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Does your heart ache like mine? Are you pissed at him? Do you believe he means what he’s saying? I’m not sure I do. He’s just trying to hurt me. This is what he does. Remember when I said he’s destructive? This is what I’m talking about.
He’s wrong. He knows it, too. God, does he know it. I can see it. The way he glares to cover it up. He has pride, and he’s protecting it. I know that much. Bitter and cold, his eyes never meet mine again.
Tiller Sawyer doesn’t burn bridges. He lights them on fire and pisses on the flames.
Do you hear the tortured sound of heartache strangling me? Alone, I know I’m never enough. For her. For them. I don’t know how to process what’s happened. My mind can’t, won’t stop. I know she’s gone for good. You can’t blame her, can you?
All I know is deep down is I’m scared and have been all along. It’s where my insecurities lie and the truth I refuse to accept. I’m scared of hurting her. I’m scared of being hurt. And in the process, surrounded in fire, I’m left alone to cough up the ashes.
I call her the moment she leaves. Then obsessively. I smoke, and drink, and call her, over and over again. She doesn’t answer. Not once. Finally, I leave a message. “I’m so sick of this bullshit! Fine, fuck you, ya stupid bitch.”
I know, not my proudest moment, but just wait. When I self-destruct, I do it all out.
Think back to theBeauty and the Beastmovie. Remember when the beast was singing about his sorrows after Belle left?
That’s me. Just add some vodka.
My heart’s in knots, tangled around feelings I don’t understand or want to. I know one thing. She lit my fucking heart on fire and threw it.
“Where’s the kid?” Camden asks when I stumble downstairs. Naturally, he’s eating.
“Gone,” I snap, slamming the coffee pot down on the counter after pouring myself a cup. It shatters, and I don’t bother to clean the glass up.
Camden jumps at the sound, looking from the coffee pot to me. “Why?” There’s little-boy hesitation in his voice. He shouldn’t be here. Not today.
I move past him, over the glass and the hot cup of coffee. “It’s for the best,” I grit out, wishing I wouldn’t have just drank a scalding hot cup of coffee, but at least the pain in my throat is better than the pain in my chest. I can handle physical pain. Emotional, I turn to anything to drown it out.
“For you or her?” Camden asks, pushing his bowl of cereal away and wiping his chin.
“Both.”
“Why both?”
Silence fills the room and every space in my head. For once, I hear nothing around me. No beat, no blood, no screams. . . just Amberly and the moment she’s going to decide to break me completely. I take it out on the innocent kid in front of me. “It’s fucking complicated, Camden. Just leave it alone and go home.”
Camden’s chin quivers and I want to slit my throat with the glass beneath me. “Why do grown-ups do stupid things?” he asks, tears flooding his eyes. He hops down from the stool and heads for the door.
I reach for my cigarettes on the counter as the door slams behind him. “’Cause we’re dumb.”
The fiery tip of my cigarette glows as I stand. I think about River and the things I said to Amberly.
My mind spins, my thoughts wild and unpredictable.
Do you notice me? Can you hear the raging thoughts in my head? They control my mind and obscure my rationalization.
I smoke. A pack. The nicotine feels good, but it does nothing for this. I want something to speed my heart, slow my brain and settle my hands. I want something strong enough to kill every emotion inside me that’s suffocating me. I want to get fucked up.
When you’re hurting, when nothing takes the dark thoughts away, that’s when you’re the most vulnerable, and your mind is a dark, empty hole of instability. I don’t remember the first time the devil whispered to my soul, but I know he woke it up and I haven’t truly slept since then.
You know what makes it worse? Emotional pain. Caring. It makes you do stupid shit.
“What do you need?”
My eyes are barely open, my skin ice-cold and aching. “I needsomething.”
I want this pain gone. It’s what I’ve tried to destroy for years and have never succeeded, and now it seems I’ve made the pain so much worse.
“You sure? Are you competing tonight?”