Page 145 of Rivals
“Ok, I’m getting up. I’ll paint for a while, and then I have the afternoon shift, Betty texted me.” He nods and watches me still. I glance at him, and he stares at me with an odd expression. “What? Do I still have paint in my hair?” I lift my free hand, running it through my dark strands. I don’t see anything out of the corner of my eyes, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.
“No,” he sighs.
“Then why are you looking at me like that?” I look down and then back into his eyes. “Is it because I’m naked?” His lips curve a little, and then they drop. He shoves his hand into his pocket and holds up my little baggy.Dammit.I probably left them on the bathroom counter last night.
Now, there is no debate. He knows now. “Why do you have those,” I say defensively.
“Really? That’s what you want to say to me?” he says, raising his voice. I reach for them, but he jerks them out of reach.
“Give it, Lachlan. Let me have them,” I say with as much bite as I can muster.
“No,” he stands and walks from the bed into the bathroom. I put my mug on the table as hot coffee splashes onto my hand. I hiss at the sting and run after him. He stands over the toilet and flushes the last four pills.
“Lachlan!” I scream.
“Revna, you have got to stop! I know you took too many. That’s why you were so strung out earlier. I thought you did something harder, like cocaine or meth. Something that could kill you, and I would be too late. I thought I—“ He shakes his head like he knows that isn’t the answer. His eyes lift to mine, and tears well in them. “Revna,” he begs. “You know you took too many. I was going out of my mind trying to decide if I should run you to the hospital or not. I kept checking your pulse and your breathing. Revna, please don’t do this. Don’t let me find you dead because there will never be enough drugs to make all of it go away. No drug on this Earth will make the pain, grief, and desperation disappear. I love you. Please, just let that be enough. I need you.” A tear slips from his eyes, and I know I messed up again.
If this situation were reversed, I would have lost my mind. A sob bursts from my lips, and I shake my head as my body quakes. “I can’t…I don’t know how. It’s too much. It hurts, Lachlan,” I cry.
“I know, baby. I know it does, but this isn’t the way. Not anymore, please,” he begs again.
“No, Lachlan. It isn’t the way. But I’m not the only one telling lies.” The words fly from my mouth before I can swallow them. I’m angry and sad and don’t know where to put it all. I cross my arms, remembering I don’t have a stitch of clothing on. I reach for a towel and pull it around my shoulders.
“This is not about me, Revna. This is about you, I— No. Do not try and change the subject right now,” he says. His voice is cold, and it makes me shiver.
“I’m not—“
“You haveno idea,Revna. I have to make an impossible decision, and I can’t make it when I’m afraid you’re going to overdose because you can’t take the pain! You can take it! Youcanlive with it! You have to, Revna! How did we get here? How did this happen?“ I shake my head because I genuinely don’t know.
But maybe I do. Maybe I gave up on myself. I did exactly what I wanted to avoid so badly. I gave up on Lachlan. I didn’t hold the love he gave me so freely the way I should have. I left it on the side of the road for a fix because I couldn’t deal. “I’m not you, Lachlan. I can’t.”
I knew I messed up. I knew, but I did it anyway. “Where did I go wrong? Did I say something? Did I do something to make you regress? I thought we were at a better place when we got back from Italy. Then it’s like the ground dropped from beneath me, and we’ve been holding on to the edge ever since. Revna, talk to me,” he pleads. I shake my head, clutching the towel around me. It’s not because I can’t talk to him. I just don’t know what to say. I know I was selfish. I know I did this to myself. But I broke. No one hates me more than I hate myself. I made the wrong choice.
“I’m struggling too, Revna. I am grasping at the will to keep getting out of bed, but I do it because I love you. I know that we will get through this, but these—“ he points to the toilet where he just flushed the last of my pills, ”—will not get you through this. Get us through this. They will kill you and, in turn, kill me.” His chest heaves with exertion.
“I can’t—“ his voice breaks. “I can’t be here to see that. I can’t live with that,” he says, angrily shaking his head and gripping his hair. “Maybe you were right about us, it’s…I can’t— I need to go,” he says. I gasp. He’s leaving me even though I’m the one that pushed him away.
“Lachlan, No! Please!” I sob. My feet can’t move, and a breath later, the door slams, making me jump.
I hope she’s happy she took everything from me. She left me alone in this world. For the first time, I found a chance at something better than survival, and she ripped it from me. But it’s not just her. I did this to myself. I’m the one who made the choice. I’m the one who pushed him away with my selfishness because I couldn’t see through the fog of pain.
He might have flushed the rest of my pills, but that’s not all I have. I go find my purse and rip everything out until I see my wallet.
I find the little baggie of white powder and go over to the art supplies, looking for the only thing that will make everything stop. All the heartache, all the agony, all the guilt. I feel awful for leaving him, but I know he will be better off without me. He might be sad for a little bit, but it will pass. He won’t have to make the choice he’s so torn up about because I’ll take myself out of the equation.
This has been a long time coming. I think it would have happened with or without him. But I’m grateful for the time I did have him because I didn’t deserve a single minute. He’s the only one who cared about me on this Earth, and that’s more than I ever thought I would have in my lifetime. I look around in the drawer where paintbrushes, carving tools, and razors for knives sit. I grab a fresh razor and go back to the bathroom. One of his shirts is on the floor, and I grab it to put it on. I’ll be able to have him with me in some way when I say goodbye. I go into the bathroom, drop my supplies, and pull his shirt over my head. I lift the collar and take a deep breath. His detergent, hint of paint, and pine scent fill my nose. Tears stream down my face, and I know it’s what has to be done. I don’t want to be here anymore. The pain of living is too much for a girl who has been slowly killing herself. It’s time to end the agony.
I pour all of the powder out of the baggie and create lines with the razor. I don’t use cocaine. I tried just a little once and didn’t like it, so it doesn’t count. But I know it will be what I need. I tap it around, forming rough lines. I don’t care if it’s messy. I stare at the five thin lines I created and angle my head against the counter. Holding one nostril closed, I do a line, wait a second, and do another until it’s gone. The high hits me almost immediately. The drip makes me gag, and I force myself to swallow until it clears. Then I grab the razor and step into the shower. It won’t be as messy.
I flip the handle, and the spray warms my shivering skin as I stand there for a moment, knowing my breaths are numbered, but that’s ok. It’s all better this way. Lachlan can finish the project and hopefully will win. He deserves that. He deserves so much more than I’ve ever been able to give him.
I lift my wrist and see the beautiful brushstroke tattoo that covers it. With bleary eyes, I lift the razor to the direction of my veins right below my tattoo and push it down. It’s sharp and quick. Blood streams from my veins, and I watch it flow like a river, mixing with the water and dripping down the tiled shower floor.
I switch hands and do the other wrist. The water pelts my skin, and the high is better than anything OBA has given me. I feel free. I feel like I’m floating on the clouds I could never reach. My mom is dead, and I didn’t know her. But I’m not going to pretend I didn’t want to. In life, death is inevitable. I’m not afraid of death. I don’t believe I ever have been. I know there have been many days in my life when I considered moving up my timeline. It felt like a grasp at control that I’ve never had. It would have just made life easier because it would finally be over.
The only thing in between life and death is time. It’s that space in between where you have to figure out what you are supposed to do with it. But in that gap, there is so much to carry to keep going through life and time. How are you supposed to use something you don’t have any control over? It passes through us, yet we can’t grasp onto it. It creates change all around us, but we have no say in it. So then, why do we have to figure out what to do with it as if we do?
Why does time feel like dying instead of death itself? Because from where I’m standing, death is a lot more comforting than time. Time just keeps following me, holding a gun to the back of my head until it decides to pull the trigger. Death had nothing to do with it; time does. It will continue ticking, but I won’t. For some reason, it feels like for everything life has taken from me, I got to claw something back. The water feels like rain as it hits my skin, and I keep my eyes closed even though I feel a bit dizzy.
