Love and the Sea and Everything in Between

chapter thirty-three

Tomorrow's the day – the day it all ends.

Night has come and I'm in my room, sitting at my desk. In my hands, I hold the pack of cigarettes I'd cherished since leaving Adam that day after...

No.

Shutting my eyes off to the tears, I toss the cigarettes into the trash and bury my face in my hands.

A thousand thoughts race across the surface of my mind, but none of them stay long enough to take root in my conscious. They're fleeting, distant things – an untouchable haze that settles over me so I can't distinguish one distorted shadow from another.

I can't see anything clearly anymore.

My mind has descended into madness and my heart is ruled by insanity. There's a storm inside my chest, swallowing me whole. The memories are the wind and the emotions are the waves and they work together to beat me down until there's nothing left of me.

There's nothing left of me.

This is love, I suppose, a brutal, curious madness. It's a narcotic that lures its victims in with promises of grandeur, only to tangle them in its chaos and smother the life away.

I loved myself once.

Those days are gone now.

Those days have turned to night and now all that's left is me and the darkness.

* * *

The seconds drag on and after a while, I wander from my room and out into the common area. It's only the early evening so it's not been dark out for long, but the shadows are enough. I can't see the stars anymore. They're smothered by the parking lot lights and the city fumes.

I smell it, thick in the air, the human waste and the exhaust of ending days.

Standing beside a tree, the shadows welcome me. I feel obscure inside their embrace. The cold finds me, wrapping itself around my arms like shackles as I hear the familiar chug of Gus' engine. A turn of the head is all it takes to see Adam's van barreling through the parking lot. My heart stops beating inside my chest and I think that time stands still as our eyes meet for just a second, and then he's gone.

Adam... The thought of his name brings a familiar ache to my chest and all I want is to run after him – even though I could never hope to catch him on foot – but I'm stuck.

I'm frozen by the memories and I'm frozen by the fear and I'm frozen by the cruelty of life's sick sense of humor.

Even if I could find it in myself to move, there's nowhere for me to go. Adam had become my home.

There's no home for me anymore. And it's all my fault.

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