Page 79 of The Fall
The sun rises, sets. Rises, sets.
I pour another shot and let the poison settle in my veins. The room tilts. My tongue tastes salt, and I think of?—
No. That’s only the vodka.
I am the aftermath of my own destruction.
It’s the falling, the drowning, that always comes back to me. Water pulling me under, waves filling my lungs. My vodka is both the wave and the water, and it pulls me under every night. The more I drink, the less I care whether I drown.
The water’s always there, always calling to me. Vancouver is close to the sea, and the salt air stings my lips like tears when the wind blows in from the west. I want to reach for that smudge of space between ocean and horizon where there is nothing.
Those black waters and dark waves are with me all the time; I see them when I close my eyes. They want everything, want to take and take from me, consume me, pull me down into their depths darker than these days.
I wonder if it would feel like coming home.
Blair.
I’m nothing without him. Tampa’s gone, and with it everything I became.
I want to meet him at the horizon.
Torey, turn around.Go back.
It’s dark enough on the road that all I see is a smear of black asphalt between my headlights. Whatever’s riding shotgun inside me tonight is louder than the voice inside my head. I’vebeen teetering and tottering, waiting and waiting and waiting, and I can’t fucking go on like this much longer. So, that’s it?—
The waves will decide for me tonight. I’ve been meant for that water, I know I have.
Lights bob ahead, pinpricks in the black. Night’s a problem; there are too many lights that confuse me, and I can’t tell what’s land or sky or wave or reflection. I tell myself—shut your eyes, shut them, Torey, shut them tight—and maybe I’ll wake up somewhere else, where whatever sense of who you are and what you’ve become isn’t shredded and where maybe the world doesn’t feelso fucking broken.
The road bends ahead, but I don’t follow the curve.
Turn.
I don’t. The lights grow brighter, and headlights explode across my windshield, riding the rip of a horn blasting over this ribbon of road. My hands finally yank on the wheel as my foot slams down on the brake. Tires shriek. I’m thrown forward, pinned by my seat belt, and my breath is snatched from me as my truck rattles and quakes.
The screech of tires, shattering glass, metal shredding metal?—
My fingers weld to the wheel, knuckles white as bone. I gag, choke on nothing, then yank my truck off the road, instinct seizing control. Gravel spits up as I jolt to a stop on the shoulder. I stare at my hands, certain they don’t belong to me.
There’s a horrible twitch deep in me. I taste salt and blood, wipe my lips, and expect to see red.
Out. I need out. I fumble for the door like I’m fighting a stranger. I’m gasping now, every breath pulling me down where the dark breaks open. It takes everything; I’m lurching, wrestling, but finally the door bursts open, and night swallows me.
I don’t remember hitting the ground, but I do, falling on my hands and knees with my forehead in the gravel.
Blair.
My hands scrabble in the dirt, and I scream, dust and grit clinging to my lips. I scream, and I scream, and I scream. Darkness flows in like the tide coming too fast, and water rises, all the way up my throat.
There is nowhere left to go but down.
I slap the ground, grab a fistful of gravel, and fling it, roaring. My vision blurs.
Once, I woke up and saw Blair asleep on his pillow, his face half-hidden, a smile on his lips for me. Our hands met halfway on the bed between us, our fingers threading together. A curtain behind him shifted, gauzy white, and he breathed my name?—
Torey.
The world flatlines.
