Page 77 of The Fall
I strip in silence in the locker room. No one talks to me anymore. They laugh, they joke, but the only sound I hear is this constant ringing in my ears that never leaves.
My hoodie goes up on the way to the gym. Hood up, headphones in. Stay invisible. Stay small.
I’m there, on the bike, sweating, heart thudding, and I blink—and then I’m not. I’m not anywhere.
I blink again, and the weight rack is in front of me, and I have a dumbbell in each hand.
How long have I been here? I close my eyes, squeeze them shut until colors dance behind my lids.
I crack open the bottle and pour another shot. Rinse. Repeat.
I hold the glass to my forehead. It sweats, like me, and drips condensation as clear as the thoughts I wish I could bottle up and pour down the sink.It was real. No, it wasn’t.
The frayed margins of my mind fight back. I’m one foot in, one foot out of sanity, caught between shores that don’t exist.
Salt and sound, and blue like the soft waves beneath an open sky?—
Stop. Blair’sgone. Gone, and never fucking here at all.
Who am I without him? I don’t know.
After the fourth shot, the world starts its slow fade around the edges. Good. Let it go, let it all go.
Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine.
Everything’s wrong.
They say practice makes perfect. I’m making practice, but it’s making a mess of me. I’m not sure if I’ll stay upright on the ice today. Vertigo punches, flipping my stomach inside out, and I have to swallow that old, sour vodka down again. The puck dribbles off to nowhere and I’m supposed to chase it, but I can’t.
My throat burns. It feels like I’m swallowing glass. My head—God, my fucking head—throbs with the migraine that’s taken up permanent residence inside of me.
I can barely hold myself together.
When I open my eyes again, I’m in the showers, alone. The water is freezing and my teeth are chattering. I don’t remember getting here, but here I am, shivering. Where did the time go?
Blair’s jersey is in my bed. Every night, I start with the vodka in the kitchen, swearing I won’t crawl back into either that bottle or my bed and bury my tear-soaked face in Blair’s jersey. But I do. I do every night, whispering to the stitching of his name how much I love him, how much I miss him, and how sorry—so fucking sorry—I am for leaving him. If I’m here, is he somewhere? Without me?
Is he waiting for me, too?
I live in tiny gaps now, in blinks, seconds that melt to minutes.
How long have I been standing here in my kitchen? My finger tucks against the knife the way a kid learns to chop for the first time, but there’s nothing on my cutting board, only grooves scored where I’ve dragged the knife.
I’m fracturing. The walls hum, the fridge buzzes like it’s trying to tell me something. I blink?—
—and take another swig, let the liquor paint fire down my throat.
The only thing I can control is how many times I lift this bottle to my lips.
I wake up on the bathroom floor. Holy fuck, my head’s ready to explode. I stumble to my feet, hit the sink, suck down tap water. My reflection catches me in the mirror. Christ?—
I don’t recognize the guy staring back at me. Eyes bloodshot, cheeks sallow, dark rings beneath them like bruises. When’s the last time I took a shower? Shaved?
My first thought:What the hell am I doing?
The second:When did I stop caring?
The third:When did I start?
