𝑺𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒅𝒔

𝙵𝙸𝙵𝚃𝚈-𝚃𝚆𝙾

I blinked, my eyes snapping to the white bottle on my dresser. It was holding onto me as much as I was holding onto it. It felt as if it had suddenly developed a mouth overnight. 

Like something had breathed life into it and I could feel it move from that table, its compelling presence creeping behind me, calling out to me in whispers to take the help it had to offer.

I should have thrown the pills out when I had the chance, but a tiny part of me had always known that I would come crawling back to them.

The more I stared at the bottle, the more my restraint waned. 

I didn't want to take it, but I needed to sleep.

I breathed, my fingers reaching out slowly to grab it. Multiple voices clashed in my head, growing louder but only a particular duo seemingly stood out like an angel and a devil perched on my shoulders. 

As I reached for it, there was a voice nagging at the back of my head, pleading desperately for me not to take it, but the other one was louder, probably because I was unconsciously giving it power and tuning out the first one.

The bottle was luring me into its hold and I was falling for every bit of its promises of oblivion. 

I snatched it off the table, and a surge of liberation coursed through me. For a fleeting moment, all that pain, that tiredness, that despondence merged into one huge ball of hope. 

At this point, my body didn't feel like mine anymore because my hands developed a mind of their own, unscrewing the cap I pat the tip of the cover against my palm, a few white circular pills rolling out.

I could taste the dizziness on my lips. I could feel it. I could breathe it in and it was exhilarating. The closest thing to being alive I had felt in days. Heck, there was a rush of that familiar lethargic feeling after effect that gripped me in the guts.

"Quiet," I whispered. 

Go on. It urged me.

I brought my palm to my mouth and a glimpse of that dark, dreadful place flashed in my mind, vividly, like a swipe of black paint against a white canvas. That cold, awful feeling associated with it, that terrifying emptiness enveloped me for a moment, lodging a burning question in my throat.

So, I take it now and what happens afterwards?

Sure, a long, peaceful and refreshing sleep awaited me but the aftermath only screamed dependency in bold red letters.

My shoulders slumped in defeat immediately and that anticipation washed away, replaced with an exhaustion that had its claws buried deep in me.

I wasted no time in shoving the pills back in their bottle and I tossed them in my drawer, sealing it shut. 

My haunting reflection caught my gaze in the mirror and I held it. My eyes assessed my naked figure and all I saw was a shell. It should irk me. I should be furious. I should be disgusted but I couldn't even bring myself to feel anything. I was trying so hard to feel something but I was too drained to do it.

The duo cornrows I had managed to weave my hair into the last day I went to school looked like tacky faux locks that I had been carrying for six months. I had only been carrying it for three days but it wasn't even a sight to behold with how unhinged it made me look and that was as a result of me sinking my fingers into them and tugging at them.