We’re back to time. Again. Always. But still, it’s irrelevant.
11:49 p.m. Eleven minutes to midnight and I’m in the living room, again, somehow, moved from the bathroom floor. I try beer, about the time my breathing begins to slow and the tension in my muscles start to relax.
It does nothing, so I move onto something harder. Falling back into the chair, the bottle of tequila in my hand as I watch the city below, my phone in hand as I hit the Play button on the stereo. Mumford & Son’s moves through me, a slow steady beat to a song I know well, the opening drum matching the rhythm of my heart.
Every muscle in my neck burns to turn away from the sky, focused on nothing, but I don’t look away.
Sparks burst in the night, flashes of red, blue, green, pink, the most vibrant display I’ve seen in a while.
I lean back, resting my head against the chair and close my eyes, tears falling. A flood of emotions rage through me. Pain, anger, sadness, pity, but most of all, devastation that I wasn’t there in her darkest moment. She needed me tonight, but I think the only reason she needed me was so she could let go of herself completely.
It’s when the song ends that I see a figure in the room, setting the cupcakes on the table. When I look closer, it’s Mila, the manager of the hotel. I didn’t even hear her come in the room.
I stand, swallowing over the lump in my throat and draw in a few breaths. My eyes meet hers, maybe then she’ll know I don’t want her here. This isn’t our first interaction with one another. I’ve known her for years, but I can fuckin’ guarantee she’s never seen me like this.
“Thanks.” Despite my attempt to keep my words solid and unwavering, it doesn’t work. I turn back to the window not wanting her to see the tears. “Willa will take care of you.”
I want Mila out of the room, now, and when she doesn’t leave, I glance over my shoulder at her, hoping by my glare she gets the point and leaves.
Get the fuck out.
She doesn’t.
“Sorry,” she mumbles and then I hear a bang behind me. She trips over the chair by the door. The same one Tiller got a lap dance in last night from some chick he brought up here. I told him to move the chair, but he didn’t.
“Are you okay?” I jog over to her. I may not want her here, but I don’t want her hurting herself, either.
Carefully, I reach for her, my trembling hands cradling her elbow she just smashed into the tile floor. “Should I call someone? Are you hurt?”
“Call the fire department.”
I blink. Twice. “Really?”
She sits up, her back against the wall. “No, not really. I’m fine.” She’s staring at me, wanting to ask more than I’m willing to give her, but thankfully she doesn’t press for an answer.
Probably because she knows I won’t give her one.
I sigh heavily, attempting to rid my body of the pain, but it’s no use. This feeling isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. My knee bumps hers when I sit on the floor next to her. This isn’t exactly how I assumed I’d be spending New Year’s. “Happy New Year.”
I think about kissing her. I don’t know why, but I do. Maybe it would offer me something other than the agony raging through me.
It won’t. Rhya’s face flashes in my head, but my heart doesn’t jump this time. My stomach doesn’t flip. My eyes don’t flinch, but then again, I don’t breathe either.
Until I need to.
Sighing, Mila laughs lightly, a soft sound I haven’t heard in a while. “Not exactly how I thought I’d be spending it but yeah, happy New Year, Mr. Sawyer.”
Yeah, me either.
My lips twitch, but it’s not a smile. It’s annoyance, it’s sadness, it’s every other emotion rushing through me. I think about my dad, right then, suddenly, and the name he gave me, and the man I am now is nothing close to the image I have of him, the one of a strong man who did everything he could for his sons.
“It’s Shade, Mila. Mr. Sawyer’s my dad.” I help her up. I want her to leave, but I also don’t want to be rude to Mila of all people.
“Do you need anything else?”
“No, I’m fine. Thank you for those.” Lie. It’s all a lie. I motion to the cupcakes with a flick of my wrist at the table.
I hand her money. I don’t know how much I give her, but I also don’t care.
Mila takes the money from me and shoves it down her dress. I fight a smile. I’ve always liked her. “Have a good night, Shade.”
I don’t say a goddamn thing to her. I won’t have a good night. How can she say that?
Well, she can because she has no idea what’s happened. She doesn’t know the devastation rooted in my heart. No one understands the way I destroyed myself to save Rhya, and now what? I couldn’t save her.
She could save me?
Here’s a number for you. Thirteen. That’s how old I was when I broke my arm. I missed a jump and greased the landing. My radius bone cracked in half and broke through the skin. I remember that sensation, the numbness, the pain that eventually followed when the adrenaline wore off. It’s nothing compared to this, but it feels like that, like my bones are trying to tear from my skin.
A wave of rage hits me, intensely and I twist, driving my already bloody fist into the wall. “I can’t fucking breathe!” I scream to no one, staring at the blood smearing the white wall in front of me. “How could you fucking do this?”
Backing up against the wall behind me, my hands shake, my heart pounding so hard it hurts, scrambling for an answer I’ll never get from her. With my fists drawn up against my face cradling my head, I clench them harder until I physically can’t any longer and drop to my knees.
For so long I’ve tried to save her, so why would she do something she knows would destroy me?
And sadly, I have a sense of relief. It’s small, but I hate myself for feeling it at all. I knew she’d die young. I just didn’t think it’d be this way.
No one could have saved her. This was a path she chose when we were young. She had a choice whether to live or give up, and she chose to give up.
Despite knowing this would happen, it doesn’t stop the grief surging with every expelled breath I take, always reaching higher peaks, never sufficiently soothing by my long intakes of air.
12:07 a.m.
Fireworks explode above, vivid colors to ignite the otherwise black sky.
Do you see the grief in me? Do you see it? Did this break you too?
You know that feeling when the world around you feels like it doesn’t exist? It’s like you’re floating away, but not in a good way?
There are no tears. Just pure silence. My throat and tears have since dried up. There’s nothing else to say. Nothing else to feel.
The absolute worst part about Rhya killing herself?
Just maybe if I hadn’t said those things to her, hadn’t told her I quit, had held on a bit longer, I could have saved her, and she’d still be here. I resent myself, Jaime, her dad, her uncle, all of us who played a role.
At some point, everything I’m feeling and doing becomes robotic. I want the pain to stop. Then again, I want to feel the pain because it’s something, at least.
Do you see me there in the room? I’m unmoving, physically, but my mind won’t stop moving through memories of us together. Even the ones where she fucked me over time and time again.
I’m in the bed, pulling at my hair, and before I know it, I’m on the floor.
Hours pass and I’m on top of the sheets, in the bed. Then I’m on the floor, soaked in sweat and shaking.
I try to calm myself down. I take a shower.
I smoke a cigarette, but I don’t smoke. It makes me sick.
I throw up.
I pass out.
I’m wide awake and realize I never slept.
I’m hungry but can’t eat.
I feel better, then again, I feel so much worse.
I throw my phone because it won’t stop ringing. I want to set it on fire. Don’t need the fuckin’ thing anymore. Don’t the people calling know my state of mind? But then again, how could they? I kept everything I ever felt for Rhya inside, afraid of their judgmental theories on our unhealthy bond.
At the thought of her, I fill with rage and tear the room apart. I break windows and walls, throw vases and destroy anything I can.
I drink. Then drink some more because I’m dying of a thirst I’ll never quench.
I’m stumbling, half awake, half somewhere else and into the bathroom. I’m on the floor, crying and struggling, vomiting.
I’m alone and scared.
I’m distraught and deranged.
I’m flying. I’m falling.
I’m rolling on my back. I’m staring at the white ceiling wishing for blackness. All I’ll ever be now is powerless to the ringing in my ears of a sound I’ll never fucking forget.
I don’t want to feel, only, I can feel everything. All of it. She’s still in me, under my skin, destroying me from the inside, ripping me up. She strangles on veins and suffocates my heart, with, “Where I end, you begin. . . .”
Rhya didn’t love me. She lived off me. She drained me until there was nothing left. I let her.