Page 1 of Surviving the Merge
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Midnight approached, and even with the heavy storm that raged outside, the city felt alive. Bright lights blazed for those who weren’t yet safely tucked within their homes. The possibilities for what they could still be doing out there were endless.
Wearing only my flesh, I pressed against the windowed wall of my living room, fourteen stories high, and attempted to get a feel for it. Wanting to be swept up in it. Because I too wanted to feel alive.
I loved the rain. Its presence a part of what kept me shackled to Kisla, Oregon. It rained there, on average, two hundred days out of the year. When not raining, a potent gloom enveloped the city. Like we were on the precipice of something dooming that would soon take place.
Stepping away, I took stock of my surroundings. Tables and chairs overturned, paintings hanging lopsided on the walls. I resisted looking to the adjoining dining room—barely. Specifically, the dining room table, which served as a reminder that in my rage, I nearly did something we wouldn’t have been able to come back from. Something so unlike me.
“You want to rip this place apart? You go ahead, but think before you turn your anger onto me.”
I shook those words from my head and exhaled deeply, finding my body once again plastered to the cold transparent barrier separating me from the outside world.
I shivered, wishing I’d thought to start up the fireplace. The high ceilings and lack of walls made it difficult to keep the condo warm during the colder months.
The immediate need for heat caused my thoughts to drift to a certain someone, wondering how I’d gone so long resisting the pull. It took everything in me now to stay where I remained.
It’d been six weeks since our last encounter. And I was in need of what onlyhecould provide. I tried to stay away, but did I really believe that I could? That I could stop the madness that had been unfolding? My laugh was self-deprecating.Who am I kidding?This could only end one way. The ultimate price must be paid. The only question: who would come collecting?
Mind made up, I slipped through the dining room and made my way upstairs to do what needed to be done.
Entering the bedroom, I yanked open the walk-in closet doors, nearly stumbling in my effort to get to my side. The hangers rattled on their racks as I blindly grabbed at garments, suddenly unable to breath through my quiet desperation.
My pulse raced with anticipation as I dressed.
Hestirred behind me as I sat on the edge of our bed to lace my boots. Stretching out the process longer than needed, wanting desperately to avoid his knowing gaze. I finally peered over my shoulder, unable to circumvent the inevitable and also needing to ensure that the message of what my actions implicated had been received. He looked weary but resigned, and I felt guilty but not enough. I lowered my head and shut my eyes in acknowledgement of my shame, but I stood and left anyway.
Exiting the elevator into the underground parking garage, my boots struck the tarred concrete, echoing through the desolate, cavernous space, my gaze laser-focused on the matte-black car ahead of me.
Twenty paces away.
I retrieved the key fob from the side pocket of my tight denim jeans.
Fifteen paces away.
The chirp indicating that the alarm had been deactivated sent a lick of heat down my spine.
Ten paces.
The faint sound of the car door locks being thrown back almost cost me my stride.
Five.
It’s not too late to turn around,I thought. I looked behind me at the waiting elevator. Its opened doors whispered, “Come back to me.”
I faced forward and held my breath until I sat wrapped in a cocoon of leather and chrome, until the locks re-engaged, effectively jailing me inside.
I took a white-knuckled grip of the steering wheel, both hands at twelve o’clock, leaning forward and asking myself, “What the hell are you doing, Justin?”
Through the rearview mirror, I watched the elevator doors close. A sign:too late to turn back now.
I’d left the comforts of heaven to willingly lay in the arms of the devil.
One foot pressed on the brake and a finger on the push-start ignition. The engine purred, and soon, so would I.
I tried to work out what made me this way as I rode down the slick, darkened highway.
Destination: Hell.
