Heartbreak Hotel: This Place Hotel

Chapter 30: Demons

They say that the passage of time can heal all wounds. Mend every single cut no matter how deep, and make even the most vivid memory fade away into nothingness. I never quite understood that, because it seems that the greater the loss and the deeper that cut, the harder it is to become fully whole again. To be who you once were before life took its knife and slit your wrist down to the bone. For a moment, I believed in that saying. Once upon a time, when I believed in fairy tales and happy endings-but now-now I have experienced life too much to believe in that pathetic little tale. Time does not heal wounds. Time leaves you alone. It waits for no one, and as you are lying there drowning in the blood that oozed from those deep cuts, it moves on. It leaves you there to suffer in the pain that it has caused you.

The pain, however, is the only thing that may actually fade away. But the those scars-those wretched scars serve as a daily reminder of all the suffering and becomes a bearer all the more resolved to never be wounded again. We hate being reminded of the things that each scar represent so we cover them up with inked smiles and broken laughter. Thinking that it all just disappeared in to an oblivion, when really-it never did. That's when we find distractions. That's when we act out in frustrations. React in aggression. Give in to anger....Become lost in lies and secrets. And as time's sickly hands continue to tick, we bury everything underneath all the new things that seem to be more important. Wishing. Hoping that we'd never have be faced with those demons again.

I wish I had known this before. I wish I was wise enough to make the right decisions in my life. Because at this very moment, I stared out into the rain, I was being faced with one of my biggest demons of all.

The truth.

This reminded me of another saying. One that I had read in a book a whole ago. Kill a demon today, face the devil tomorrow. The author wrote that so effortlessly. As if facing your demons was one of the most easiest things to do in the world. As if it was as simple as breathing or walking. Surely, that couldn't have been what he had in mind. It takes courage to face your demons, and courage was something I knew for a fact I didn't have.

I fooled myself into believing that I had fought all my demons and danced on their graves. Rejoiced in triumph, in the relief that they were gone. I fooled myself into thinking that I could move on with life. Let go of my past, and look towards my future. Only focusing on my family and my career. I was wrong about that too, and I admit that. I was foolish to believe that if I buried one of my more terrible secrets forever, I could move on with life. I was wrong. I was wrong about everything. And admitting that was a tough pill to swallow.

The world knew I just wanted to be done. It knew I wanted to move on, but for some reason the universe just kept throwing my past right in my face. And no matter how hard I tried to run, it always caught me in its trap. I didn't understand what that meant at first, but I do now. It meant that I could no longer be a coward. I could no longer hide behind this facade, and continue to tell myself that everything will be okay. My biggest fear had to be faced one way or another, and it was going to happen in one or two ways: I would go face to face with it myself, or I was going to be thrown right into the flames with no mercy at all.

The sound of the door creaking open pulled me from my thoughts, but instead for turning around to face him, I stayed in my place. My eyes glued to the droplets that clung to the large window, and my hand clutching a mug that was filled with cold bitter coffee. I thought that it would keep me awake after Michael's show, but it seemed that my thoughts did the trick.

There were soft murmurs coming from him and someone else. I didn't care to listen in on the conversation. I assumed that it wasn't important. I tried to slow my beating heart by blocking out everything around me, and simply focusing on the therapeutic sound of the rain, but it didn't help. I found myself listening in its pounding, and that sound mixing with the rain only brought on a feeling of strong anxiety. I began to feel dizzy; as if the world around was slowly spinning right before my eyes. I grasped on to the window sill, and dropped my head between my shoulders.