I hold on to the basin.
Eli's wedding is in six weeks.
I can't do this to him. I can't ruin what's meant to be the best day of his life with the pain of grief. Because, whether I like it or not, and however much I lie to myself on this score, he will grieve me, long and hard.
I can't. I can't do that to him, not after everything we've been through together.
Six weeks.
I can make it six weeks.
Fuck it. I'll cut loose at his wedding. One last hurrah with my family, so their last memory of me is of their son, brother, cousin, friend having fun. Havingreal fun, not shuddering and puking and pissing himself and panicking in a haze of mental illness.
And then I can check out.
Shit, what a waste of six pills.
I get myself to the bathroom and shove my toothbrush down my throat, hard, deliberately making it hurt, until I vomit up the tablets into the john.
Flush.
Six weeks. I don't want six minutes of this miserable world, but for Eli I can do it. And the fact that finally, finally there will be an end to my pain eases the weight of it a lot.
I can do this.
And then I'll be gone, and everything will all finally be over.
Liaden
I don’t knowhow to get through this.
I can’t read. Can’t write. Can’t even think. I’ve never been unable to think, never experienced this fog for even a nanosecond in my entire life, but it’s as though I’ve forgotten how.
All I can do is feel, and it hurts. My chest physically aches. My throat is tight and my eyes are burning and tender.
Is Dean OK? What is he going through right now? Does he miss me as much as I miss him, or is he relieved to be rid of me?
How did this happen?
