All our lives

Chapter 21

"It makes no sense." That was the only thing that spun in his head. It made no fucking sense. Along with the fact he could have slipped into this body a few minutes later, when he was already zoned out with no prospect of ever waking up, made the inner tremor impossible to stop. Two more minutes on the phone, pull himself together a minute later after he had ended the call, stall his return to the bedroom a little bit, or just spend a little more time in the past. He could have done any of them and he would have slipped into unconsciousness, by morning the UTS probably displaying only a big Game Over. It was a fucking scary thought.

Where had his logic gone wrong? If he didn't change anything, if he let the circle follow its natural course, he should be back. It seemed obvious. And he didn't alter anything. Why the hell wasn't he back?

He closed his eyes and tried again. The music, 'Ok, you're in', the smiles. Nothing else. No other whisper, not another word. Not a chance for that unpredictable butterfly effect to mess up everything. Yet when his vision cleared enough, he found himself standing on the same bathroom floor, still rattled, still trembling. That was a first. He could have changed the city at least, like he had done on his first attempts. Why was he still there? This couldn't be his present. Denbora had said that circle was safe. This one didn't look safe at all. Had she lied to him? Had something unforeseen happened whilst he had been gone, something that bad that had driven him to the point where suicide looked like the only option?

He slowly got up, but nausea hit him as soon as he reached a vague vertical position. "Alcohol and pills..." he acknowledged. "I'm not playing games, huh? I really want to end it all..." He was kind of surprised that he didn't feel the need to shake this Jon into his senses, that he didn't feel outraged by his condition and by his choices. He didn't approve them, not at all, but he was not capable of giving a lecture to anyone. Not even to himself.

He scrunched down near the toilet and he didn't need to force himself too much to throw up again. Maybe it would be wise to call a doctor, tell someone what he did, announce at least one person that he was not alright. Just because he was awake now didn't mean he would be so in an hour or two. He was sure there was no trace of poison in his stomach, but he could not say the same about the rest of his body. God knew what and how much he had ingested. But that idea, with a high potential to be a rescuing one, didn't transpose into action.

He made another attempt to get up, holding to the edge of the sink this time. His hand visibly trembled as he reached for the faucet and he barely managed to take a sip of water to rinse his mouth. He leaned with his forearms against the sink, his head resting on his folded hands for a while. Like he was praying. For mercy, for help, for strength. For oblivion. But he didn't appeal to any divinity. In his current situation it felt ridiculous anyway. He just sighed and took a deep breath before he straightened his back and looked himself in the mirror.

And he had thought he was in a bad shape in the previous circle. With all the crying and all the sorrow he had endured in the last few hours and he had totally looked straight out of a magazine cover compared to what he was seeing now. There was no hint of life in this reflection. Pale skin, haggard face, and big dark circles under a pair of empty eyes.

"Fuck..." he muttered. Why the hell did he need pills and booze? He was already dead.

When he finally brought himself to leave the bathroom, he paced the apartment room by room as if he was inspecting the scene of a crime. In a way that's what that place really was. It was just a matter of luck that the crime had been millimetrically avoided.

The apartment was quite neat, nothing torn or broken. His guitar was carefully seated on the couch and an empty glass was placed on a small coffee table nearby. Only the bedroom held the traces of an interrupted disaster. The pills he had spat and thrown away were scattered all over the bed, the empty container resting on a pillow. Jon looked for another one but fortunately he didn't find any more. An empty overturned bottle of whiskey was lying on the floor and his phone was half covered by a blanket.