Page 70 of Apathy
We were more like Layla and Majnun, and I planned not to go mad from grief because I couldn’t have her. I could pretend. I could lie. I could make her believe in this sweet little lie where she was mine, and I was hers, but that’s all it was and all it would ever be—a lie.
A fantasy I allowed to happen, forgetting what was important.
And Skylar couldn’t become someone too important to me. She couldn’t become more than she already was. So what if the colors around me looked brighter since she came into my life? I was okay with my gray world before she came, and I will learn to be okay with it again.
I could do this. I could make her fall for me without falling for her. And if I gripped the steering wheel tighter now, it wasn’t because I ached to touch her, to see her, to make sure she was okay.
It wasn’t because I was worried about her and pissed off at myself.
The fog I was still getting used to still coated the streets, lingering over the bridge as I passed into the West Side of Winworth, wallowing in my misery, refusing to turn on the radio. I always sought music when my mind couldn’t come up with an explanation on its own.
When I couldn’t put my emotions into words, when my chest became too heavy, burdened by the ghosts from my past and things I had to do, music was always there as a solution, to show people what I really wanted to say.
The first time I expressed what I wanted was when Uncle Neal bought me a CD player and the greatest hits from Iron Maiden. Maybe not the best choice for a seven-year-old, but neither one of us knew how to deal with the situation we found ourselves in.
He saved us, Sebastian and me, and I didn’t want to disappoint him, no matter how much we disagreed on mundane things. And going to see Skylar, that would disappoint him. That would break his heart, because he was the one who had to change the gauze on my burned skin. He was the one who had to listen to my screams, to my cries when nightmares couldn’t be contained in the realm of dreams.
So when I came to the crossing, where the sign on the right glared at me with the name of the hospital and the directions to get to it, I turned left and headed toward the school, ignoring the nagging voice in the back of my head, telling me I’d made a mistake.
Perhaps I did, but Skylar didn’t need me. She had other people who could tend to everything she wanted, everything she needed. She was just a body I liked to fuck, and nothing else.
She was nothing to me.
Skylar
Time passes differently when your entire life gets turned upside down. Seconds feel like minutes, minutes like hours, and hours like days, all to the point where I wasn’t sure if it was one, two or three days since they admitted me to the hospital.
Since I woke up screaming in an ambulance. Since that maniac carved something on my arm, leaving me tied to the chair, until our gardener found me in the morning, when he saw an open door and my blood on the floor.
But after they gave me a sedative, after I closed my eyes, my mind became blank, and it was as if somebody flipped a switch in my body, turning off all the bad things swirling in the back of my head. There was no pain, no happiness, no love nor sadness.
There was nothing.
Pure emptiness.
I knew Dylan was here. Lauren, Kane, my mom and dad, but there was one person I wanted to see, and he never came.
Ash.
I knew I should be feeling happy that I was still alive, but it was as if my heart refused to cooperate with my mind. I knew what I was supposed to be feeling, but no matter how hard I tried, nothing came up.
Dylan talked to me, begging me to reply. Begging me to say anything. To cry, to scream, to be angry, but I couldn’t be bothered. Not anymore. I was done pleading for my life because I shouldn’t have to. I shouldn’t have to beg for happiness, for a little piece of paradise.
I didn’t even flinch when my father placed his hand on my forehead, pretending to be concerned about me. I didn’t move when my mother faked her tears, holding my hand, and letting Dylan comfort her. I didn’t utter a single word when Kane got angry, all but yelling at me.
I simply didn’t have the strength to answer any of their questions. I didn’t have it in me to pretend anymore. I just couldn’t. You know how people say that your life flashes before your eyes in your last moments?
Nothing flashed in front of mine.
No memories. No happiness. Just an eternal darkness as I slipped into an unconscious state, while he mutilated my body. And I wanted to be angry because yet another person touched me without my permission. Yet another person hurt me when I wanted nothing more but to be held.
Just for a moment, one fleeting moment, I wanted to feel protected without the fear gripping my insides.
But I was too tired to feel anything. I was too tired of constantly fighting, constantly thinking ten steps ahead, dreaming of a brighter future, because the reality I was in right now was not what I wanted to have.
I could hear the voices now right outside the open door. Dylan and Lauren. I wanted to call them, to invite them in, to share what was bothering me. I wanted to tell them that I couldn’t do this anymore. I couldn’t live my life like this.
But as soon as I opened my mouth, the words died, swallowed by my shallow breathing. They choked me, wanting to spill out, but they couldn’t.
