Fractured

1%

{ TW this story is a bit graphic and discusses substance abuse and mentaL health in a very vivid / deep way. }

She put the cigarette to her lips and inhaled, her hand shaking ever so slightly.

Hold; breath; exhale.

She drew back and rested her hand on the rusted railing of the balcony, looking over the city laid out before her.

She could jump - if she wanted to; but she wouldn't.

Not yet.

"It's better this way."

She muttered to herself while shaking her head and chuckling with annoyance and pity.

It had been several months since Trixie had broken up with her and since they'd even seen or spoken to each other and six months since Katya had even heard about Trixie.

She looked down to her hand that had been holding onto the lighter, above it her wrist was slashed a couple dozen times but In the process of healing.

Katya was four - maybe five weeks clean now - that's if you don't include the consistent consumption of alcohol, weed and cigarettes nightly and daily however.

They were a cry for help, in a way. She had already been submitted to hospital for her mental well being though, and no matter how much therapy she participated in she still felt a hollow sensation in her chest.

She could talk for hours with a counsellor or psychiatrist and by the time it was over she still felt like she had missed something - like,
if she didn't get it all out; all the pain and aching she tried to rid of would just grow back.

Memories would appear some days that she forgot she even had. There was too much and too little going on inside all at one time and she struggled to explain this to the myriad of doctors she'd be referred to.
So each time she would get evaluated again and again and again; she would end up sent away with a prescription for depressants and a therapy session.

It made her dizzy to think about, this continuous circle with no turns or ends and absolutely no solution.

She put the cigarette out against the metal surface of the railing and dumped what was left of the cigar into a glass ash tray that was sat on a broken bedside table that had probably been left on the balcony since 1992.

She wandered back inside to her bed and looked around the room;

Spilt vodka on her dresser, weed left on her vanity, pencil shavings on the floor, a half eaten bowl of soup left on her bedside table next to broken wine glass - a torn up sketch of Trixie that had been tapped back up a few times now poked out of the garbage can near her door.

Katya walked over to it and pulled it out of the trash, she rested it back on her desk and headed over to her bed. She plopped down and gathered her blanket and pillows into her arms.

"Fuck..."

She mumbled while looked over the X-Rays of her fractured skull and brain sat at the end of her bed.

She hurried her face into her pillow and began to sob.