My hands were shaking. I pressed my palms flat to the carpet to ground myself. The fibers scratched against my skin—rough, real—and I focused on that because everything else felt like it was slipping.
My throat kept trying to close like it had forgotten how swallowing worked. I kept pulling air in too fast and then having nowhere to put it. My stomach rolled like I was about to be sick, but nothing came up—just acid and heat and a sickening hollow where something essential had been. My body was panicking. My mind was going quiet. That mismatch scared me more than either one alone
My chest hurt in a way I couldn’t reach. The ache was too big. Too shapeless. I needed it smaller. I needed it somewhere I could touch.
I went to the closet on my knees. A part of me stood up and took over. The part that knows exactly how to make this stop. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t cruel. It was calm and efficient and almost kind.I’ve got this, it seemed to say.You don’t have to feel this part.Pulled out the shoebox with hands that finally stopped shaking when they touched it. That scared me more than the shaking had.
The calm. The way my breath slowed. The way my body leaned into it like it had been waiting. How I didn’t think about anything while I did it.
Not Anthony.
Not obsession.
Not ruin.
Just the moment when the inside of me stopped screaming. Just the place where the ache finally had a shape. I craved it like an addict needed a hit. I flipped the penknife in my hand, flicked it open and cleaned it with an antiseptic wipe. I’d used it far too much recently not to be careful.
A deep breath filled my lungs as I shoved my sleeve back exposing my ravaged skin. The metal blade glinted in the fading light. Like it offered some form of divine intervention, not that I believed in anything like that.
When the blade cut into my skin everything went silent. The pain and tension drained out of my body as blood welled on my skin. I cut deep enough for it to drip on the floor. But I didn’t feel it, not like you’d expect; it was like I was locked in a sensory deprivation room. It was heaven after burning alive in hell.
After, I sat there with my forehead against my knees, breathing slow and shallow, letting the quiet seep back in. The quiet wasn’t peace. It was vacancy. It was like someone hadturned all the lights off inside me and left me sitting in the dark with myself. I felt smaller. Dirtier. Further away from whatever I’d been trying to save. The relief didn’t feel like relief. It felt like giving something up.
That’s when I heard him again. His voice—muffled through the floor. I’d forgotten I’d left my door open. “I’ll be back at work tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. The word detonated inside me. Because tomorrow meant normal. Tomorrow meant distance. Tomorrow meant he was already moving on.
Tomorrow wasn’t just a word. It was a whole world where I didn’t fit. It was him waking up without me in his arms. It was coffee without my mug next to his. It was his voice turning professional, careful, distant. Tomorrow was where he went when he didn’t need me anymore.
And he was already there.
Already stepping away. My breath left my body in a rush. My hands started shaking again, harder this time.
Work meant leaving. Leaving meant disappearing. The room felt too small. The house felt like it was closing around me.
I shoved the box back into the closet, grabbed the blade without thinking, and stood up too fast. My head swam. I didn’t care. There was nothing left to care about.
Something in me gave up right then. Not cracked. Not bent. I just… let go. Like a hand that had been gripping a ledge for too long finally opening because the pain of holding on had become worse than the fall.
My chest felt heavy. Not tight—heavy. Like gravity had doubled inside my ribs. Like breathing was suddenly optional.
I wasn’t crying because crying still wanted something. I wasn’t panicked because panic still believed in danger. I felt finished. Like the story had ended and my body just hadn’t caught up yet.
That was the scariest part.
The backdoor clicked shut, and I stumbled across my room managing to close mine, just before he walked past it. I felt him pause as much as I heard his step stop. I felt the pain in his shuddering breaths. I imagined him standing there, eyes red-rimmed, face tear-stained like mine was. Hand raised ready to knock, but instead he pulled away.
Taking the moral high ground because that was what society told him to do. I collapsed on my bed, laying down where he’d been. My face pressed into the place his shoulder had warmed the sheets. The smell of him was still there—soap and skin and something darker that belonged only to us. My mouth still remembered him. My body still answered to him. It felt obscene and sacred at the same time, like touching a relic after the religion has died.
When I heard him answer another call, I knew I could escape while he was preoccupied. I moved without urgency. Without drama. Without the frantic edge that people think comes with this kind of decision.
Every decision became very simple. Door. Shoes—no. Not necessary. Keys—no. Not coming back. The world reduced itself into instructions and I followed them because thinking hurt too much.
The night air was cold. The moon was thin and pale, stretched across the water like a scar. The ocean looked endless. Not violent. Not cruel. Just… final.
That felt right. Not peace. Not relief.
An end.
