Everything You've Come To Regret

44 | are you interested?

warnings: mentions of death

March 7, 2016

She said, "Give me that hand, please
And the itch you can't control
Let me teach you how to handle
All the sadness in your soul"

⋆ ˚ ° ° ˚⋆

"Sophie said you could have died! We're worried sick."

I'd just hopped out of a hot shower, barely awake, when my mum had called me. She'd shouted in my ear and calmed down since then, but my words of reassurance felt useless. Meanwhile, I was pacing in the kitchen, trying not to wake up Kat.

"I told you I'm okay. A friend of mine was with me at the hospital, and I stayed there for what? Two hours? Mostly for the paperwork."

More like a whole day. But she didn't need to know every detail, did she?

"I'm fine, I promise," I added, tucking the screen between my shoulder and my cheek to heat the water in the kettle. "I'll come and see you as soon as I can, alright?"

"Right," my mum grumbled, letting out a sigh. "I supposed you hired a lawyer?"

I cleared my throat, uneasy about the topic. "I did. I'm meeting him at ten."

I stood on my toes to reach a teabag in a cupboard, behind five or six snack packets Kat had bought me. My mum went on rambling in my ear anxiously, listing every legal action I could take against Luke.

It was hard though. As much as I wanted to see him die, I was too tired to fill thousands of papers and learn I couldn't win in the end. What if justice settled on letting him free? What would have been the purpose? He's just a man and couldn't control himself? I've just been a victim among others?

It was all paradoxical. I was the saddest I'd ever been and had lived the most traumatising experience of my life, and yet I wanted to live at full and stop caring about the day after. After all, you never think this is the last time you hug someone. I needed to enjoy my life fully in case something similar happened again. I wouldn't bear such pain again anyway.

I sat on the floor after we ended the call, my back against the fridge. Staring at a cupboard for no reason—or perhaps too overwhelmed to even go on. The mug burned my hand more and more, so I set it down on the floor beside me. And blew out a breath, looking up at the ceiling.

Kat found me sitting there five or ten minutes later. I hadn't moved one bit, enjoying the way my mind was gradually emptying itself until I wasn't sure whether time still passed.

Rubbing at her tired eyes, she asked, "You're alright?"

"I need a minute."

She didn't question my odd behaviour and instead bent down to kiss the top of my head as she went to grab a mug.

And after putting on comfortable clothes and getting ready, I left the flat by myself, a first in weeks.

Without surprise, the meeting had me nervous. My lawyer, an old man who required I called him by his first name, asked me to tell him about my relationship with Luke and the sequence of events ever since I'd known him. I hesitated a lot, stumbling over my sentences and rewording them. Dave took notes of everything though, always watching me with a kind but serious look that kept me going.

I just wished I could have killed Luke myself, so I wouldn't have to act like such a loser.

As soon as we were done, I shook hands with Dave, and he told me he'd call soon. Apparently, that was a common practice among men. Soon didn't mean anything.