Crescendo

Chapter 30

DANTE

Sleep never came last night.

After the meeting at the record company, Turner had taken Sky to a cafe and tried to talk him down for an hour and a half. Eventually, he excused himself, saying he was headed home. However, Sky spent a good remainder of the day walking the streets, thinking. When he did finally go home, there was no energy to do anything, to eat or take a shower. Instead, he'd crawled into bed, closing his eyes and waiting for sleep to take him over. Halfway through the night, when he realized his efforts were useless, Sky had taken a sleeping pill from his medicine cabinet. The attempt fell short as Sky's mind fought the medication's effects.

Instead, Sky laid there the rest of the night, tossing, turning, staring at the walls.

He still is, now as the sun is rising, shining through his bedroom window. It's bright and dazzling, and Sky hates it because the giant orb in the sky—in its blazing glory—serves a purpose. Means something to the world.

And what is he?

An orphan. A druggie. A nobody.

Sky shuts his eyes to the sun's light, tries to shut out the voices inside his head that tell him he's worthless, that he has nothing left.

He needs to get up. Eat breakfast and start the day like it's any other. So he does. Sky struggles out of bed and makes his way down to the kitchen. But then he sees the calendar on the fridge. On it, a bright red circle outlines a certain date.

Today is Gracie's birthday.

Sky visits Gracie's grave on her birthday, but this year, he's forgotten. Wrapped up in his own petty, shitty problems, he's forgotten one of the most important days in his life. The saddest part is he doesn't even want to go this year. Doesn't have the strength, the heart left in him to make it out the front door—let alone to the cemetery downtown.

Here's that same trigger, on the verge of being pulled. The only question is:

What is Sky going to do when it goes off?

The answer becomes clear to him as he's standing there in his kitchen. Everything that's happened spins in and out of his head—but suddenly, it stops and the next step he has to take breaks through the fog in his mind as a brilliant epiphany.

Sky's ready.

He's ready to be done with life, done with the inner turmoil. For everything to be...gone. The nagging thoughts, the biting despair. Free of it. Nothing to it. Immune.

And in his heart, the very core of it, he wants it to end. He's tried to hope, tried to pray, but none of it works. All he wants is to be free of the confines of his own mind and body.

He always knew, with his torrid past, there was darkness in him—and that one day he would give into it. And no one can save him now. Not Turner. Not the angels. Not God himself.

Not now, when Sky's decided he's ready to go.

He thinks about the various ways he could end it all. He doesn't own a gun. Hanging himself would require a lot of effort that he's too tired to put in. He's never been one to self-mutilate, and bleeding out in the bathtub doesn't appeal to him.

Then again, there's one thing in his bathroom that he can use to his advantage.

Those damn sleeping pills that failed him last night might actually turn out to be his escape. It would be easy to take them—a real amount this time, not just one—and then...slip away. Resolved, Sky decides to follow through with his plan. It's sad how quickly everything falls into place. All he has to do is trudge his way back upstairs, go to the cabinet, and grab the pill bottle. He'll admit it: as he picks up the container, his hands shake. From nervousness, fear, adrenaline, he's not sure which. Probably all three. But whatever remaining reservations he has don't matter because this is his only way out.