Bliss

Chapter 11: Goodbye

And I was so, so jealous.

Then I think about H.D, how he would always say hello to me in the hall way, how he would make me laugh because he was really funny, like that time when he was in my activities group and Dyl asked him if he wanted to share anything with the group, and he got up, stood in the middle of the group circle and took a good long piss, and then sat back down.

I think that was the first time I ever laughed since I got here, two months after I arrived. I liked H.D for that.

I remember H.D's parents on visiting days, always bringing him a dairy milk chocolate bar and I remember once they give him some thing they had bought off eBay, it was this big rubber band he wore around his forehead, so he didn't hurt it when he banged it against things. He only wore it for like, two days.

The way they would always hug him together, and then his dad would shake his hand and his mom would kiss his forehead before they left.

I start to sob.

Mason starts rubbing my back soothingly and telling me it's alright, but his own voice sounds sad and tense and everything but alright.

Once when I was younger, my nana Belle and I were sat on her big porch and she was telling about when grandpa died, way before I was born, when my mom was a little girl. She said at first it was the worst pain she had every felt, and it felt like nothing was ever going to get better and she didn't know how she would carry on, but then after a time it did get better and she realised that life is only temporary and she was privileged to have known my grandpa for the time that he had and she wouldn't change it for the world.

I always thought she was extremely brave for saying that.

Because from personal experience, that is one thing I have never agreed with Nana Belle about. With all the death that I have had to endure, I can honestly say it doesn't get better, you just become more numb to the pain.

And would I change it? You bet to fuck I would, I'd change it for anything and everything I have.

Just to not have to be numb, because I may be crazy and I may be a selfish bitch, but, oh god, what it would be like to be able to feel again, and not be scared to only feel pain.

Just imagine it.

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I've had nightmares every single night since that day. Just the same as always, not getting there in time to save Casey from Him, her murderer.

But then, even before I fall into a terrorised sleep, I lie awake thinking until I can't possibly keep my eyes open any longer.

Just imagining Roan screaming in some padded room, and Andrea lying in a morgue somewhere.

There's another thing, I've started thinking of him as Roan instead if H.D. That means that I can think of them as two different people and I don't have to distort the memories of the good, friendly H.D I knew, more than I already have.

It's only gotten worse though, since the news got out as to how it happened. The thought of it makes me shiver.

Roan and Andrea were alone together. Along with a lot of other guys, Andrea hooked up with Roan quite often to do the dirty deed, curtesy of her condition. So yeah, they were alone together and a Roan thought they're we're going to, uh, get it on? Well, anyway, Andrea didn't want to. She had been recently been taking some new therapy and she thought that it was working. She was certain she was going to stay abstinent, be on the way to recovery and get the hell out of here.