Page 41

41

JULIET

Tears blinded my eyes as I stumbled out of the bakery and tried to get back to my apartment. I was so disoriented that I took the wrong turn and ended up on a completely unknown street. Panic clawed at my throat as I tried to orient myself. Several people stopped to stare at me, and a concerned older woman asked if I was okay. It just made me run faster.

Unsafe. Unsafe. Unsafe.

I finally made it back to my building. Weak legs carried me up the stairs when all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball. My hands shook as I tried to unlock the door, my vision black and spotty. I finally got it open and slammed it shut behind me before collapsing to the floor.

I clawed at my neck, unable to drag in air. Everything was crumbling around me. All I saw when I closed my eyes was the disdain on Romeo’s face when I spoke to him, the sound of his laughter when the other man had called me fat. Romeo, who had told me he was out of town for business, and that’s why he wasn’t able to see me… Why he had been too busy to even talk to me.

It was so unfair. I had been fine without him. My life might have been small and pathetic, but it was mine . And then he’d crashed into it, with his sweet words and promises, and left me with this agony. This was why I couldn’t trust anyone. This was why I had to be alone.

Waves of pain washed over me, too heavy to bear. I was going to suffocate if I couldn’t get out from underneath it. I crawled to the bathroom, knowing that there was only one thing that would make this feeling stop. Shame bubbled up within me as I grabbed the razor blade from under the sink.

I fumbled with the zipper of the jumpsuit, letting out a scream when I couldn’t get it off fast enough. It was something he had gotten me, just part of the torture of him pretending to care. The jumpsuit ripped as I dragged it off my body, and I let out a sob.

The dingy tile floor was cold against my legs and butt. An icy draft blew through the cracks in the window. And none of it fucking mattered.

I looked down at my thighs, already lined with scars, and lifted the blade in my hand.

The pain didn’t register after the first cut.

Or the second.

Blood seeped onto the bathroom floor with the third.

It wasn’t working.

My heart could still feel .

I sliced again.

He had ruined me. Made me feel too much.

Another.

And another.

The color red was so vivid against the dull gray room. Against my dull gray life. I poised the blade in my hand, wondering if I should do it. Just end it all.

A voice in the back of my mind stirred. Are you really going to kill yourself over a man , Juliet? Come the fuck on. You’re better than that.

I leaned back against the wall, razor blade dropping to the floor. The voice sounded a lot like Breanna. A slight smile twisted my lips as blood pooled underneath my legs, and finally everything went numb.

There were no feelings, no pain, no cold. I floated, the exhaustion and stress of it all pulling me under.