Filming has finished. Most of the project parts that I’ve been involved with have been wrapping up in the last week. Now it’s up to the people from the tech group mostly. Putting everything together, finalizing everything. We’ve got a week or two of calm, just having to go in for small things, changes, questions, stuff like that.

It’s strange. It was so hectic, and now there’s nothing left. Now it’s just waiting, relaxing a little, before we have to do one last big push for the first screening of the film.

I’ve been talking with some guys from back home, seeing if we can get some screenings there too, and they seemed open to the idea. Especially to doing it as some crazy quick guerrilla thing. I knew they’d be into that. And it would work well with the whole movie, at least the way it looks in my mind, with just the script and having experienced the raw material.

But other than that... my days have been empty. Which is not good. Empty is definitely not good right now. It means that my head is filling itself with stupid things instead of being productive. I never realized how good I was at hiding behind work. But here I am going crazy because there is nothing that I can do to fill the void.

I could make a new installation with electronics, or do a shoot in the forest or the fields, especially now that the weather has been getting warmer. But it just doesn’t do anything for me.

I feel empty.

I feel empty and at the same time filled with this dark feeling that I don’t know how to deal with. I haven’t had to deal with it in a long time, not in years.

More than once, I’ve had to stop myself from getting in my car and going over to Lo. I know where she lives, I know how to get there, and I know that she’s at home most of the time too—I heard Lizzy talk about it with H while I was over at the workshop with Damon.

And the look that H gave me... I nearly got into a fight with him more than once. It made things at the workshop tense, so much that Damon and later also Tamara told me it would be better if I stayed away for a while. Things are going bad. Everything is getting more and more tense, filled with such darkness.

I can feel it building. I can feel that something is going to happen and I’m not sure if I’m going to survive it. But what is survival when stuff starts falling apart around you?

How can you survive when there is nothing to live for?

There is nothing left in the bottle. I’m not even sure how that happened. I think I went to the store, bought something... booze... anything really. As long as it would get me drunk quick enough.

Darkness has been taking up more space in my head. Days have been blurring together, and that was before the booze. I just hoped that drinking would make me fall asleep, allow me to not have to think about things. But it seems that life isn’t kind like that.

Empty bottle. I blink, a flash of a different room, a different time. More empty bottles there, but this same pain. This same pain like someone is trying to push all my insides out through my skin while simultaneously shredding my heart.

I hold the bottle. Will this work? Again?

I go back into my head, trying to reach for those memories. The last time that I drank this much, that I lost all sense of awareness. I normally can’t get to the memories, but maybe I can this way.

The last time was after Lola told me to leave the hospital, that she hated me, that she hated everything about me.

No. She never did hate me, not then. Not yet. But that didn’t help with the guilt. I read my own meaning into her words, into her looks. I read the things that I’d been thinking about myself, my own fears, into her words.

I hated me. I hated myself so much.

And then H hitting me. Us fighting. And then me stumbling away. Finding a liquor store, buying booze, expensive booze, anything that would get me drunk, as long as it was expensive, because... I don’t know.

Pain.

Then finding a hotel, also expensive, paying extra to not be disturbed for days. Paying extra and then getting even more booze.

After that things go a little... hazy. Just flashes. Anger. Pain. Upset. Throwing things.

Throwing my phone... at H.

That’s new.

I stop, focusing on that memory. It’s there, just a bit of it. H coming over, checking up on me, worried. And I threw my phone at him. That’s why it was broken when I came to again. I broke it while trying to hurt my best friend. Fuck.

More darkness, and red. Blood. My own, probably. H’s voice. Hard, angry. Pain everywhere, his steady hands on my arm. My scar. Is that the same night? Or a different night?

I don’t know. But there is one more memory at the edge of my mind. I try to reach for it. I try to reach for that sliver of darkness that’s more like a black hole, like it doesn’t exist in this same space that we live in.

The despair, the insanity, the total loss of... total loss of will to live. It’s there. I can see it, I can feel it. The exact moment that a broken bottle looked like my only way out. The only way out of this pain. The only way out of a situation that I couldn’t wrap my head around.

I’d lost everything. I knew that. I knew that at a level so deep that it had taken over everything, all my thoughts. I needed out. I needed away from this world.

I’d lost Lo. I’d not only lost our baby, I’d lost Lo. I’d been stupid, I’d not done everything to protect her. I was convinced that no matter what, one day, I’d lose her for real.

That evening, she’d fainted—blood loss. She was so pale, cold. I knew already at that point that I’d lost her. I was convinced that that would be the end.

Because I couldn’t deal with ever losing her. I would never forgive myself if I’d ever saw her like that again. Dead. Broken. Gone.

So it was better to never see her again. At least my heart couldn’t be blasted to smithereens. I needed out first. I needed to protect myself.

Fuck.

H was right. He did nearly lose two of his best friends in one night. I don’t know if he even knows how close he was to losing both of us.

And then we lost each other anyway.

I stare at the bottle in my hand. Cheap alcohol, not the stuff I drunk that night. Stupid cheap alcohol.

I stand up as best as I can and throw the bottle in the trash. It’s empty. That damage is done.

But I’m not doing this again. I can’t.

I need Lo. I need her more than I need air. That night I was willing to give up my own life to never have to see her lose hers. To never have to see that pain, that despair and that total darkness on her ever again.

I was stupid then. I was just a kid. A kid who loved so much and who’d lost everything, too scared to lose even more.

But seeing Lo, having seen her these last months... I can’t do that again.

I need her. She needs me. We both lost everything that night, and we went on with our lives, but we never recovered, we never healed.

Lo needs to know what really happened that night. She needs to know, and I need to face her thoughts and her judgment on my choices. I can’t hide from her any longer. It just hurts us.

But I need to sleep first. Because I need to be stone-cold sober if I’m going to talk to Lo.

If I’m going to confess what I did.

Hangovers are hell. Like, pure torture. But with some coffee and anything that didn’t immediately make me feel like puking in my stomach, I’m about to face the world.

I have no idea where Lo is. I could call her, but I don’t think I’d even be able to do that. I need to trust that things will work.

I find a message on my phone, from H. ‘Take care today.’ It’s surprisingly caring. With the way he’s been treating me, this is surprising. But I guess that he also remembers what day today is. I guess it’s hard to forget the things that happened three years ago.

I send a message back. ‘Thanks.’ I don’t know what else to say.

Then I look around—what can I do today?

I remember the fairy kingdom. The weather is good, and I could use some quiet right now. I could use the quiet of the forest today.

So I grab my keys and drive to the forest. The birds and the rustling of the leaves calms me down and I saunter down paths, winding my way to the clearing where I filmed the fairy kingdom. My head clears, the darkness pushed away to the fringes for the first time in weeks.

There is something cleansing about just walking, the sounds around me quiet. But as I get closer to the tree, I see something. Through the trees that create the clearing, their leaves the bright green of early spring, I see someone sitting at the foot of the tree.

It could be anyone—this is a public forest—but the moment I see the person, I know who it is. I already know.

I walk the last bit, and sure enough, Lola is sitting in front of the tree, the watery sun filtered through the bright green leaves, her eyes on a notebook in her lap. Her hand is moving slowly from time to time, but I’m not sure she even realizes I’m here.

I step into the clearing, and that’s the moment she looks up.

She doesn’t look surprised. She was waiting for me. She knew that I’d come here.

“Lo—Lola.” I’m not sure what I should tell her, how to even greet her.

“B.” She puts the notebook aside, standing up, then she comes over to me. It’s like she’s floating, like she’s the fairy queen. Then she holds out her hand and one of the windows from my construction is staring up at me. It’s the one with the red sheen and the flowers. Her character’s home, our home.

I reach out, but instead of grabbing the window I put my hand over hers. She knew I was coming here. She knew I would return. “I...” What can I even say?

She looks up at me, the darkness still in her eyes, but there is a fragile strength too. “There are many things I need to say. But I don’t know if I even have any words today.”

I grab her wrist, pulling her closer, wrapping both my arms around her. And this time she slides hers around me too. It feels good. It feels better than anything I’d ever imagined. She’s here, in my arms. “How can a writer not have any words?”

“You took them. You’ve been taking my words. My stories.” I hear the tears in her voice.

“I’m sorry.” I really am, because I know exactly what she means. I too lose so many things when I’m not with her.

She shakes her head, then pulls back a little. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all the horrible things I said to you that night in the hospital.”

I run my finger along her jaw, making her look up at me more. “It wasn’t your words. Because I knew that they weren’t true. I knew that they could never be true. I left because of the meaning I put into your words that night, not the ones you meant.”

Her eyes fill with tears, and I take her in my arms again, pulling her close. “What happened that night?” Her voice is muffled against my shirt.

I let out a breath, slowly letting her go, but I hold her hands instead. “A lot.” I take her back to the tree, and we both sit down. “What do you want to know?”

She looks down, at our hands, and then her eyes move up to the scar on the inside of my arm. The ugly scar, the edges uneven.

I let her hand go, trailing a finger over the scar. “I did so many stupid things that night. I’m not even sure how I can explain every one of them.” Then I take both her hands, squeezing a little. “Some things I couldn’t even remember until last night. Until I finally was able to unlock them.”

She squeezes my hands too. “Can you tell me?” Her voice is but a whisper.

“You’ll hate me. For real this time.”

“I’m not without blame myself. But these last months have made me realize that I can’t do it without you there by my side.” She looks up, and I know it’s the truth.

I know it because I feel that same way.

I nod.

“Okay.”