Fall Into Me (Into Me Series Book Three)

Chapter Nine - Miss Missing You

I am so fucking screwed.

I continue to stare at the part of my ceiling that I always seem to focus on. I have tried everything. Benadryl, melatonin, NyQuil, ZzzQuil. Nothing is touching me. I look over to the clock on my side table. 4:21am.

I am so fucking screwed.

My chest feels completely empty, devoid of all life and light. Every square inch of my skin aches for touch and affection. The static has taken complete and total control of every thought in my brain, my head stuffed full with cotton. The monster has its death grip around my spine, pulling me deeper into the darkness with each passing second. I'm so lonely that I can feel it in my soul, crushing my core and dragging me down with it.

I'm getting bad again.

I can't sleep. I keep staring at the same spot on the ceiling. My eyes are burning. I'm half expecting Theo to be in bed next to me if I turn my head to look at the empty space. It's been a while since I felt like this. I know for a fact that I haven't felt like this since I've been with Jackson.

I don't think I've been this low since Avery died. Every breath I take is a conscious decision to stay alive, a battle that I have with myself. This is why I don't get close to people. When I get close to people, they always leave me and absolutely shatter me. They wreck me. Even when they promised me that they were gonna stay. They all leave.

I guess promising someone that you'll stay is just a fun little game people like to play with me.

A string of Fall Out Boy lyrics come to mind: "Sometimes before it gets better, the darkness gets bigger, the person that you'd take a bullet for is behind the trigger."

I'm always the one taking the bullet, never the one that pulls the trigger. I miss Caroline. I know that I would be able to call her and she would answer and she would come over and hold me in an instant, no questions asked. She wouldn't let me feel this alone.

And then I remember that she too is one of the people that pulled the trigger. She left me. Just like they all do.

I have cried every tear I could have possibly produced while trying to stay quiet so that I don't disturb Halle or Riley sleeping in the guest rooms. The scars on my wrists and arms itch, begging for attention. That need to feel something, even if that means feeling pain, aches deep within me. I force myself to take a deep breath in an attempt to calm my head.

Absentmindedly, I twist my wedding ring around my finger. It burns into me, the nausea returning.  My chest aches with the emptiness of it all.

Jackson would never cheat on me. I know he wouldn't. Right? He loves me so much. He tells that he loves me every chance he gets. The way that he holds me, the way that he fucks me, I know for a fact that he loves me. That's why it's so easy to be open with him.

But he didn't tell me about this.

Not any of it.

He told me that I was his first serious relationship, that he hadn't had anything like we have before. He told me that he was a man-whore who slept around and fucked girls for fun. But no. He was engaged and almost fucking married to her. To this Kelsey. But then he found her in bed with someone named Matt?

He said, "I stopped giving a shit about what comes out of your mouth the moment I walked in on you fucking Matt in our bed two days before our wedding."

Our bed. Our wedding. You don't get to the point in the relationship where there is a bed shared and a wedding 48 hours away unless it's serious. He loved her. He was ready to promise his life to her till death. And he caught her cheating. That had to have fucked him up, but that's not an excuse to lie to me when I have been nothing but truthful about my past to him, not matter how painful it was.