Devotion C.B

8

Song: Half hearted - We Three 

Warning: This chapter gets dark. TW: Mental health, talk of depression, suicidal thoughts, drinking and driving

*Colby's POV*

I stared at the pink and purple sunset, my ass hurting from how long I had been sitting on the rough rocky terrain.

I knew I needed to go home. The woman I loved was waiting for me there, but I couldn't bring myself to get up.

My phone kept ringing and ringing until I eventually switched it off, the noise disrupting the numb feeling inside my head.

When it began to get dark, I made my way back to the car, my fingers turning the key to start the ignition, my hands on the wheel, ready to leave; yet I had gone nowhere.

I knew what was waiting for me at home.

A warm bed and shower, warm dinner, Gemma's cuddles; but I also knew Leighton's ridiculing would be there as well.

Not answering her calls, not texting her back, not coming home right away.

A ticking time bomb was ready to explode the second I opened that front door, and before I knew it, I turned off the ignition.

My head fell back against the headrest, my eyes falling shut as I took a deep breath, my fingers tapping against the steering wheel.

I needed to go home.

I turned the ignition back on, putting my car into drive, allowing myself to get further and further from my sacred heaven, the sunset turning pitch black, the bright moon being my own source of light as I followed the sketchy back roads back to the main LA roads, the only sound being the vibration of my tires on the pavement as I got lost in my endless thoughts.

Would she be mad? Would she yell, cry, slam the door? Did she even want me to come home?

I knew the look in her eye as I followed Sam down to the elevator.

She didn't understand me, but who could when I didn't understand myself either?

You wake up every single day, take a pill, and you're told you'll be okay. That it will all be okay, when I've been okay.

I was okay the first 20 years of my life, and now all of a sudden I need to take a pill every single day for the rest of my life? It felt wrong. Torturous even.

The first day of missing the pill, I had completely spaced it.

I woke up that morning rushing to get breakfast done and Gemma into the car to her tumbling class, running late as we picked up Noel; coming home and heading out the door with Sam to a business meeting that by the time I had remembered I had skipped, it was dinner time and Leighton was ranting to me about how she took her prenatal and threw it all up at work.

I felt guilty.

Like I had wronged her. Let her down. Let myself down... until I felt fine.

Nothing had changed. I still felt the same, but I knew there was the risk. The warning they give you of missing a dose. You always feel fine, until the side effects kick in and your body begins to detox the chemical changing drug, making you feel like shit.

So that next morning, I woke up, I stared at the bottle, ready to take my med when Sam walked into my room, my hands quickly fumbling to hide what I was doing, getting swept away in yet another distraction.

Day by day it flew by, until the fourth day when I realized I had gone four days without, and I felt okay.

I wasn't vomiting, no headaches, nothing.