Page 24 of Between Hope & Tragedy

Placing my head on his chest and wrapping my arms around his waist, I made him a promise I intended on keeping.

“It’s okay, Garrett. It’ll all be over soon anyway.”

(Friday Evening)

What time is it?I wondered, craning my neck to look at the clock in the kitchen. If my eyes weren’t deceiving me, it was 8pm and Garrett was still asleep on the couch. I hated to wake him up, but I knew that if I didn’t start this now, I would never get it done.

“Hey,” I said softly, leaning over and giving him a gentle poke in the side. “Garrett?”

He moaned quietly and rolled onto his other side, eyes still closed, and a foot still in dreamland.

“Garrett?” I asked a little louder, giving him a gentle shake. “Are you awake?”

He groaned loudly and rolled onto his back. I smiled; I couldn’t help it. The way his hair sat messily on top of his head, so wild and free, was far from the kind of person I knew he was.

I gingerly placed a hand on his thigh and waited for him to open his eyes. It was something that made me feel somewhat loved, to know that a single touch from me could have so much power over him.

“I am now,” he finally said, using one of his knuckles to rub his left eye.

“I think something about this house makes it easy to sleep for hours,” I said in amusement.

Garrett sighed and let an arm rest across his forehead, blinked a few times, then cocked his head so he could look at me. His eyes smiled at me, but his lips couldn’t form the sentiment that they shared. I wasn’t upset with him for it, and I certainly wasn’t angry. He was grieving a loss that should have been both of ours, but I had laid the burden of it on his shoulders, so he knew he would have to do it for me as well.

“How are you holding up?” he asked curiously.

“Fine,” I replied, taking my hand away from his leg. “And you?”

He scoffed and brought himself up to a seated position. I pulled my legs up to my chest on the couch and wrapped my arms around them as I waited for him to respond.

“Fucked up,” he replied honestly, running a hand irritably through his hair. “Not that you would know what that feels like.”

I rested my head on top of my knees and looked at him for a moment. Garrett didn’t know me; he didn’t know what wasinside of my head, and no matter how frustrated he was with me for not throwing myself on the floor and crying my eyes out, he couldn’t possibly know the true depths of “fucked up” that was spiraling inside of me. It was like a giant sinkhole in the middle of the ocean that pulled at me every day, threatening to drag me to the darkest depths, and it was all I could do not to drown.

But today would be the first day since I started swimming near that sinkhole that I wouldn’t fight its pull. I would welcome it, and I would let myself spiral down, just to see how far into the darkness I could go before I finally succumbed to the pressure caving in all around me. Until every dark thing that had ever run rampant in my mind finally took over and crushed me in its precious grip.

Would I survive the pull?I didn’t know, and I had finally reached the point where I didn’t care and hoped that it would be a beautiful demise; I hoped the intensity of it would make me smile one last time before I let it take me into the unknown.

But, first thing’s first.

“Can I ask you something?” I said, turning my eyes away from him.

“Yeah,” he replied tiredly.

“That first time. In your classroom? How did it happen? I can never remember,” I admitted softly.

“What do youthinkhappened?” he asked curiously.

I scoffed and got to my feet. I walked to the doorway that sat between the living room and the kitchen and leaned my back against it, letting my eyes wander toward the ceiling.

“I honestly don’t know. I’ve spent most of my life thinking you forced yourself on me, but with as many times as you’ve told me you loved me in the past couple of weeks, something tells me that’s not what happened.”

“It’s not!” he replied in shock. “Zaydee, I never forced you to do anything.Youcame on tomeand I didn’t stop it from happening. I know that I should have and this all never would have happened, but I couldn’t resist you. You looked at me with such sad eyes, such heartbreak, and then all of a sudden you looked at me the way a grown woman would. You’ve always been... more developed than you should be and I lost myself in that lie. I saw you as a woman and not as a child and I... fuck. This is all my fault. All of it. I’m so sorry.”

His voice cracked when his millionth apology left his lips, and I turned my face slightly to look at him. I pitied him for loving me as much as he did. I pitied him for thinking that telling me would change the kind of person I was. But most of all, I felt sorry for him because I knew how this had to end.

“Garrett? Remember how when we were going to Grandma’s house? You said that the next time we would go through with what we started?” I asked.

He didn’t verbally answer me, but he nodded his head slightly, using the back of his hand to wipe the tears from his face.

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