Asunder

Chapter 30 - For Naught

The pills scratch mercilessly at my throat as I swallow them all, wincing at the pain of it, yet smiling at the relief that follows.

It's over. God, it's over.

I laugh to myself, and swallow another full bottle of acetophenones, relishing in my already slowing heartbeat. As if it knows it doesn't have to try so hard anymore.

I stand, peaceful and weightless. For the first time. For the last. My room is cold, and dark. After all, it's almost midnight. And I've been up late trying to write letters. Trying. Failing. But I've given up.

Now the papers scattered on my floor seem trivial, the moon-less night outside seems trivial. The bed I've learned to sleep in, dream in, die in night after night fades away.

Only one letter ended up okay. Only one really made any bit of sense.

Hey. It's me, Kingsley.

Sorry for the confusion, and the weirdness. It was cool meeting you, and spending time together. Sorry for wasting your time.
Thank your parents. I wish you all so much happiness.
-Kingsley.

I wonder when he'll read it. I wonder how he'll react.

I brush him aside for the night; forever. And before everything can fade away for good, I leave my room in the direction of my mom's, feeling lighter than a breeze. Even if a distant weight pulls me down by the stomach. By the heart.

I don't bother to knock before barging in, watching her face rise from the screen braced on her knees to me. She pales almost instantaneously.

"What did you do." She sits up, and I shiver at the burning ice in her eyes.
I feign a relaxed smile. "I didn't do anything." I shut her door behind me. "I just wanted to say I love you. For everything you do."

She stays silent, staring at me from her white sheets. My fingers are surprisingly steady. I am empty.

I'm so frustratingly tear-less. But there's nothing left to cry about. So I speak, every single word whooshing out of me effortlessly:

"You have held this family up for so long, even when it got too hard. Especially then." I pinch my arms, finding the pain to be refreshing. "Even when it got useless. You know; for better or for worse, right?"

She smiles at me slightly, wordlessly. So I nod, and take one last look at her before slamming the door behind me as I go.

I leave her behind right there, a step into the hall. Another weight lifted.

His door confronts me like a dark giant, snoring drifting out from the gap. Fear rushes through my entire body as I trudge foreword, pushing myself into the room.

He wakes up immediately.

"Dad," I say, and my voice is weaker than I would've wanted. Then again, it's always been with him.

I finally find my tears when he looks me up and down, anger etching itself on his features. "Kingsley, I was asleep." He spits my name like poison on his tongue. I give a sob. "What the hell is this?"
I shake my head, and I haven't cried this easily since Maya died, since I found her body there. Tears free-fall, and I with them. "I wish you loved me."

I gasp the words out, uncontrollably. "I wish you cared."
He only looks more and more confused, more and more irritated. I take the hurt, I take it like flames and feel the burn. I feel it fully. Let it be the last thing.

"I wish you loved me, because I love you so much." I gasp and wipe at my raw face. "I love you more than I'll ever be able to say."

His face softens slightly. Or it might be a trick if the light, a trick of my desperate mind. A trick of the pills in me.

My heart screams and fights and despairs for him one last time, and I think even in death I'll never be able to reach my peace of him. Even and death, he will haunt me.

And I see he'll never understand; I see all my pain and all my love is, and has always been, for naught.

My death will be for naught, too.

So I finish: "I just wanted you to know." I turn on my heal, careful to place his door exactly how it was when I came in.

My breath hitches with every step. The ticking of the pill bottle in my hand is the only sound that accompanies the silence. And I'm heavier.

The melatonin was too easy to swipe from mom's desk. When she hears what she wants, she forgets everything else. She turns blind.

So I pop open the cap as I lock my bedroom door, and chug them down without water. I wash them down with my tears.

And I lie down, hoping somehow the melatonin will kick in first in the midst of the sea of pills in my stomach. Hoping it'll let me rest early.

And indeed I drift away, and away, until I'm distantly aware of a sharp pain exploding its way through my body, like a thousand gunshots. I'm distantly aware of banging on my door, then hands grabbing my wrists.

The last thing I hear before the end is a ticking at my balcony's window. The last thing I see is my alarm clock reading midnight, before hazelnut eyes flood my vision.

And I don't even get to feel how sweet the darkness is. If it's as wonderful as I've imagined.