Race to the Finish

Race to the Finish chp.57

I kissed Titi’s forehead and wrapped a blanket around him. I sighed and walked around the bed. I sat on the ground in the corner of the dark room. I replayed every second of my conversation with Titi. My heart ached remembering how he broke when I told him Jaiden was dead. She’s gone and it’s all my fault. 

I pulled Titi’s phone from my back pocket and plugged in his headphones. I scrolled down until I found ‘With Ears to See and Eyes to Hear’ acoustic by Sleeping with Sirens. I pulled my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. I rested my head against the wall and closed my eyes letting Kellin Quinn’s voice drift through my ears. 

Listening to these lyrics makes the tears well up in my eyes, but I contained them. I didn’t want to cry anymore. I didn’t want to feel pain. I just wanted the numbness that came after the pain when my dad beat me to just overcome me fully in every aspect. This pain is different though. This pain isn’t physical and it was f*cking killing me slowly from the inside.  

I needed to get out of here. I needed to stop this pain one way or another. I couldn’t live with this pain. I couldn’t live knowing that because of me my baby sister is dead. 

Dead…

I won’t ever get to hug her. I won’t ever get to kiss her forehead while she sleeps. I won’t ever get the chance to do what my father couldn’t which was protect her. 

She won’t have the chance to experience love. She won’t ever get to have her first kiss, her first break-up. She won’t ever be able to find that one passion of hers like racing is for me. She won’t grow up and go to college. She won’t ever get married nor have kids. She won’t ever get to have adventures with Andy. Worst of all is she won’t ever get the chance to experience life without our father; without the abuse and the pain. 

I swallowed down the tears and stood up from the corner. I unplugged the headphones from Titi’s phone and set it next to him on the nightstand. I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and looked at Titi’s sleeping form for a second. 

“I’m sorry.” I whispered and it felt as if the empty silence of the room was carrying those words. 

My chest tightened and I left the room. I put my shoes on that were by the front door and quietly opened the front door. I walked out and closed the door silently behind me. I turned around and the cold wind hit me strongly. My eyes squinted and I hugged Titi’s jacket tighter to my body. I walked forward and stopped.

I couldn’t take my car because the roar of the engine would wake up Penelope and Titi. I didn’t want him to wake up because then I’d have to say goodbye. I didn’t want to say goodbye and watch his heart break all over again. I just couldn’t see that. 

I walked to the sidewalk and contemplated on what to do. Walking alone in the middle of the night with no destination wasn’t safe.

I shrugged. I have nothing else to lose. So I just kept walking in the pitch darkness to nowhere in specific.

As I walked into the dark silent night, allowing the wind to attack me and blocking everything from my mind, I felt the numbness and emptiness I longed for begin to settle within me. 

I no longer felt alive.

I no longer felt like myself.

I was now just a walking shell and nothing more. 

I no longer had a purpose or anything to lose. I didn’t have a destination or a goal.

Sometimes the guilt one carries will never leave. It will settle in your heart making it weigh like a ton of bricks and the only thing you can do is live in pain with a heavy heart and torture yourself by living… or put yourself out of your misery by taking the final escape you could ever take.