"Look around, Reese!"
"Yeah, we're surrounded by nothing except hundreds of criminally insane assholes fifteen miles away. So again, who was killed in the name of love?"
"Romeo and Juliet, Cleopatra and Mark Antony, and Orpheus and Eurydice. That's who."
I can't help but to laugh, partially because in what world could he compare us to Romeo and Juliet? This is no romance. This is love growing from boredom of hatred. "Who are Orpheus and Eurydice?"
"Don't worry about it." He takes me by the shoulders and pushes me off to the side so he can continue walking.
"You know one second you're pounding me into the dirt, moaning in my ear and the next you're—you're…you know what, screw this. Screw you. Screw this goddamn town and everything and everyone in it. If you want to be an asshole, go be an asshole, but I'm not going to be following you around like a lost puppy while you do." He continues walking as if I didn't say anything. As if I don't matter. We're probably going to die out here and I can't even die next to someone who knows how to be a decent human being.
I stop. I'm done. I don't even know what we're walking toward. Is it the simple idea that there might be living animals out here? Because I haven't even heard a single bird or cricket chirp. I haven't seen an insect or any sign that they exist. The trees are thinning out and I only see open space ahead—something I've grown to hate. After being confined for so long, all I dreamt about was open space, but now it's like there's too much of it and I feel like I'm free falling into oblivion. Being contained felt safe, secure, and presumable. Maybe I'm just losing my mind.
"I don't do the chasing game, Reese. If you want to stick with me, keep walking," he shouts back at me. I wasn't stopping so he'd stop, too. I wasn't stopping to get a reaction out of him. I stopped because I'm not sure I can be around him anymore. And as much as I thought he had all of these magical answers—ways out of this purgatory, I'm seeing now that he's no more knowledgeable on a form of escape than I am.
I've made up my mind. I'm stopping. I don't want to follow him anymore. "Sin," I yell over to him, unsure if he can hear me with how far away he is now.
But he does. He turns around, continuing to walk backwards. "What?"
"I'm not going with you."
"So you're just going to sit here until you rot and die? Good plan, smarty."
"I don't want to keep fighting against this pre-determined ending. I give up." Is that what I'm doing? Am I giving up? An hour ago, I refused to give up…but I was wrong. Is it the starvation that's finally making its way into my brain? Or the thirst my entire body is now quenching? There really is no way out, and I'm not sure how much more I can fight to pound this conclusion into my head. I'm tired. I'm weak. And this man hates me more than I hate myself. Maybe I am giving up. I got out of the shed. That's what I wanted to do. That's what I survived to accomplish. I just never assumed how much worse life could be on the outside of those wooden walls. I'm ready to call this what it is. What it has been for the last three years—a slow, painful, and miserable death.
I drop my bag to the ground, feeling the weight of my body anchor to the dirt. There are no trees to lean on now, there's just my bag, the ground and the sun. This red dirt will eventually swallow me up and take me into the earth where I must belong because I sure as hell don't belong here anymore. I rest my back against the backpack and lift my face up to the sky, feeling the scorching sun have its way with my already burnt skin.
Closing my eyes, I try to imagine Mom's face. I try to remember the happiness Mom and Dad had for each other before he died—the love that I hoped I would feel some day. Most of the girls I was friends with in school had divorced parents and stepparents and horror stories involving their largely blended family. I knew I was lucky to have two parents who didn't have to put me through that. Although luck only runs so deep since Dad was taken from us at such a young age. It was like the world was punishing us for having lives that were too perfect. Well, the world won again…our lives were destroyed. Mom's life has been destroyed twice, and mine twice. Now, the official destruction will occur as I lie here staring up into the ball of fire that most people consider to be spectacular. It'll be the death of me. It'll burn me alive, and I could only be so lucky to starve to death first.
Heaviness coats my chest, like someone were sitting on me or stealing the air out of my lungs. Is this how it's supposed to feel? I try to move my lips and my tongue, but neither budges. I even try to focus on the burning sensation covering my exposed skin, but I don't feel that either. My back doesn't ache and my feet aren't sore like they were. I feel like I'm lying on a pillow in the clouds, floating into oblivion. If this is what dying is supposed to feel like, I wish I had stopped fighting years ago.
