life. death. vengeance. baby.

twenty-nine. andrea.

The day after my flashback... relapse... whatever you wanna fucking call it, I felt as bad as I have ever felt.

At some point, during the day, Marcus called. He asked me some questions about the grand opening of 27 memories. All I said was:

"I don't feel so good. I'm not coming. You deal with it..."

I didn't care about the opening. I had done anything I could, the weeks before anyway. Tony was there, so I knew there wouldn't be any problems. The waiters and waitresses knew what they had to do. And I trusted Marcus enough to deal with the little details.

I had my own problems.

I couldn't eat. I couldn't get myself to eat anything at all.

I didn't drink alcohol. At some point I got up from bed and poured myself a whiskey, but as soon as I had the glass near my lips, I got sick to my stomach. I couldn't even stand the smell of it that day.

I didn't do anything. I couldn't even look out the window. I didn't wanna see the river. I especially didn't wanna see cars or people.

So, I just stayed in bed. I had the blanket over my head and tried so hard not to think about the incident or what I had seen the night before.

It felt like I stayed in bed for a week, when in fact it was only one night. I dozed off a couple of times, only to be woken up by another dream or just the image of my parent's car.

I was so pissed off... I thought I was doing okay, but as it turned out, I clearly wasn't.

When the sun started to rise, the burning pain in my chest reached a new high. It hurt so much, I thought about ramming a knife into my chest.

And then I couldn't really breathe. I had to take deep breaths to feel like the air was actually reaching my lungs. It felt like breathing normally, wouldn't keep me alive.

So, I got out of bed. I walked around in my huge living room, unable to do anything. I thought about punching my sandbag, but I didn't feel like it. I didn't have enough energy in me to throw a punch.

I thought about playing pool. But I couldn't even look at the table. I was in no mood to have fun or play anything.

I thought about getting drunk, but I still couldn't stand the smell of alcohol.

I thought about what I should do. But I didn't know. I didn't want to go outside. I didn't want to go back to work. I didn't want to talk to anybody. I didn't want to see anybody. I couldn't figure out what the rest of my life should look like.

I felt completely empty. Numb. And then tears started to run down my face.

I didn't cry for a long time, but that day, I couldn't hold back the tears.

I decided to take a shower. I was only wearing my basketball shorts, so somehow, I could get myself to take those off. I thought maybe the water would splash away some of my problems.

Well... while the water ran down my body, I stopped crying, so that was at least something. But during the rest of the day, I started to cry again numerous times.

I felt so helpless and alone. I didn't even know how to get that one day over with. How could I possibly get through the next night? How could I possibly manage and handle the following days? And the nights to come?

-----

Late in the afternoon, my doorbell rang. I didn't want to see anybody. I went to the door with the plan to see who it was and to ask them to leave me alone.

But when I opened the door, Andrea was standing there.

I didn't say hello, turned around and walked back into the living room, but I left the door open for her to come in.