forgetting me

14

1997

It was January, and William was broken. He had no where to turn. Everywhere around him there were people he didn't think he could trust. People who would turn their backs on him and betray him. His girlfriend had been with him for the past six years. She had watched him slowly shred all of his trust and all of himself into pieces for the past four years. He loved Elle. He loved her so damn much. But there was the possibility that she didn't love him, and she was still a suspect.

His constant thoughts drove him insane. Everyone was after him. He just wanted to stop the voice in his head. He wanted out.

Good people make bad decisions, some of which have larger consequences than others.

William's decision was to drink away his pain. And then it was to drink and his intoxicated self wanted to make someone else hurt, to make someone else feel his own pain. No matter how much William told himself it was wrong once he was sober, he would wind up drunk again and hurting Elle all over again.

One bad decision can have a snowball effect, and make a good man into a bad man.

When Elle ran off with the girl across the hallway in March, William dwelled on her for a few days. She had always been out to get him, though. She was always going to hurt him. She had never actually loved him. He decided he wouldn't let it hurt him, so he just forgot about her. He continued to drink, fiercely closing his life off to everyone around him. They all wanted to stab him in the back, anyway.

He was caught in that mindset for nearly seven months until his family learned what was happening. They extended their arms and gave William the help he needed. Slowly, he began to claw back into the light.

He was sober by the beginning of December, after two months of therapy. William was one of the lucky ones. He couldn't stop his symptoms of paranoia, though. His therapist urged him to move back in with his family.

William sold his apartment at the end of December of 1997, and moved back in with his family. His father didn't shame his son. He offered support when it was needed, though William would hardly take it. Little Lainie taught him to love without suspicion. She was the only one William truly trusted at that time, and she was barely even four.

Diana was the biggest suspect. She always had been, and she always would be.

Three years passed, and he slowly escaped from some of his thoughts. Only some people were threatening now. He stopped seeing his therapist, but didn't tell his father. She was one of the threatening ones, and telling his father would turn him into one of them, too.

But in coming out of some of his paranoia, William remembered and held himself accountable for more of what he'd done. He realized nothing excused his past decisions, and the new rabbit hole he fell down wound up being very similar to the first.

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A/N
This chapter was one of the more difficult chapters. I had to portray PPD (Paranoid Personality Disorder) as well as alcoholism and the beginnings of depression accurately. If anyone notices anything wrong in my portrayals PLEASE let me know. I'm here to give you a good story, and William's past contains a lot of his PPD, and I'm starting to delve into that, so it needs to be correct and accurate. Also this was a quick overview because I could spend an entire one of these books on William's 1997 and his years spent with Elle, but that's not really the point of this story. So thank you, hope you enjoyed.