Page 7 of His Atonement

I owe her that and so much more, no one else is privy to it.

Everyone else can fuck off.

A Cosmic Fuck You

Culver City, California.

Iquickly step out of the room, and pull the door closed softly, turn the knob three times before I let go, and press my back against the wall next to it.

My nose and eyes burn, my throat is tight, so fucking tight as I try to swallow against the flood of tears I refuse to shed.

She told me I shouldn't cry for her, told me Icouldn'tcry for her.

She said I've already shed too many tears over things I can't control, the things that weren't going to change no matter how hard I prayed or begged.

She even said I should view this as something to be celebrated, turn her funeral into a party, turn her end into my beginning.

But she had no idea that this would simply be one step closer to the final page of a book that should be burned, one that never should have been written in the first place.

Written.

Written.

Written.

My fingers flex against my thighs three times before I dig them into the muscle; raking my nails over the skin to try to stop the twitching, the itching, the compulsion.

She said I shouldn't cry for her but she never said I shouldn't cry forme.

Cry for the life that was somehow wasted, yet worth living a thousand times, cry for everything I can't do, everything I won't ever do.

Cry for the way she proved to me that what defined me, defined who I was and gave me purpose, was her.

Without her, I'm left withit.

Itthat will continue to plague my mind.

Itthat will consume my days, and haunt my nights.

Itthat will definitely kill me in the end.

The end that is much sooner than I choose to believe.

Believe.

Believe.

Believe.

“Fuck," I whisper through clenched teeth.

Everything is going to spiral now.I'mgoing to spiral now.

I won't be able to hide it anymore, won't be able to keep my secret now that she's gone.

And I sure as fuck won't be able to prove to myself that I am notit, not defined by adiagnosis, adisease. I won't be able to be strong like her.

But unlike her, my mind is going to slip the same way my body will, probably before my body betrays me completely.