Swimming Ducks

Part 13: I'm right here

Hello! So, we've got a really deep chapter coming up here, do not read if you're not feeling great. Also, there will be a couple of references to very self-destructive and potentially life-threatening behaviours here, and some su!c!de references, so be careful, I will put another TL;DR. Let me know what you think. <3

ALICE'S POV:

I didn't hear from Taryn until about two weeks later, on a Friday night. She hadn't shown up to school, she hadn't been answering her phone, and I didn't get as much as a whisper from her until then. Ash hadn't heard from her either, and even they were getting worried. It was like she'd just been removed from the face of the Earth. Removed from my life.

Like I was meant to just forget that she ever existed.

She had never told me what was going on, just left me in the dark. I tried with every scrap of strength I had to move on, to forget her. But every time I tried she'd appear in my mind and I was sucked back into all of the pain and the desperation I felt that Monday.

When she called me, I'll be honest, most of me was telling me not to pick it up. Because she'd left. She'd disappeared on me, left me in the dust, and hadn't had the decency to explain herself, why she gave up on me like that. But I picked up anyway.

And I'm so glad I did.

TARYN'S POV:

My hands were shaking when I called Alice. It was late, really late. I'd found my phone, at last, after my mum had taken it. Darkness blanketed the world around me and a chill was sweeping across my barely-covered shoulders. The kitchen floor was cold beneath me as thoughts swarmed my mind. Telling me what I had to do. Telling me to leave. 

I was stroking my fingers down the crack in one of the kitchen tiles, then over the yellowed grout until I reached the top of the crack, again and again until my mind was so numbed and grey that the thoughts sounded like they were trapped in a bubble. But somehow it was worse, as a spacey feeling rolled over me and I sat back, closing my eyes. Trying desperately to drown out the hurt the swallowed me whole, crushing me and destroying me, but letting me live so it could clench me between its jaws again and again. And no matter how much I writhed and struggled, it just held me tighter in its grip. Over and over.

I can't keep going. I can't keep living.

It could all be over. It would be so simple, just to let all of the pain fade away. And what other way was there? No way my mum would let me see a therapist, and I couldn't even see Alice. I couldn't wait for the nearly two years it would take to get to university and I couldn't escape from this hellhole at the moment. 

So what? I'd give up. 

But Alice.
You can't hurt Alice.
But you're hurting her by being here.

I buried my head in my hands, groaning. God, what did I do? I stayed there for a moment, the voices in my head screaming, arguing. And then I made up my mind.

I wanted to call Alice.
To say goodbye.
To hear her voice once more before I left.

I hit the call button, my body wracked with shakes and shivers and trembles and everything in between. My throat was dry after sobbing for what felt like hours, and now the numbness was finally setting in. And I wanted out. I wanted out from this hurt. With every second the phone rang my doubt seeped in more, everything begging me to hang up. To let go.

She's not going to be able to save you now.

But I didn't, and she picked up.

"Hi," I croaked out, clearing my throat a little. "Before you say anything, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I don't have time to explain but-" and then I was breaking down again, the pain fresh like an open wound, my chest tight and my head pounding with anxiety. So much for numb. I could barely hear her reply over the sobs I caught in my elbow.