Supernova

Chapter Twenty Nine - Unhinged in the Early Mourning

It was late Wednesday night. Technically Thursday morning, I guess. My body was giving out and I knew it wasn't going to tolerate my temper tantrum much longer. I'd strategically snuck across the hall into the bathroom to relieve myself and splash water on my face a couple times, but it was the only effort I'd made to move for over forty-eight hours. I waited until it was late and the dorm building was completely silent before I decided to extend my lifespan long enough to cry a few more days. I expected the metal taste when my feet hit the floor, and it was nearly immediate. I held a hand over my mouth and barely made it across the hall before it started pouring down my arm. I waited until it was done, washed my hands and rinsed my mouth out, and made my way downstairs to the kitchen.

When I got there, I gorged myself. I kept the awareness pushed into my ears to detect any movement outside myself, as I shoveled every piece of food Tokoyami and Dark Shadow had bought me for the entire week. A whole bag of apples, cores and stems included. Two whole boxes of crackers, two more of cookies. A pack of meat filled buns. Instant noodles, stiff and crunchy straight from the packaging, not wanting to risk the sound of the kettle of the time it might take to wait for them to cook. An entire carton of green tea ice cream. A gallon of water. I ate and drank until my stomach was protruding like I used to imagine it might one day when filled with an Heir instead of an attempt to fuel my mourning. When I was sufficiently satisfied, I shoved all the evidence into the garbage and crept back upstairs, not hearing a single sound of stirring the entire trip.

As I re-entered my room, I realized not only that the room smelled musky and sour, but I was still restless. I tore the clothes from the curtain rod and from the floor where they'd been blocking the crack of my door and shoved it all into my laundry bag for Amy. I opened the window and listened to the sound of the night air creeping in. I wanted it to calm me, but as I saw the stars twinkling in the still dark sky, it reminded me of camping and early morning training and being at the lake and my face crumpled and became wet as I grasped for the memories of something I'd never again be able to reach. I told myself I'd chosen this, and Demon was right, I didn't deserve to mourn, not really. But I did still, because while he was out there, a distant but living memory, he'd been safe. Reality was, I'd been selfish, and he'd died because of it.

The crying became sobbing and then became whimpering. I was still restless. I became tempted to rip the curtains down, smash right through the window panes, throw myself off the fire escape and fly for four stories in a futile attempt to feel something or settle the hurricane in my chest or maybe even die. Maybe I would, if I knew for certain that I would die. Death. Such an elusive yet ever lingering fate for me, yet one, at this point, that would be entirely deserved and perhaps preferable to ever having to face Demon or Elias or anyone else ever again. I could die before Needles' death and my inability to protect him became real. But I wouldn't die. All I would succeed in doing would be waking the kind but misguided classmates in the rest of the rooms below me, showcasing to them once and forever my undisputed weakness and failure.

Instead, I grabbed my towel and crept across the hall. The screech of the tap turning was deafening, every drop of water on the tile a gunshot. Even so, the rest of the air around me seemed silent enough, and I allowed myself to become enveloped in the stall, the steam, the darkness of the bathroom I refused to illuminate with the fluorescent lighting, and decided that for the time being, at least for the next few hours, I would be safe to sit here and cry under the guise of washing my sins off of me.

And boy did I ever cry. Maybe I wasn't as selfish as I thought because this very well might have been the least amount of control I'd ever had over my own body, California included. When I'd been in here the night Elias had arrived, I'd cried for myself, and submitted to tiredness. But now, despite the fact that I'd been fading in and out of bouts of sleep less than an hour long for the last two days, there was nothing but a stark awareness and an endless slideshow of images ripping through my mind. There was no transition between crying and sobbing, it was just desperate heaving and gasps for breath and both of my hands were clasped over my mouth, trying to drown out any auditory evidence of my splintering. Every time I thought it was nearly over, I'd take another long deep breath and a new muffled shriek would hit my hands, making the steam dance through my blurred vision, one after another after another. I should have timed how long it lasted.