Trying To Endure

Chapter Fourty-Eight

SONG: Hozier - Take Me To Church (slowed)

Warning: suicide reference.

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Derek Matthews

The Manor is uncannily murky as the night arises. The crepuscule cannot compose that agitating seventh sense of a plagued watch. Each night, the crescent moon can be lustrous than the diamonds in the residence, but it will always be doomed as a full moon — the future, tomorrow, a bothersome enigma. Since we discovered the undercroft, the moon is more sinister than it has ever been, as baleful as the memory of Dad's neglect and abuse.

The dogs are in a deep, deep sleep. I informed the Staff I will be heading to the lake house for some peace and quiet. An odd thing to state. Luckily, Simko, Cox, Hamilton and Lin insisted on accompanying me.

My bedroom is on the third floor. The height is not as frightening as the rooftop where there is mere mist snuggling the encasements on the coldest nights. I would usually climb down and meet Theo in a field, get into his car and drive off to a party.

In the back of a Range Rover, scampering fields and vacant roads. Close to the lake house, crickets hum in the thick stems of the meadow, the body of water meek and eerily calm. Brittle leaves crunch and crack, radiant of autumn.

I hate my birthday. Absolutely hate it. The tormenting history is enough to conclude that November 11th does not deserve to be celebrated. It marks my birth, marks the death of my parents. 

Florence Lake ... Callous memories. A frenzied, foolish man can only come here. I have hopes of labelling this place differently. 

You see, I attempted suicide here. The second attempt. 

I was fifteen. Snow and rain on that day, I was moping like Dad. I had an argument with a stupid boy — I can't remember his name — and ended up in a cold-blooded fight. I ran out of Edgewater Independent, sulked on the side aisles of the very roads leading to the lake house, the water pitter-pattered on a few bypassing cars, my vision blurred of lights, rain and salt.

The taste, the sentiment, the life was as bitter as I am. I craved nothing more than to forget the world, to float in the after. The breaths were sobs. I wiped my nose with my sleeves, the depression sniffling and choking, my ears bled from my father's shouts.

You're a fucking mistake! he roared. You destroyed everything! Look at what you did. You ... You ruined these people's lives, bastard! You should've died instead of Alexandra.

I used to believe Dad. I used to think he was right. I brought pain, heartache and melancholy to others around me as I was in pain. I envied blissful strangers who had unconditional, parental and maternal love. They were happy. I wasn't. I couldn't see what was so special in my life, what was so special about myself. I lost everything the moment I entered this damned world. I wanted to leave. I wanted to forget.

My first attempt: cutting that one vein. Jessie stopped me. The second attempt: Fifteen-year-old me hiked the bleak, shady trees: unmoving branches bowed above, cloaked the ominous air, fabricated silhouettes that leapt from the devouring corners. The thin-snowed ground was blemished with muck. I was so disoriented by sentimental pain, that soon enough transformed to a physical ache, I slurred words: I deserved to die. I reiterated that phrase, or anything similar, as I tottered the stretch of the road, the wintriness jabbed my bones.

The downy, velvety grass smoothed my legs, the vastness of green speckled of ivory-veiled flowers, fluctuated in the sinister breeze. The iciness of the immense lake was melting. There were cracks and fissures, exposing the glossy water. The perturbing black loomed over the earth.