We Really Need To Stop // ImAllexx

Alone

"I'll see you in court and that's the last place I'll ever see you, you fucking PSYCHO!"

We never did get to watch the rest of that Star Wars movie.

***

That morning, I was woken up by Alex yelling at me from the end of the bed, yanking the sheets off. Sirens wailed outside the windows and a dog was barking. My stomach felt like it had knives inside of it. My head was pounding. It was freezing. Smells of burnt toast and laundry detergent swept up the stairs amongst the chaos. Lots of people were shouting.

"GET OUT! GET OUT of my bed, my house - AND NEVER COME BACK!"

Alex had me by the neck of his cream sweater and was dragging me down the stairs. I was running beside him, tripping over my own feet, eyes barely open - still wearing the clothes from last night.

"I fucking HATE you! What is wrong with you? I want nothing to do with you EVER AGAIN!"

A german shepherd kept barking at me and a man I'd never met before was holding it by the collar to stop it running into the road.

What was happening? This couldn't be real. I wanted to smash the whole scene up into a thousand pieces. I wanted everything - everything I could see and hear to melt away and vanish. Please let this be some awful nightmare. No. No. It felt like glass was being repeatedly smashed over my head.

"Alex, no!" was all I could say as my hands were pulled behind my back and put into heavy metal cuffs, keeping them together. "STOP! Don't touch me!" I yelled, my voice cracking and scaring even myself. Unfazed, the police officers continued tugging me backwards towards the car.

"You probably know why we're here, Miss Rose. You are being arrested under suspicion of arson and were reckless as to whether life was endangered. I'm afraid you have no choice but to come with us. If you don't, we'll have to take you by force."

"Alex, please! No! Nooooo!" like a baby, I bawled my eyes out and just wished this would all change and I could run back into his arms. He was my safety, my comfort, my sunshine. But now I was rejected - unwanted. Waste.

The taste of blood was in my throat and my eyes were hot with tears.

But it didn't change. My crying and screaming didn't change a thing. Nothing was changing.

Except my whole life.

At the age of 18, my life was over.

And I was never going to see Alex again.

Worse than being shoved into the back of the police car, the door slamming loudly - it tore my heart right open to see Alex's face - looking at me with such disgust - contempt burning in his eyes. This wasn't the Callie Rose he thought he knew. Turns out he never really knew me because - this was me.

I was a liar. A fake. A fraud. And I was a fucking criminal. Now he knew. Everyone knew. My secret was out. And no amount of bawling my eyes out was ever going to undo my selfish, careless actions.

"Miss Rose, please do up your seatbelt. We're not here to sit around. We're taking you back to London and will be asking you questions formally at our police station there."

Fuck the police. Fuck this car. Fuck this life. Fuck everything! Especially my stupid fucking ass. Why did I have to be like this? Why did this have to be my life?

No amount of anything was going to bring Alex back. Or make him forgive me - let alone like me again. I couldn't do anything. I was done. But I kept letting the tears out anyway, until there was nothing left.

"Callie Rose, please fasten your seatbelt."

The motion of the car made me dissociate into a numb, blank space of nothingness. I wished so hard it would just accelerate me into a void. To just stop existing. Stop everything. Send me into a state where I'd never have to return to this reality.

What did any of this mean to me now?

***

"So, Miss Rose, why did you start the fire?" The police woman sat opposite me tapped her blue pen on the clipboard and stared at me.

Why did I start the fire?

That was a good fucking question. A question I'd spent the last two weeks of my life running as far away from as I possibly could. A question and subject I'd been denying as hard as my might would let me. You could say I'd been trying to deny my actions out of existence.

But now I was going to have to think about this question a lot. Maybe I was going to have to spend the next 5-10 years of my life behind bars, stuck in the same four walls, just thinking about it. But right now, I had to think fast.

My mind was whirring and -blank blank blank- was all that was coming up across the front of it. So I sat up straight and gave the police woman the most honest answer I could at the time.

"I don't know."

***

That night, I couldn't sleep. Alex's voice kept replaying in my mind, raw and broken and piercing.

"I'll see you in court and that's the last place I'll ever see you, you fucking PSYCHO!"

Psycho. That word tore through me and felt like it stabbed right through my heart. It echoed in my mind for weeks.