After he found what he was looking for, he nodded. “I don’t know if—if I’ll stop finding it weird… ever. You’ll have to give me time, Z. This is not what I thought I would hear today.”
“Of course.” I swallowed. “Will you talk to him, though?”
“I don’t know. I—I need time to think. To digest this.”
I nodded, watching him rake his fingers through his hair, wondering what was going through his head, what kind of assurance he had seen in my eyes…
While somewhere in the back of my mind, I was fighting a battle with myself. Confirming all this and telling Street of my involvement with Elio meant I had accepted his proposal to give us a fucked-up and very unnecessary label—mentally.
And I shouldn’t…
I really fucking shouldn’t.
While not having ill intentions with him, there was no way I wouldn’t end up hurting him at the end of the day. Ishouldn’t be selfish; I shouldn’t have my cake and fucking eat it.
But I had never been known to be selfless when it came to something I really wanted.
So… selfish it is.
CHAPTER TEN
Elio
Istarted seeing my mother thirteen hours ago.
At first, I was aghast. She was so real, indubitably present. She carried along the feeling of being in an environment with another person. When she looked up at me from her position on the couch, my world stopped, rotated, and stood in place. The black dress she wore was the same one I’d seen in that video footage before she bathed herself in gasoline and set the whole church on fire.
I had closed my eyes for about five minutes, standing utterly still. When I opened them again, she was gone.
That was the first time I’d seen her.
That was the second time I realized I was no longer in control of my mind.
That was the thousandth time I’d told myself I shouldn’t be here. I should hurry up. Finish this once and for all. Stop wasting time.
But it was also in that moment, and at that single thought, that I realized I wasn’t as focused on that idea as I once was. It was the first time I acknowledged that I was stalling, not because I hadn’t finished what I wanted to do, but because I thought I had a lot to look forward to. To anticipate. I thought there was enough reason to want to live, to change my mind.
I spent the entire night after being with Zahra battling with my own mind, mumbling pros and cons that refused to keep themselves inside my mind, slamming my fist into a mirror because I hated what my reflection showed.
A confused man. Unfocused nonsense. An indecisive entity. A man who couldn’t even do what he truly wanted. A man who couldn’t end the life he’d been craving to end since he had watched his family burn. A man who hated himself because he had these thoughts, this weakness, eating at him from the inside out. A self-inflicted parasite. Abnormal. Wrong.
My depression had arrived with a vengeance after seeing the woman who birthed me.
I needed to sleep.
Four days of sleepless nights was not something I let fester. But four days of sleepless nights with depression and hallucinations? I knew I needed a total knockout—a shutdown, something that would take me out for days on end. But I couldn’t do that—I didn’t trust myself enough to proceed with it, so wearing myself out was the most appealing option.
I brought out alcohol. Cigars didn’t wear me out; they made me active.
So I drank, put on feel-good music, and waited.
That was until Zahra had woken up, and I had tried my best to block out her presence because I could already feel my body relaxing into the atmosphere, the alcohol, and the music.
But I should have known better.
Her scream from the kitchen had erased my hours of progress to find solace.
Suddenly I was more in tune with my environment. The alcohol stopped making me tired; it made me active.
