I’ve convinced myself as long as I’m not seen?—
—I don’t exist.
If I don’t exist, then nothing can hurt.
But I do exist.
Worse, I fucking feel.
And I hate it.
I remember.
I hate that too.
Each day I pile up more things to hate.
Existing.
Breathing.
Everyone.
Every-fucking-thing.
The hate turns to anger?—
—and there’s no outlet other than myself.
I hate what I am.
But I’m not really here.
I softly hit my head against the door as I stare directly in front of me, debating whether to end it all right now. The scalpel is in my hand; my veins are right fucking there. I could do it. What’s one more cut?
Three years without my wife.
Three years without my Kid.
I want to be with them both instead of this bloody non-existence. The closest I can get to them is through a screen, so I go into the vault folder to watch my beautiful family.
“Kane, look, I’m doing it,” he giggles, stuck in time, incapable of aging.
I don’t recognize myself on the screen, or the softness in my voice as I tell him, “I know. You’re so clever, Kid.”
“Will Delilah like me?” he asks, turning shy.
“Yeah, she’ll love you,” I say in time with my own voice in the recording, only there’s no hope anymore, just the inky pit of grief coiling around me.
“Is she good at charades?”
“The best,” I mouth in time with myself. “Well, after you.”
Tilting onto my side, I lay my phone beside me as my leg bleeds out. There’s no urgency to clean the wounds or to breathe because I find the video I made of my family. One side has Kid, the other Delilah from her time as my wife in the house of lies I created. Both of them, trapped in buildings they didn’t want to be in. Both comforting themselves with the falsehoods I gave them like a blanket, covering them from the cold truth.
My eyelids droop. From the blood loss, exertion, or rare tiredness—who fucking knows? I hope they don’t open.
57
