the world is ugly » one shots

how it ends - woofless

It wasn't beautiful, it ended in pain, messy messy pain. 

Delilah Withers had fallen into the endless void of death, leaving me alone and equally as depressed as she had been when she fell. Her physical body lay in a heap, crumpled in the corner of her bathroom. I remember finding her like that, blood soaking the white tiles and her hair strung over her face messily. Her arms were torn to shreds and a single shiny, blood streaked, metal blade was resting delicately in between her thumb and her index finger. 

That was what happened when your life was as miserable as can be. Delilah had been beaten down and beaten down repeatedly until she couldn't take it anymore. Everyone told her she couldn't do anything right or someone could do it better. She was constantly being stabbed in the back and thrown under the bus by the people she considered her friends. Her parents pushed her to be better than her older brother to the point of shunning her. She was worthless in everyone's eyes, well except mine.

When Delilah turned eighteen, she moved to Toronto with her little Yorkie, Davidson. She got an apartment and got a job waitressing at the restaurant next to my favorite coffee shop. I remember the first time I met her, she was on her break. Her body was balanced against the brick wall so she was positioned half out of the alleyway and half in it. A cigarette dangled from her fingers and a stream of silver rose away to the clouds, the smoke trailing delicately over her lips. I remember thinking in that moment that all I wanted to do was drop my coffee and kiss her, this mysterious girl that perfect mix of danger and hurt glinting off her eyes. 

My life had lacked an excitement for a long time, my job was basically the same everyday, my girlfriend had become significantly less interested in me, and I hadn't been out of Toronto in four years. So, I did what any adventure-starved person would do, I casually walked over to her and asked to bum a cigarette in exchange for the coffee I was holding in my other hand, the one I was supposed to bring to my girlfriend, Rose, ten minutes ago. For whatever reason, she accepted and downed half the coffee in one gulp, and suddenly I was holding her box of Marlboro Ice Blast's, the blue packaging reflecting off my fingers in a hypnotizing way. 

"So, are you going to actually light one?" the girl asked, taking another puff of her's. She had finished her coffee and set it on top of one of the many silver trashcans a couple feet away. 

"Umm-uh yeah, sorry." I chuckled nervously. I hit the pack on my palms a couple of times and quickly retrieved one of the sticks from the box. The girl came really close to me, grabbed the box, deposited a new roll in her mouth, and motioned for me to do the same. Her beautiful face was just inches from mine, I could've just kissed her, but I didn't. Instead she brought a purple swirled lighter up and lit both of our cigarettes unhurriedly, as though she was in slow motion. 

A sudden burst of ash entered into my mouth and I had to bite my tongue to keep from hacking. After I recovered, I masterfully blew a ring of smoke into the air, earning a golf clap from the girl. 

"Well done, sir." she curtsied, and attempted to blow a ring of her own but failed. I laughed lightly.

"I'm Delilah, just moved here a while back." She smiled at me, danger twinging at the corners of her lipsticked mouth. 

"Rob, good to meet you." I paused, blowing another, bigger circle. "I've been here all my life."

"Great, so you're going to show me around, right?" she smirked, carelessly exhaling towards the street. An elderly woman walked right through her smoke wall, coughing and cursing at Delilah; she just giggled.

"If you'd like, I suppose I could do that." I knew all the best spots in the city and I figured as long as she wasn't a psycho murderer then everything would be great, and maybe I had just made a new friend. 

I was wrong. 

I was so painfully wrong. 

Although that next day had gone great. We had started our day with a trip to my favorite coffee shop, Thor Espresso, and then walked around the city. I showed her a hidden park near my apartment and we got lunch from my favorite cafe, opting for turkey on rye sandwiches and lemonade before I showed her the CN Tower. We ate at a park nearby and we threw our bread crusts to some ducks in the water at Toronto Harbour. Delilah almost fell into the harbour after a careless boy shoved past her, running down the shore. Finally, we decided to head to the best restaurant in the area, although it did require a trip to her small apartment for a change of clothes and a bit of a more "dramatic" makeup look. We also stopped by mine for me to freshen up as well. Dinner was amazing and we ended the night back at our secret park with a bottle of champagne and a takeout box filled with tiramisu. 

The next morning I woke up laying in itchy grass with a headache, all alone. The takeout box was scraped clean and covered in ants, the bottle was had maybe two drops of liquid remaining, and a napkin was crumpled in my hand, and small, fancily written note scrawled on it with a big red kiss mark next to it. 

"Thanks for an awesome time, good luck getting home lol" 

When I did finally make my way home, I found a matching kiss mark on my cheek and some lipstick smears on my dress clothes. 

Delilah and I met up many times like that for the next ten months. Lots of alcohol, lost memories, kissing, cigarettes, and sex. Our favorite spot to be was our park, no one came there, it was private, and beautiful. Most of our nights were spent there, wrapped in a blanket with our bottles and cartons. I remember one night Delilah arrived very high and slightly drunk and ranted on and on about the preciousness of life and our true meaning in life, but she ended up making out with me and then we hooked up right there in the middle of the grass field. 

I thought about those words she had said everyday, right up until I walked into my bathroom one night to find her soul long gone. The day is clearly branded deep into my brain. 

It started like any other day, we got coffee and I walked her to work before heading off to get my work and errands done. I joined her for a smoke break at exactly two pm, where we each smoked three rolls. She made out with me for a couple more minutes before her boss was yelling out the front door for her about how her break had ended ten minutes ago. She smirked at me as she all but skipped back in side, acting like an innocent kid. I had laughed about it and smoked one more cigarette before leaving for some lunch and to finish the rest of my work. Delilah picked up some Chinese food from down the street and I met her at the park with some Absolut at nine. We porked down the food and not even twenty minutes later, we were practically naked.

But, something was different, she was more eager but she stopped me. 

"I want to go to your apartment." she smiled from under me. 

"But why my dear?" I grinned right back. 

"I just do." And so we did. I threw our crap into my car to deal with in the morning and we ran up the four flights of stairs, giggling the whole time. Everything after that seemed normal. We hooked up and fell asleep. 

Or so I thought. 

I woke up at four am, an hour before the sun would peak its tangerine head over the horizon and went to pee. But, there was a broken girl crumpled on the floor, already gone. I screamed, 

and screamed,

 and screamed.

I freaked out and tried to give her CPR but nothing would work for her soul was long gone. The cops arrived and after becoming very sober, I remembered that we in fact did not fall asleep. Delilah had began crying as we lay there. She said she didn't want to deal with her pain anymore, she told me how shitty her home life was and why she bolted. She told me how terrible it was that people had no choice but to die alone because even if they went together, their souls were divided. She told me about the suicide pact her and her best friend had had at fifteen and that she went into a five month coma but her best friend died. And then she said goodbye. 

And she was gone.

And that my friends,

is how it ends.