Into the Dark (ORIGINAL AND UNEDITED EDITON)

Prologue

                 
Five weeks. Or 33 days, 6 hours and about 20 minutes to be exact.

Unless I'd lost count somewhere between the blackouts. Nights spent in a drunken haze scanning the crowd at the club for her before passing out on the sofa in my office. Nights spent at home in a drunken haze in front of the TV before passing out on the sofa.  I'd passed out a lot recently.

It feels like longer than five weeks – feels like an eternity. Though maybe if I stopped counting every fucking minute of it like this it would move faster.  

Funny how a whole life could pass by in an instant, or in a flicker almost, but how five weeks wallowing in self-pity could feel like years. As though I was dragging myself through mud or concrete to fuck knows where.

Though maybe if time went slow enough it would eventually go backwards? Back to before, back to when I had her.  But even if that were possible, I'd need to go a lot further back than 33 fucking days ago.    I'd need to go all the way back in order to undo all of the shit I'd done.   All of the shit she couldn't forgive me for, all of the shit I told her I wouldn't undo even if I could.

What the fuck was I thinking saying that to her? Was that supposed to sound romantic or something? As if telling her some bullshit about how everything had lead me to her, and how we were meant to be together was somehow going to change a fucking thing. She wasn't my shot at redemption. She was better than that and better than me and that's why she did what she had to do.

I've never been a self-pitying type of person. I'm the type of person that gets on with it. As soon as I was old enough to stand up for myself I realised that a bit of pressure here and a bit of force there could affect the slightest change in circumstance - I'd learned that the hard way. But I'd never experienced having something and then losing it. That was new. That was because I'd never actually had anything worth losing.

I'm not sure whether this is a situation I can apply some pressure and force to - I couldn't force her to love me again or take me back.   But she was mine once – so I guess it's not out with the realms of possibility that she could be mine again.  If I unravelled myself from this I could be someone worthy of her.   33 days was nothing in the span of a lifetime.  It was a blip and when I got her back, this time without her - this surviving without her - would be a footnote.

I could change this.   I would get her back.  There was no other outcome for me now.

"Daddy can I watch the lion king again! Please!" Cale screeches from the rug, smacking his hands loudly off his thighs a few times.  He's way more excited to see a film for the 200th time than anyone has a right to be but I feel myself smile at his enthusiasm in spite of my dark mood.

"Sure buddy, you remember how to work it?" I say, hauling my arse up from the chair with a half groan. 

I grab the Ipad from the highest shelf on the wall - I'd been limiting him to a few hours a day on it maximum because he was getting way too obsessed with the thing, staring at it hypnotically for hours.  

As I bring it over to him he nods hyperactively and pulls the white Bluetooth headphones over his tiny head. They're massive and so I make the size of them smaller so they don't slide off his head while he taps the tablet forcefully with his stubby nailed forefinger.  He'd started biting his nails like I do which is another reason I need to stop fucking doing it. 

When he's settled I walk over to the window and take a seat on the leather chair and pick up the acoustic guitar. I'd definitely been practicing more lately which I guess was some kind of positive to be taken from the pile of shit I'd created.  I was still awful at it though.  Looks like despite what she thought, these hands of mine weren't really good for anything other than destruction.