Ego's Trap | ✔

59 | Unravel

☆☆☆ Chapter 59 ☆☆☆

Unravel

It's not true.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

It can't be.

"Teresa! Teresa! Tess! Wake up, wake up! Wake up 'n open the fucking door! Please, please I'm begging you open it right the fuck now!"

But it is.

I hate reading. I hate hearing. I hate being.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

"Teresa! Teresa!"

I wiped my wet nose with the back of my hand and held myself as the sobs shook me with its bitter cold. As soon as they were bearable, I went back to pounding on my big sister's door. I needed her. I needed her right now, right the fuck now, because without her I don't know what to do, what to say, what to feel, how to breathe right now because right now I swear to god, I swear to fucking god, right now I—

"Please, oh my god! Tess! Teresa!"

I couldn't take it, I'd waited enough. I needed Teresa right now, period. I clenched my fists, backed away from the door, and breathed in. I was going to charge myself right into it, 'cuz if she wasn't going to open the fucking door for me—

"Ane?"

"Tess!" I fell onto my knees and wiped my nose again. The sobs took over. The mere sight of my sister tore my heart right out of my chest, left a gaping, bloody hole that refused to let me breathe. I held my chest with a hand to keep all of the blood and guts and lungs and ribs in, but it just didn't work, it didn't work and I was going to die. I was bleeding out and there was nothing that I could do about it except watch her watch me die. Someone or something was stab, stab, stabbing me. "Tess... Tess... !"

I couldn't breathe, I couldn't breathe.

Teresa rushed to my side. "Ane! Ane, look at me, breathe... "

Couldn't she see that I was dying? I had no heart. Couldn't she see that my innards were out of me, out of where they should've been? Why was she asking me to look at her? I was dying, dying. Blood and guts and lungs and ribs and liver and intestines and all sorts of bloody lard... out. Out of me.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't breathe because death was coming for me.

Tess squeezed my hand, put a hand of her own on my cheek, on the white-hot tears. On my bumpy, nasty scar. Somehow her skin didn't burn at its touch. "Look at me," she repeated. "Breathe. Breathe with me."

My eyes met with hers. I followed her ridiculous face, what she told me to do, and as I did, the world stopped spinning. Things started to make sense, and as they did, the world seemed to just... slow down. Her eyes, their murky brightness, her nose, its lack of any real width, her lips, the tiny mole below it── they were the trick. She made everything feel more clear, but with clarity came more pain, more tears. They clawed their way out of me, burned me as they left. Formed more bumpy, nasty scars. I pushed her away from me and held myself tight. Stood up on my own, with every fiber of my being in immeasurable pain.

"Y'know what, I get it now. I get it and I fuckin' hate it, but why did it have to be you? Why did I have to come to you?"

"What?" Teresa asked.

"I finally get it. I finally get the frickin' fuckin' problem. All the mess, all the triangles. All the problems. And I just had to come to you, out of all fuckin' people. Had to come to you! Why?"

"You're... you're not making any sense── "

"The fucking problem with you, people like you!" I snapped. "All of your messes and triangles. All of your fucking issues!" I clenched my fists, felt the sting of reopening the cut I got earlier on a finger. I used the pain to my advantage, let my throat tear off every shred of it. "One cute girl, one cute boy, one cute person, it doesn't matter. You always run into shit piles of messes 'cuz you always have too many options. You always have problems 'cuz you ruin everything all by yourself. You can't help it, can you? You might not even know it. That's what it means to be you. You're a fucking whore, through and through. And selfish, oblivious. Weak! That's why you drug yourself with your own disgusting crap. You know your worth, your filth. So why don't you hurry up and get it over with already, eh? Take it all at once, see what's on the other side. Maybe it'll be better than this worthless life you have, where you're nothing but a fucking failure, a med school drop-out, a pure waste of space, using your so-called genius to scrub toilets, kiss psychopaths' shoes, and chase little red-headed bimboes who're clearly not into you."

Teresa stood still, stone-faced. Silent. She remained that way for less than ten seconds after what I had said, but in those nine-ish seconds, I heard myself catch my breath. Wheeze. I heard my heart's tired beats. I smelled the sweat on me, felt beads of it run down my back. Felt the dryness of my mouth. Saw the pride in my stance, breathed it, thrived in it, began to feel it relax into nothingness. And I started to think── really think about what I had just done, rather than react. But I couldn't think for long, I had no chance to do so. The very millisecond that I gave myself that opportunity, Teresa stepped forward and cracked my neck in the swiftest of motions. I was looking at a whole different side of the hallway by the time her hand was back by her torso.

"There," she hissed at me, with eyes that pierced right through me and yet, had no emotion. In the back of my mind, a flash of empty emeralds crossed me, shriveled me up. "Are you happy now?"

No.

Adrenaline pumped all over me, screamed at me to punch her square in the face. My fists were ready── I even brought one up to her poor range of sight.

She didn't squint. She was ready for it too, unlike usual. She puffed out her flat chest, clenched her own fists. For once in her pathetic life, she was gonna do something. All I had to do was throw the first punch, I just knew it.

"Fuck you," I hissed back, and ran off. Fuck you, Ane.