Letters To The Dead

Chapter 1

You aren't here with me.

It isn't you and me against the world like it used to be. Close as anything. It's just me. And it sucks.

Whatever. I'll get to the point now. Today, I got arrested. Not for the first time to be honest. I'm in the cell right now, the same one that I've been visiting on and off for the past few years and waiting for Officer Sydney. Waiting for my consequence. With her it's probably another lecture about how I should move on and get my life back on track. Yawn. So original.  Since I moved up here, Sydney has been one of my closest friends and we met when I got into trouble with the Sheriff's son. In my defence the guy's a prick and he had it coming. Broken nose – proudest moment of my life.

But she's always talking. Therapy. Education or get another boring, crappy job. I know she cares; I can see it in her lightly bruised eyes when she looks at me and how she constantly seems to be holding herself back. She's always tiptoeing around me like I'm broken glass on the floor. But I always shove her away. I'm not good at accepting help, letting people in, and because I don't how to accept it, I lash out. I know that's probably with my issues in trust and pride, not wanting to be seen as weak or anything to others. People take advantage, you know. When it was just Kara and me after everything, we only had each other and that was how we survived.

And I hurt her, Sydney I mean, as well as everyone else who cares for me. This time I tried, you see, promised her not to get into any more trouble with the law and in the end, I did get into more trouble. 

And I tried, really, I did. But when I get drunk everything intensifies. At first there's this giddy warmth and everything's okay, that I feel like I could be okay. But then I would get these other annoying emotions that I don't want and that only causes me to drink more. In the end, the more I drink, the more I lose control of myself and that anger that I always keep under wraps starts to bubble up and say hello. But this time it was different, there was this guy who was being an ass and trying to assault this chick, so I stopped him and maybe took it a bit too far with it. At the time I thought...actually scratch that I wasn't thinking, and I reacted.

Originally, I was minding my business. I was down in the local club, having a few pints of whiskey on the rocks. The good stuff. The kind that tasted like piss, not that I would know, and burned down the throat and settle down at the pits of the stomach. I'm on good terms with the owner you see, so I'm able to get family discount on whiskey.  The music was terrible as usual, loud, and fast paced which most people seem to like these days. Personally, I can't stand it but each to our own, I guess. They were dancing to it like their lives depended on it, grinding against each other so desperately that if they got any closer, they would end up sharing bodies or something. Every time I go to a club or a bar; it makes me think about how you used to say that being in places like that was like being in another world. A world where you can forget who you are and pretend to be someone else, someone that wasn't in pain. And people wouldn't care either way because why bother. They were trying just as hard to fit in that different world as well. You were right. I can forget here, and when I do, it doesn't hurt as much anymore.

Then she came over. Dark brown eyes, bright water-coloured tattoos decorated across her skin and wide bright red lips. I met her two years ago at the club and we've been meeting regularly since for a good time. She's beautiful. The kind of beauty that is fun and exciting that makes being around her so intoxicating. Being around her is like stepping onto fire, skin buzzing alive and stomach dancing with thousands of electrified bolts. I don't know much about her, just her name, which I know is silly because most people probably do know stuff about who they kiss but both of us prefer it this way. No attachments and no hurt.

This was before the fight. We were making out and I was really into it. Her lips were warm and soft against mine. Hands clinging tightly onto my jacket and pulling me closer. I was planning to go back to her place but then everything seemed too much at once. The music was screaming, the bodies surrounding us were thick blurs and tight knots were twisting around at the depths of my stomach. I couldn't breathe and I couldn't move. There was this sharp angry pang, furious grief, and I couldn't go any further. This wasn't the first time, you know; I would sober for a split second and that was enough to stop me from going away further. Pain would come crashing down on me like a storm in the desert and I would lose myself in my head.