1
Edward
I stab the needle into my vein.Depress the plunger and the transparent substance sinks into my blood.Even before I’ve pulled out the syringe and sunk onto the dusty floor of the drug den, the numbness kicks in.
It always follows the same path.Up my toes, my feet, my calves, my knees, my thighs, my hips, my chest, shoulders and finally… Finally, the thoughts swirling around in my head quieten.Silence descends, a hazy, swirling fog that clears to reveal the most beautiful scene ever.I am on the beach, walking at the edge of the water.My feet sink into the powdery, soft sand which clings to my toes with every step I take.The waves swoop in, splash across my feet, pull away, leaving them clean.
If only I could wipe my past with such little effort.Erase everything that happened.Rub out… Remove, obliterate, eliminate, expunge the bloody incident from my life.How many synonyms are there for ‘delete’ in a thesaurus?Ask me.I know.I should know, for I have made a study of them in the seven years since the incident.
You’d think that as the days passed, things would get better...That it would get easier.That the horror of those hours when I had been forced to do things I’d never wish on another kid my age—or an adult, for that matter—would fade.Unfortunately, that isn’t the case.It is the opposite, if that were possible.As if every minute that passes since the fateful day only cements the events that had taken place.That every hour that I’ve survived since, sharpens the focus on what happened.That every day I make it through, weighs me down, forces me to reconsider my options.That every month since, my resolve has only gotten stronger.I don’t deserve to live.Not after what I did.Not after what was done to me.Not after what I was forced to feel, to sense, to experience…for I had been blindfolded for days.Then the blindfold was removed only to sear the events that took place into my memory via sight, before being replaced.
Throughout the incident I’d only been aware of one other person in the room, my friend Baron, who had been hauled into that space with me.We’d been separated from the five other boys who’d been kidnapped with us.Boys, I’d figured out, that I’d been acquainted with.
The seven of us had been from the same school.St.Lucian’s.The school where the elite of the country send their spawn.Not ashamed to say, I was one of them.My parents had money.Lots of money.Money I hadn’t cared about… Not until it had dawned on me that it was the reason I had landed up in that bullshit situation.
Kidnapped and held for ransom.
Kidnapped and…made to undergo things that should never be spoken of, or revealed.Kidnapped and helpless, blindfolded and bound, and hidden away for nearly a month, until we had been rescued.But by then, the damage had been done.
I’d been broken.Made to feel helpless, forced to surrender myself in the worst way possible.I’d had my heart, and my soul, and my very sense of being, ripped apart.Degraded and made to hate myself for how I had responded in those circumstances.It’s why I hate myself.It’s why… I must destroy myself.
Obliterate, demolish, raze to the ground...This self that feels like it no longer belongs to me.
I am floating, flying, running up the beach, faster, faster.Legs pumping, heels digging into the sand, kicking up fine particles in my wake.My heart pounds in my chest; the blood pumps in my veins.My pulse rate ratchets up as a gust of wind buffets me.I lean into it, tear through the breeze, push myself to speed up.Sweat beads my brow, slides down my temples.My shirt sticks to my back as I propel forward.Faster.Quicker.Reach for that which is not there.The emptiness, the vacant beyond.The horizon where the stars shine and beckon.The vast skies where I can float, merge, become one with the breeze.Scattered to the four corners.
Where there won’t be any more use of this body.Where I won’t need to live with the grief, the constant recriminations, the guilt, the questions that I pose to myself every bloody day.Where I don’t need to face myself in the mirror.Where I won’t see the features of everything I hate staring back at me day after day.Where I won’t need… Anything.No more.Where I am no longer me.
No more Edward.
No more flinching away from the truth.No more trying to negate everything that has become of me.For there would only be a blank canvas… A life that has been reset.There would be no more need to carry the weight of this helplessness that clings to every pore of my body.This wondering if I could have done anything differently to prevent what had been done to me.
Why me?Why me?Why me?Why—
"Edward."
That isn’t me.It can’t be me.
"Ed!"
Leave me be.Please.Please.Please.
"Edward, you bastard!"
"What the—" My eyelids flutter open.
"You absolute, utter twat!"
I stare up into the burning blue gaze of my friend.My best friend, if you want to be technical, though I hate that phrase.We aren’t teenaged girls, for hell’s sake.We weren’t even teenagers.Well, technically we are, for another year, considering we had both turned nineteen recently.And had celebrated with the rest of the Seven, in one hell of a piss up.
We’d gotten drunk and there had been pussy.A lot of pussy.We’d… All of us had indulged, gotten our dicks wet...Something which I had enjoyed more than I’d care to admit.The pleasures of the flesh are one way of shoving out all other thoughts from my head.It’s either that or find oblivion in the sweet sting of the needle as it sinks into my blood stream.Something I’ve been turning to more and more often… Not ashamed to admit that.Why should I be, when it’s the only thing that allows me to lurch from one stinking, hell-hole of a day to the next?
"You brain dead, shitstain," Baron growls."The hell do you think you are doing?"
"What does it look like?"My voice seems to come from a distance.
"You're the arse end of a nuisance, you know that?"
"Takes one to know another."I smirk.Or at least, I think I do.I can’t tell because my face is numb.Come to think of it, so are my fingers and my toes… Hell, most of my body.Whatever crazy shit I shot into myself has taken effect, which is good, right?I blink, try to push myself to sit up, only my body doesn’t respond to my commands.Whoa.I try to raise my hand but my muscles don’t move.Shit.Not good.Not good.All the nerve cells in my body light up.My brain cells—what’s left of them, that is—ping a warning.Get up, asshole.Scrape yourself off of the ground and try to stand up.Keep going; that’s what you want, right?You do want that, don’t you?
