Neon Red [Order The eBook] [Zayn]

Epilogue (Amazon eBook Exclusive)

Dear reader: 

Hi heyyyyyy! :) 

This epilogue was released in August 2022, as an exclusive bonus for those who supported and purchased the eBook version of Neon Red from Amazon. I cannot thank you all enough for first asking for the eBook and then being so supportive of it. Thank you, thank you, thank you! :) 

I am now releasing that epilogue here! I hope you enjoy the beginning of the closure from the rejected proposal from 2018. This is also a lead-in to the upcoming third installment of the series titled "In This World". If you would like to purchase the eBook or paperback to Neon Red on Amazon, you can still do so at the link in the comment of this paragraph! Thank you! (The paperbacks to Neon Red will hopefully be announced this week!)

Epilogue

July 2018

Modena, Italy

This was the first time I felt alright in over a week. Well, the first day I was motivated to get out of bed, anyway. Italy. My Italy. The only place capable of revitalizing me no matter what I'd undergone. America was becoming a blight for so many reasons, namely a 5'9, brown-skinned one in particular, so I was determined to sell my house and get the fuck out of there for good. There was nothing left for me now. All hopes I'd had for putting down roots with the person I loved most had been exterminated.

Fuck's sake, I must've lain there unmoving for nearly a week straight, cringing viciously at how pathetic my proposal had been. At how I'd lost my composure after the rejection. Tossing and turning for hours on end, night after night. Drenched in sweat. Thinking back, it was the worst off I'd ever been. The only cardio I clocked was lifting a water bottle to my lips whenever I was so parched my throat stuck together, or whenever I was starving so bad my stomach ate itself, leaving me no choice but to fill it with water. It was the only thing I could get down. Nothing solid could pass my lips without generating an urge to vomit. The only other mobility I managed was forcing myself to get up and take a massive piss once it felt like my bladder had begun to seep toxins back into my kidneys.

I wasn't ready to die. At least I thought I wasn't. I was confused mostly. Confused over what was next. Unlike before when I was in bad shape over him, I couldn't get my hands on any Percocet. No one was selling. And no creepy gypsy ladies to pinch them off this time. Instead, I reached out to an old acquaintance who reached out to an even older acquaintance and got my hands on some oxy to numb the pain.

At this point, I don't think I could even call it pain. The word seemed insufficient. He had forced me so far past that line that what I'd experienced the night of the rejection was nothing short of murder. Somehow, I'd been resuscitated, call it providence or divine order or whatever, but a great chunk of me still felt rather unalive. I couldn't articulate the thoughts and imagery that raced through my mind once I got the confirmation that I wasn't it for him. That no matter how much time passed, no matter how much our relationship had grown and evolved and overcome, and no matter how much we'd expressed devotion to one another through the years, I wasn't it.