“Emory your safety is more important than some guilt you have over leaving behind a high school crush. I told you—the kid will be handled. You don’t need to worry about him.”
“Handled?! You’re not listening to me, Bradley!” I heaved another breath, my body burning from the road rash and my lips tingling from my erratic breathing. “I’d rather be dead. I’d rather be dead right now than have to keep running away from the inevitable. At least if I kill myself, it won’t have been by the hands of someone from my past. I cannot keep doing this. I don’t want to. I can’t wait anymore for number seven. I’m done.”
“Christ, kid. You can’t say shit like that without expecting me to put you on suicide watch. Are you fucking with me? Because if this just some tantrum so I don’t have the ability to move you right away, I’m gonna rip you a new one.”
My heart was pounding and suddenly everything felt clear. It was the most obvious solution, ironic considering everything, but maybe the one thing I should have actually done a long time ago.
“Shut the fuck up, Bradley! I’m not a fucking brat throwing a tantrum. I’m telling you that I’m genuinely fucking done. And I don’t need you anymore. So don’t worry, I won’t waste any more of your precious time.”
“Emory,” he sighed heavily, again, and I was tempted to just hang up on the fucker. But the tone of his voice, the emotion behind it, reminded me of all Bradley had done to care for me, to ensure my safety. I shut my mouth and listened. “I’m calling your therapist. You’re gonna drive there right now and let her talk some sense into you. Shit,” he muttered under his breath, and I heard the sound of a keyboard clacking in the background. “You’re a real pain in my ass making me fly all the way out there. You’ve got eight hours before I land and drag your ass out of there, kicking and screaming if I have to. Because I will. You are government fucking property, Emory. You cannot just decide to no longer listen. And I’m not risking your life for some first love bullshit. I care way too much about you to let you do this to yourself. Now get on your bike or I’ll send someone to drive you to her office. When you’re done, don’t leave your damn apartment. I’ll send agents to watch until I get there, but I swear to God, Emory, I’ll make them cuff you to a radiator if you can’t listen. You wait for me and you don’t fucking talk tonobodybut your therapist. Leave the fucking kid alone!”
“Bradley!”
I pulled my phone from my ear when I was met with silence. The fucker ended the call. I narrowly avoided throwing my phone into the woods beside me. I settled for kicking the gravel some more and screaming like a fucking child.
This is fucking fucked. Damn you, Enoch! Why didn’t you fucking move on and forget about me? Why did you have to beg and plead for me to be real and rip my heart out of my chest in the process?
My phone buzzed in my hand.
Brad: 15 minutes or I’m sending an agent out. And it better not be to find you’ve offed yourself over a pathetic ex-boyfriend. I will not have you fucking up my record of zero witness deaths because you decided to throw a fit about moving again.
Fuck you, Bradley. Sarah isn’t gonna change my mind. I’m fucking done.
???
I could feel the weight of it in my backpack and my hands were twitching to grab it. I just needed some fucking relief. Something to take the edge off. Something to make telling my therapist I was gonna kill myself a little easier.
I was already cut to shreds on my arms and legs from the road rash, but I was craving a different kind of pain. The kind that woke up my numb body for a moment of bliss.
I closed myself in the bathroom and threw my bag on the counter. Every second was too long as I rifled through my things until I reached the inside pocket and pulled them out.
My pulse quickened just at the sight of the shiny blades and my skin pebbled with goosebumps in anticipation.
Just one. Or two.
And then I’d be okay enough to walk into Sarah’s office and listen to her try to talk me out of offing myself.
I pulled up my shirt with my left hand, just enough to reveal an area of unmarked skin. The first cut was like eating an edible. It never hit right away, and I was too fucking impatient to wait and quickly went for a second and third cut.
I sighed as the endorphins hit my bloodstream, my eyes rolling into the back of my head.
It was so fucked that I was addicted to hurting myself, but I convinced myself it wasn’t that bad. At least it wasn’t heroin. At least it was my own pain I was addicted to and not that of others.
Before the high wore off, I grabbed a Band-Aid and covered the cuts. I wrapped the cleaned-off blade back into the package of others and stowed them in my bag.
I already wanted to do it again but there was a knock on the door. I straightened up, swinging my bag over my shoulder and unlocked the door.
“Hi, Emory,” Sarah said with a soft smile, glancing around the bathroom like she could find evidence of my addiction. “Bradley called. Are you sure you don’t need to go to the ER? You’re bleeding.”
I glanced down at the shredded skin but shook my head. “It’s fine. It’s not that bad.”
She pursed her lips, unconvinced. “Why don’t you come into my office?”
I sighed and motioned for her to lead the way. Her grey and ashy-blonde hair swished as she spun on her heel, her floral perfume filling the trail I followed to her office. The door shut behind us with a soft snick, the white noise machine a distant buzz from the other side of the door.
“Take a seat.”
I made myself comfortable on the leather couch. Well, as comfortable as one could get when you were constantly sliding off the damn material.Fuck leather couches.
