meet me in the woods ☾grayson dolan au

t w e n t y o n e

[ 21 ]

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Although he had washed all of the blood from his hands hours ago, he couldn't help but scratch at his skin. He had washed away the evidence from his skin but his mind had gained a new roll of film that was constantly playing on repeat. He felt dirty.

She was gone forever. He had felt the last beat of her heart under his palms and had breathed her last breath on his lips. He could taste death on his tongue and he leaned over to expel it. Nothing came out except ugly gags and dry heaving.

He looked miserable as he stumbled home, and it was only then that he came to his senses.

The light was casting shadows now through the windows and made everything look drab and dark. Grayson slammed the door behind him and leaned against it to take in the house. He felt so lonely.

His eyes scanned the room, wondering what he could do now. Surely someone would come for him soon. He decided to go and do what he had been doing before he made his horrible decisions. He sat at the kitchen island and stared at a tiny bouquet of purple mountain flowers that were dying on the countertop. They were dried out and frail. The petals were falling off and brown. They had no water.

"What the hell?" He asked in confusion. "The vase?" He looked around even though there was nobody to take it or answer him. He got up and looked under the sink where the vases were stored and sure enough the pale yellow one with cartoonish flowers was there. It was there and covered in a slight film of dust. Cobwebs connected it to other vases or extra paper towel rolls. He wrapped his hand around the small vase and pulled it out. It fit in his hand perfectly and he could barely see his reflection in the side. He took a deep breath before throwing the vase across the room. It smashed into tiny yellow pieces against the living room wall. It rained porcelain down onto the surrounding area and leather chair. The sound was loud and he thought it would satisfy him, but it didn't and only made him angrier.

He walked to the kitchen table and laid his calloused hands upon the cool wood. He wished he had used it more. In the past the table was full of food and surrounded by a loving family. There hadn't been a successful sit-down meal since he was a child. He remembered the chair placements and marked every seat with a name. When he wasn't satisfied, he began to trace the table, walking around and touching the chairs where people used to sit.

Mama, Cam, Ethan and-

A sharp pain shot through the bottom on his foot as he traced and a crunching filled his ears. He screamed and jumped backwards, catching himself on the island.

"Son of a bitch!" He hissed and sat down in the chair, pulling his throbbing foot into his lap. Blood dripped slowly from a long cut and a piece of glass was lodged into the skin. He cried out but nobody could help him. Taking a few deep breaths, he mustered up the strength and confidence to grab the edge of the glass and pull it out of his foot. It was tinted red and dyed his fingertips the same color. He dropped the glass on the countertop and slammed his fists onto the counter to try and distract him from the pain. A string of expletives left his mouth, each word louder than the last. The pain in his foot screamed and he just grabbed his hair in his fists and pulled until he had the chance to grab a kitchen hand towel and wrap it so tightly around his foot that it began to go numb. He hopped to a drawer full of miscellaneous items and picked up the roll of duct tape to put the towel in place. When he was finished, the duct tape was all used and the towel was already spotting red through the fabric.

"Fuck you. Fuck you, Ryder Caulson. This is your damn fault. You said you cleaned this shit up! You didn't! You are a damn liar!" Grayson looked around. "You're a lie, Ryder Caulson. Everything I thought you did, you were a fucking lie."

He stopped and took in the silence. It was always this quiet. She didn't exist to stop it. She never did.

He took a deep breath as he began to realize how much of a mistake he had made. What the hell had he done? He built a relationship on lies. He touched her, he talked to her, he loved her. She never existed to do anything back.

Ryder Caulson did actually exist, just not in the Dolan house. She didn't personally know Grayson Dolan, and he had terrified her living body until he had taken her last breath. He had killed her and she had done nothing wrong. She was oblivious and scared in the short twenty minutes they met again.

He fucked up.

He put his weight on any surface or wall he could reach, and he stumbled to the hall. He made it to the master bedroom. Nothing had changed.

The bed was still unmade. He walked towards the sheets and found himself making the bed. When it was complete, he opened the bathroom door and took in a deep breath.

To his left, the countertops were still covered in a film of dust and he ran his fingers across it to gather some. The gray dust was soft and he rubbed it away on his shorts. It was obvious that nobody had used the bathroom. Nobody had cleaned it.

He looked up and caught sight of the bathtub full of cloudy water. He remembered when he had run the bath for Ryder and had been so proud to make up for his explosive actions. Grayson wanted to punch himself. How could he have made a bath for an imaginary person? How did he believe for so long to care for her? He plunged his arm into the cold water and pulled on the plug. The tub gurgled and began to drain. He didn't stay around to watch it empty.

• • •

The vase, the clock, the bath and the empty polaroid... it all made sense to him. He was a fool. A damned fool. He thought about other situations he had been put through and tried to make sense of them. Most he couldn't. He didn't know how he could imagine a girl in such detail.

He suffered through terrifying nightmares to save her and ended up killing her, himself.

He leaned his forehead and palms against the wall of the master bedroom. The room that once slept an imaginary lover. His head swarmed with guilt and anger. He began to yell, pounding his fists into the wall until he broke the drywall. He yelled to nobody until his breath caught in his throat. The walls surrounding him felt like they were closing in on his body. He needed to get out, so he beelined through the hall for the front door and decided to take a walk to release himself from the walls.

His hands bruised and his knuckles bloody, he couldn't help but stare at them. He called his final walk the "walk of shame".

How fitting for the next occasion to come.