Welcome To The Media (Dylmas AU)

37. Aftermath

Thomas's pov

5 days passed. 64 phone calls went unanswered. 216 text messages were left unread.

I kept reliving it. Kept seeing the tears rise in his eyes, kept hearing this is a joke, right? Kept watching him back away from me until he had put enough distance between us that I wouldn't be able to cross at all.

Five days later, and yet no time had passed at all. Vaguely, I remembered Kaya putting me in a taxi home, tears falling from her own eyes. I remembered clutching at the hem of my shirt, curling into a tight ball, and sobbing in bed until my exhaustion gave way to sleep. I remembered waking up with red eyes and fingers stretching out across bed sheets for warmth they wouldn't find. I remembered crying again when it hit me what had happened.

Somehow, though, that time had disappeared. Maybe it had never existed at all. Maybe I had just cried until I was numb. Five days was nothing, absolutely nothing, when I had just lost what I had felt was forever with the boy I loved.

A breath of fresh air ghosted across my skin. I inhaled deeply, watching my feet dangle off the side of my apartment building's roof. I was looking down on the streets below, far, far below, perched precariously twelve stories up. Breath held, fingers clenched carefully on the ledge behind me, watching small figures of thousands of people rush by without a single care at all. All striding quickly, determined, with purpose and direction--I wonder how it felt to not feel so lost.

My eyes stung for the thousandth time in the past five days and I quickly looked up, away, as if to hide from my hurt. It was gray outside. Dark, thick rain clouds hung over our heads--fit to burst, yet choking back tears. I couldn't remember the last time it had rained in Los Angeles. It seemed fitting now.

My chest felt tight suddenly and I was pulling myself away from the ledge. My head was spinning. I felt like I might throw up. I stepped down, back onto the roof and onto safer ground and fell to my knees.

Slowly, maybe because this wasn't the first time it happened, my gut twisted and my stomach churned. Like a dam breaking my face crumpled, and then I was crying even though I thought I had no more tears. Crying right there on an L.A. rooftop, alone.

All fucking alone.

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Thump, thump, thump went my boots on the hardwood floor. They seemed to echo loudly. I felt like everyone was staring at me.

Thump, thump, thump, went my heart as I sat down at the bar. My eyes cast down, shoulders hunched as if to hide from everyone in the room.

Out of place. An ant among bees. I was the stain on a perfectly white shirt.

My eyes met the bartender's and he came closer with a friendly smile. He scanned me for a moment and for a second I wondered--Are you looking at me because I'm famous? Or are you looking at me because I'm another sad, pathetic soul that stumbled his way into your grasp?

"Strongest thing you have," I said before he could ask, throwing my I.D. on the bar for him to see. He nodded, gave me another sad once over, and began to prepare my drink.

I stared down at my hands for a moment, letting them trace the surface of the wooden bar. I felt dirty--disgusting. I deserved it.

The drink was placed in front of me and I had no idea what it even was. I didn't move. Staring blankly, I took a deep breath.

Five years of sobriety--and now the thing that I had once sworn was the root of all my problems proved to be exactly the one thing I craved. The one thing I needed. Among all the fear in my mind was a desperation to get numb. To stop hurting. To blank out completely.