Page 62 of My Lovely Tragedy
I would shift into what it would feel like. To experience my breath escaping for one last time with no hope of another. Limbs losing strength, falling to the floor. An occasional twitch as life evaporates. If my eyes would roll back or my vision would slowly fade out. If the pain would be sharp and agonizing or dull and warm. Maybe a bit of both.
To know whether or not there really is an afterlife or if we’re plunged into a void, far too similar to the one with which I’m already intimately familiar.
I’ve gone as far as planning it out. Wrote letters. Each one giving just enough detail to each person, so they knew I really meant it. Then, I basked in the revelation of it all. Prepared and sat. Waited with bated breath. The ache in my fingers, subconsciously reaching for the unopened box of single-edge razor blades.
But I never did it. Just reveled in the relief the thoughts alone brought me. And I never said a word to anyone.
I couldn’t. They’d look at me differently. Think I’m crazy. Lock me up. I couldn’t risk it. But now… now the whole fucking world thinks I’ve gone off to drown in booze and drugs. So, really, what was the point? In fighting against every single fucking temptation, for it all to whittle down to this?
The thoughts of self-flagellation flow untethered. Tempting and desirous. And obtainable if I try hard enough.
Or, actually, I wouldn’t have to try at all. These fucking chains are long enough to give me reign of most of the lower floor. I have enough slack to use the bathroom and shower. There’s even enough to get me to the front door and a few steps onto the porch, and I can get halfway up the ladder leading to the loft.
It’s actually ridiculous. Almost as if Tobias doesn’texpectme to do anything.
“Where did you even get these fucking chains?” I ask, yanking on them from my spot on the couch. A spot I barely leave unless I have to.
What’s the point?
“From my shed,” Tobias answers immediately, though his attention is trained on his computer screen. The temptation to walk over and glance at it is there, niggling, but the motivation to move is zilch, so I settle on continuing to wonder unsatisfied.
I roll my eyes. “Jeez, that’s fucking specific.”
“You asked, darling. I’m simply answering.”
I bristle at the pet name, skin prickling as goosebumps flow and bite. “Don’t fu?—”
Tobias sighs heavily—and loudly.Fucking drama queen.“Yes, yes. Don’tfuckingcall you that. I know.”
His use of a swear word over his usual eloquent articulations throws me off kilter. And the memory of the last time he used one flickers in. When he stalked across the room and pinned me against him. The grip he had on my chin, bruising and relentless. Breath hot. Eyes so close and forever observant.
Possessive and carnal.
I swallow, then try to silently clear my throat. It echoes out, bouncing off the cavernous walls like they’re personally fucking mocking me. Like Tobias is. Like my entire fuckingexistence is.
It’s so easy to fall back into the banter with him. The easy connection we’ve had from the beginning. Iwantto. It’s easier than hating him—but if I hate him, I have to hate myself, too. For falling for his act. For fuckingbelieving in him.
For letting myself get so fucking low, I needed him.
Because now…
I swallow against the brick lodged in my throat, where it’s made its home since the moment I opened my eyes to chains and a gilded cage.
My legs shift beneath me, feet buried under the cushions. Blankets wrapped like a veil of protection—a falsity—but I fall into the feeling anyway. Desperate for anything other thanthis.
But this is all I have. Tobias and his cabin. His chains and fallacious promises.
Trapped, just as I have always been, but somehow, this feels worse. Tobias gave me a taste of freedom. He opened the door to the cage in my mind and set me free.
I felt the wind beneath my wings, finally unfurled. Unchained and rapturous. High on the ascension. I kept soaring, climbing higher and higher, chasing the feeling, even when my mind was stuck so far below, only Tobias was able to pull me out with soft, tender touches and words of easement. Of understanding. Forming the first pulsating ties of an unbreakable bond.
And then, I touched the fucking sun in the form of fingers clamped around my throat, stealing my air until black dots formed along my vision.
My wings melted, my ignorance damning me once more.
I careened into the sea, a deep plunge into the black waters until the pressure in my chest was all I knew. And I wish I could say I fell gracefully. With grit in my teeth and a smile on my lips, the knowledge that I failed, that I brought myself to my own demise, lost in the vast expanse of the universe.
But I was never so lucky.
