Page 45 of Cuts Like an Angel: Part 2

He rushed down the steps, almost tumbling with it, his feet slipping on the pebbles at the start of the beach. “Fuck,” he shot out as he twisted his ankle and almost sent his bottle hurtling to the ground. He let himself fall, though. Sitting on the cold wet stones as he cranked open the bottle and knocked back as much of the vile liquid as he could manage. He didn’t even like whiskey. Maria had given it to him to relax him.

“Drink this, sweetheart,” she would say … lies. Just like Rosie.

“Well, I’m drinking it now,” he shouted out to no one, knocking down more until his throat burned and his stomach threatened to bring every last drop back up. But he swallowed it, gasping, sobbing it down into the pit of his stomach. “I hate you Rosie. I hate you so much.”

He stayed there, guzzling the whisky, his mind pointed at hatred and pain. The world around him carried on. Oblivious to the idiot sitting on the beach. Eventually, he pulled his phone from his pocket. So many missed calls and texts from her over the last hour or so. He cleared them, not wanting to hear her lies and excuses. If it was something she could explain, she would have. She’d have told him the first day.

He pressed the phone to one side of his head, the bottle to the other, leaning on his knees as he let it all go. He let it all out the way he would when he was younger, purging his mind of all the things wrong in his life.

“I have fucking dick written on me somewhere and they all see it.” He sat like that a while, rocking. “It’s me. It’s me,” going over and over in his mind. When he looked at his phone, a good twenty minutes had passed. His screen was blank. “Ha. See. Didn’t really fucking care, did you?”

He knocked more of his drink back, his mind swimming from it, his backside cold and numb for the amount of time he had sat there. He drained what was in it. Forcing it all the way down.

They’d done that to him, too. Maria and her friends. They had forced down the booze so that he would drink it faster and not give a shit what they were doing. Maybe they had all known. Holding the neck, he slammed the bottle against the stones, smashing it. Fuck her, fuck them.

He pushed his sleeves up, taking a piece of the glass.

“I hate you,” he said with the first cut. “I fucking hate you.”

Cut.

“Hate.”

Cut.

“Hate.”

Cut.

Over and over he did it until blood ran down his arm. It wasn’t enough. He stood, dropping the glass. Ahead of him the sea lapped at the shore, and William yanked his wallet and his phone out, dumping them on the stones. He kicked off his shoes too and then ran. Ran towards the sea and the waves, his burning soul and heart dead set on the arms of death. He’d get there this time. He’d not fucking fail, he’d do it, they’d see then. They’d find his things and no William and then they would see he was owner of his life. He was the one who decided when he hurt and when he didn’t. Not them, not anybody. Nobody could force him to hurt anymore, only him.

He rushed into the sea, the water pushing against his legs, slowing him down. He screamed against it, pushing more, wading in deeper and deeper until the icy water lapped at his waist and soaked his clothes. The waves came, splashing over him, against him, pushing him back, but he carried on, going deeper. When it was at his chest, he bent over, shoving his face into the water, gasping as the cold salty sea rushed into his mouth. He took in mouthfuls of it, determined to fill himself with enough sea until his body was heavy.

“Take me down. Fucking take me,” he yelled, pushing his head under again. But it didn’t matter how much he pushed, or how far out he went, he floated to the top, his body naturally gasping for air.

“Why won’t you let me die?” he screamed up to the sky. He wasn’t a praying man. He didn’t believe in God, but someone had to hear him.

When the sea pushed him back to the shallow waters, he lay on his stomach, his body aching and tired. The evening had rolled in at some point. His fingers were numb from the cold, his teeth chattered. Even the sea rejected him.

He crawled back to his shoes and his phone and wallet. His screen was filled with missed calls again. But he opened his phone and navigated to his contacts.

“Carly,” he mumbled, when she answered.

“Josh? Are you okay?”

“I can’t die,” he said. “I can’t. I tried.” He shook his swimming head. “I keep trying and I… I keep fucking up, I’m always fucking it up.”

“Josh. What have you done?”

“Please …” He leaned forward. “Please help me,” he croaked. “Help me die.”

“Josh. Listen to me. Tell me where you are. I’m coming to get you.”

“I just want to die.”

“Is that waves I hear? Josh, are you at the beach?”

“She can fucking leave, you know that? I don’t care.”

“Are you at the pier, Josh,” she demanded. “Answer me and I’ll come get you, I can help you end the pain.”

“You can,” He nodded knowing she had everything he needed to end anything. “You’ll help make it stop? The lies? The fucking lies?” he strained. “They don’t stop. They go on forever, nobody tells the truth.”

“You have to tell me if you’re at the pier. That’s my condition.”

“Yes. I’m at the fucking pier,” he mumbled. “I’m at the stupid, fucking pier.”

“Don’t move. Don’t hang up.”

William closed his eyes, unable to hold up his hand or the phone now. It flopped down into the sand like a load of bricks right before dark oblivion claimed him.

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