“Still, I’m sorry.”
I felt the world vanish around me.
I wished it would end.
Wished I could stop feeling what I felt.
Wished I’d never existed.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated a third time, unsure what else to say, because the words that could console the two of us hadn’t yet been invented.
“I’ll believe you when you show it.”
“How? I’ll do whatever you ask.”
“You already know. And you owe it to me.”
I nodded. Desperation twisted its knife in my heart, making the wound bigger and bigger.
It was true. I owed it to him.
27
Hopefully You Find Yourself Someday
I went back home and cried. I cried as I’d never cried before. Until dawn. My soul shattered, my heart in pieces. I curled up in bed as if I were six years old again, had just lost my mother, and was hugging the pillow waiting for the sun to rise.
Eventually I fell asleep.
I woke up muddleheaded with swollen eyelids that were almost impossible to open. I struggled out of bed because I had to, because I needed to go to the bathroom. In the mirror over the sink, my face was pallid and tear-streaked, a white mask framed by red hair kinked from a night spent in hell. I looked at myself, but I saw someone else, a girl who had taken her mother’s life with her selfishness and her longing to live. A person who had broken her father’s heart, condemning him to loneliness, unhappiness, the greatest pain a person can experience. The pain of losing someone you love and knowing you can never have them back. I hated myself, and I wished I could disappear forever.
Tears clouded my eyes, burning them, and sobs wrenched the muscles in my chest. What a strange feeling despair is. It bowls you over like an earthquake, making you beg, shout, and curse the world, hoping it will stop.
My father’s words kept resounding in my mind. I needed to feel loved by him. I longed for it; I had ever since I was a girl. But he never would love me, and now I knew why. The truth. The hard reality I just had to accept and that caused me unspeakable pain.
My mother had died, and it was my fault.
Mine.
Mine alone.
I went back to my room, where I heard an irritating hum. My phone was vibrating in my purse, which was still on the bedroom floor where I’d left it the day before. I ignored it. I just wanted the time to pass quickly and leave this agony behind me. I didn’t want to go through this. Nothing could ease the pain. Nothing.
I lay back on my pillow, alone and lost, insecure, full of fears and doubts.
Once more letting someone else tell me what my life should be.
My phone woke me. I’d been sleeping on and off, now dreaming, now opening my eyes, in a kind of limbo. I looked around. It was dark except for a soft light coming through the curtain from the streetlamps. Night had fallen. Maybe I’d been in bed a day, maybe two.
I dragged myself up, grabbed my purse, and took out my phone. I wasn’t sure whether to unlock the screen. I was scared of the number of missed calls and messages I’d have.
Twenty calls.
Eighteen messages.
All of them from Trey.
Oh, Trey. I’m so sorry…
