Page 21 of Darkness and Duress

Mechanically, like a robot going through preprogrammed motions, I walked Jer’s dog, fed him and the cat, aimlessly tidied the apartment, and fell into bed with a groan. The delicious waves of satisfaction had long abandoned me. What was one of the most gratifying sexual experiences of my life became eclipsed by the remorse as I stared at the play of late night light over my water-stained ceiling. Exhaustion made my vision swim and blur. Marco’s face coalesced in my unfocused daze. Fuck, what had I done? What could I do to make it better?CouldI make it better? An ember of hope rekindled where my heart should have been, stupid and reckless. Iwouldmake it better. Somehow, some way, I would. I had to.

Chapter Eleven

Marco

Three days. Three whole days and nights of being reluctant to leave my bed but unable to sleep. I'd known this crash was coming. I could feel the icy dark fingers clawing at my brain more insistently every day as my energy waned and my appetite died right alongside my will to live. It wasn't always this bad, but the creeping weight I carried around never truly left. I tried everything. Exercise. Self-help books. Meditation. Medication—every different kind on the market. Therapy. Diet. No matter how hard I tried, the shadows still clung.

And times like these, they didn't just cling, they suffocated. I'd known it was coming. Unfortunately, the night spent with Henny triggered it to swallow me up faster and more intensely than I had prepared for. I blinked my gritty eyes at my phone and groaned. Three thirty in the morning. Night number four without sleep. I squinted at the nightstand and found the last bottle with any water remaining in it. I didn't want it, but the persistent, throbbing ache in my head told me I needed it. Ittasted like depression as it slid down my throat—stale, heavy, and chemical.

It physically hurt to roll out of bed. The covers stunk. I stunk. The entire house stunk, drowning under the miasma of my mental health spiral. As much as I wanted to stay under the blankets and wallow in my bed, I couldn't. I had important meetings to attend and if I wasted away any longer, my family would come sniffing around. That in and of itself was enough to give me the energy to move. Barely.

The lukewarm water of the shower hurt my skin. That's one thing they never tell people about depression. That shit legitimately hurts. Shower too hot? My skin felt like it was incinerating. Too cold? It flayed me alive with ten thousand shards of ice. Even lukewarm, the droplets hitting my body caused visceral pain to spread through my nerve endings. Dead on the inside. Entirely too alive on the outside.

I washed as fast as I could given my lethargy. Even drying my body was too much work. I stood in front of the mirror, hating everything I saw, before opening it. Razor? Too much effort. Toothpaste? Too far away. Medication bottles? What was the point? I closed the cabinet and reached for my toothbrush with a sigh. I froze when I saw the second neatly standing beside mine in the holder. I'd kept his fucking toothbrush like a complete and utter fool. As if he'd ever want to see me again after the way I treated him.

I half heartedly brushed my teeth without toothpaste. It was better than nothing. “Even the smallest success during a low should be celebrated.” The words of my therapist echoed too loud in my head. I hated her. I hated everyone. Mostly, I hated myself. I couldn't fathom getting dressed yet, so I grabbed my robe off the back of the bathroom door and winced through the ache of limited movement for too long a period of time.

The soft scuff of my soles on the tile floor grated at my hearing. The refrigerator was soloudas I tugged it open. The interior light burned at my eyes. Once I managed to blink away the stars, I sank even lower. The greens were wilted. The berries were a velvety forest of greyish mold. Judging by the smell, the ground turkey wasn't fit for consumption. It didn't matter. I definitely didn't have the patience or strength to cook it. I let the suction pull the door shut and sidestepped to my guilty pleasure cabinet. I grabbed the box of Little Debbie Swiss Rolls and shuffled to my favorite spot in the world—my reading nook.

I curled up in the chair and tore into the box, ripping open the plastic with trembling hands. Science told me this wouldn't help in the long run, but honestly? Fuck science. I'd take a false promise dressed in artificial flavoring for a temporary shot of something good if it meant a fleeting reprieve from the absolute mindsuck of my depression.

One roll, two rolls, three rolls, four. I shoved them in my mouth one after the other like a robot. The shit was just gonna end up making me throw up in the end anyway, so I might as well binge it now and hope some of the sugar made it into my system before my gut protested the unwanted invasion of food. Yet another thing people didn't know about depression. It wasn't just sadness and tears and melancholy and low energy, although I had those in spades. It was also stomach upset, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and cramping so bad I once thought I was dying. Thanks to my mood state, I wasn't mad about it at all. Alas, I lived miserably ever after.

Five rolls, six rolls. Too far. I let the box and wrappers slide to the floor as the first wave of nausea hit. With my head in my palms and my elbows on my knees, I practiced the stupid fucking breathing exercises to try and stave off the worst of it. Turns out, the position was a comfortable enough one to trick my body into throwing in the towel for a little while.

Stiff as fuck and disoriented beyond belief, my eyes fluttered open some unknown amount of time later to focus on the ceiling of my living room. As reality came back, I realized I was laid out in the reclined position of the chair with a blanket draped over me. That shit happened sometimes. Huge chunks of time would go missing when I was in the pits of it. One time, I even tried to make macaroni and cheese. I had zero recollection of doing it until I found the entire sauce pot filled to the brim with pasta and cheese in the garbage can.

This didn't feel the same, though. I went from numb to hyper aware in seconds as I registered the sound of footsteps in my kitchen. I all but fell out of the chair and stumbled around the partition before freezing in place. Brandon fucking Fortini was standing in the middle of my kitchen with a stupid grin on his face and a can of soup in his hand.

“Morning, Sad Panda.”

“What the…” I had to cough to clear my throat. Three days without speaking to a soul had sent my vocal chords on holiday. “What the fuck are you doing?”

I tugged the robe closed as I caught his gaze drifting southward. Once I tied it shut, I scuffed into the kitchen and slapped the switch for the overhead lights off. That shit was entirely too bright.

“Decided to drop in. I was in the neighborhood.” He turned toward the counter. “Soup’s for breakfast. I can't cook for shit.”

“How did you get in here?” I rubbed the sand from my eyes as a flurry of emotions tried to claw their way through the numbness.

“I have my ways.” He waved a hand toward the counter and I squinted to try and discern what he had motioned toward. Realization struck in a flash—there was a fucking lock pick set laying out as if that were a normal thing.

“You… broke into my apartment?”

“Yeah. Not sorry.” He cracked open the can and dumped it into a pot on the stove. “Sleep well?”

“Did you…?”

“Yes, I caught you before you ate the floor, pushed you into the chair, and covered your dick.” He glanced over his shoulder with a smile. “Stole a Swiss Roll too. Those shits are delicious. You're full of surprises, Sad Panda.”

“Bran—”

“Shh, no talkie. Go sit. This’ll be ready in like, two seconds.”

I blinked.

“Coffee? I'm sure I can figure out this machine.” He flicked my coffee maker. “Pretty sure your organic bullshit milk replacement is past date, but coffee is coffee.”

It was too much. It was all too much. I didn't ever,everwant anyone to see me when I was at my lowest. I went out of my way to keep people from figuring it out. And here was fucking Brandon standing in the middle of my wreckage with a dipshit smile as he stirred a pot of vegetable barley soup at whatever o-fucking-clock in the morning it was. I turned on my heels and strode out of the room.

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