Lonerism

Three, Two, One (R)

A.N. Another one shot! I'm actually really proud at how this one turned out. It's a bit of a strange one but I enjoyed writing it so I hope you guys enjoy reading it! Also, the video is a pretty AMAZING song by Lana Del Rey that essentially inspired this one shot. Vote, comment, all that shit if you lik it. I love it. Anyway, ENJOY!

Three, Two, One

We don't really think about the people that we lose, do we? I mean, once they're gone, once they're long dead, they hardly ever cross your mind. You'll find yourself moving on quicker than you thought, and each day that passes - you won't even notice it - but you'll think about them less and less, until the memories you shared were so far away that remembering them would be a dazed and dreamy surprise, a past world that felt kinder than the one you live in now.

That is the curse of looking backwards, though - it'll always look better than the now.

"Out of sight, out of mind," my boyfriend once said, and it was something I'd always remembered, because he was undoubtedly right, and maybe it was easier that way - easier to forget about the people who have died, easier to move on and live your own life without them.

Maybe it was just too painful to remember them, I told myself. I'd tried so hard to forget, but sometimes, on cool, silent nights like these, nights where you can't get to sleep no matter how hard you try, you start looking back. My mind would wander back to them, the people I'd lost, on those nights, and I'd remember.

The first place my mind went to was my younger brother. He was fifteen years old, when he woke up one morning and left our family home forever. He had climbed over the railings of a high concrete bridge and threw himself into a storm of oncoming traffic. I was told he was hit instantly by a truck, and had died on impact.

I was eighteen at the time, and just about to leave home. I'd been accepted into a good university at the other side of the country. I was all packed, counting down the days to go, three, two, one - the days until I would finally be free.

And then there was a knock at the front door, and a police car parked in our driveway. I'd sat at my bedroom window and watched it park just outside, and I knew even before they'd knocked on the door, that he'd done it, he'd tried again.

I remembered that day so well, even now - how I walked down the stairs so slowly, or maybe I just remembered it in a slower, more stagnant motion. I reached the mouth of the stairs, and without entering the kitchen, I heard my mother's chilly voice, shrill and stoic. She accused the officer of lying, tried to hold back what few tears she could muster, and spent the rest of the day on the phone, shouting and screaming in grief and rage to her sister.

I went back upstairs before I was spotted, and found myself standing just outside his bedroom door. I couldn't stop myself from going inside, inhaling the smell of his room, and of him, trying to force myself to remember the smell forever, in case I somehow forgot. I didn't want to forget anything about him - how he put on a brave face to hide whatever he was feeling underneath, and how clever he was, actually clever.

The last conversation I had with him kept playing over in my head, on repeat, and I told myself that I should've known what he was going to do. He was sitting at the bottom of the stairs, his fingers tracing the scars on his wrists.

I'd asked, "What's up?"

"Just thinking," he'd said, his eyes never rising to meet mine, but transfixed on the fleshy, ugly scars carved into his skin. He followed each scar with the tips of his fingers, and I sat myself down beside him, sighing. Seeing the scars reminded me of all the blood I'd seen gushing out of them, after he'd tried to kill himself.