My Demons

Chapter 31: Cold

A/N: Sorry this chapter took me so long! I’ve been really busy with research for school. But I hope this chapter and the next one will make up for the long waits! :) Be prepared: this one is a long one!

Chapter 31: Cold

            It was much harder than I thought it was going to be to not go running back to Misaki. More than anything, I wanted to march into the penthouse and hold him again. I wanted to beg him to forgive me and take me back. Things weren’t supposed to end like this… I hated this.

            I hated the new apartment that I lived in. It wasn’t that it was bad. It was just as big as the other one. It wasn’t that I missed having my favorite bear, Suzuki-san, by my side all the time. No… what I missed the most was having Misaki by my side. Without him, nowhere that I go will ever feel like home again.

            I knew I had no one to blame but myself. If only I had been more honest with him; taken things a bit more slowly with him; didn’t try to force him into things; just listened to him more often; if only I wasn’t me…

            The nightmares returned. It had been so long since I last had one. The last one I remembered was when Misaki was visiting his brother and we both thought that he was leaving me. Having the boy with me really kept them at bay. The turning point was the whole ordeal with that Sumi kid and how I forced myself onto Misaki after that. Nearly every night since then, I’ve dreamt of both him and Ryuto jumping over the bridge. Sometimes, I woke up and I wasn’t even sure who it was that I dreamt about.

            Food had lost its appeal to me and I lost most of my appetite. I still ate, but not nearly as much as a nearly 30 year old man should be eating. When I did eat, it was always accompanied with whiskey or bourbon or sake – something to take the edge off of my pain, just for a little bit.

            It was hard to sleep, partly because of the nightmares and partly due to my constant lags of crying. When the hell did I cry so much? It was infuriating that some kid 10 years younger than me could make me bawl my eyes out like a baby. The pain in my heart was constant and I couldn’t stop myself from breaking down.

            Everything had gotten so bad that I recently stopped writing completely. Aikawa-san was pissed at first, but she eventually seemed to understand why I was so depressed and said she’d handle it. Apparently she has since no one from the publishing company, not even Isaka-san, has come around to try to knock some sense into me. She still comes by almost every day to make sure that I’m okay.

            She’s been so kind to me since I moved. At first, she was confused as to why I moved away from Misaki. She knew just how much I was in love with him. After all, I didn’t let anyone that close to me if I didn’t like them. Eventually she accepted my reasoning of wanting to protect him, even if she didn’t agree with me. She constantly tried to talk me into moving back and getting him back, but I was set in my ways. Besides, he wouldn’t take me back now after that.

            Whenever she came over, she brought food – either take-out or food that she cooked right there for me. Sometimes she would clean up around the apartment a little bit. It was nice to have her do those things for me, especially since I never once asked her to.