Decisions

She played the song on repeat until the lyrics meant nothing to her anymore.

She laid in bed, eyes wide open, relishing in the sad, apropos lyrics that came streaming out of her pathetic computer speaker.

I deserve this. Nothing more, nothing less. Just this,

She stayed in this state for three days. Friends called. They knocked on the door. They honestly considered whether or not she was still within this plane of existence. Eventually she would have to move, but not now. Maybe tomorrow.

The nice thing about feeling half dead is you don’t drink a lot of water, and thus the need to push yourself upright in order to pee becomes unnecessary. Sure, your mouth becomes dry and your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth, but in the end what is more important? Water, or endless self-punishment? 

She looked around her disheveled studio apartment. She forgot that he had a key for emergencies and when she went away for the weekend he thought something was amiss. Her computer sat in the corner, as close to the wall as she could place it in order to siphon the WiFi from the sorority across the alley. He could guess the password, if she hadn’t already given him access to such precious information previously.

Love makes idiots of the best of us.

She would never trust anyone again; She could barely trust herself. She didn’t even know what exactly what she wanted or what she was doing, so what gave her any right to question trust at all?

He sat at the computer and punched in the password as if he was opening a can of beer. It meant nothing. Privacy was the last thing on his mind. She was out there doing exactly what he knew of already, yet he still needed some sort of validation.

This trust was broken long ago, not only by her, he knew, but he refused to accept that he had played a part in it as well. But this was not the time to reminisce about his own failures. This one, this night, was all on her. Nothing else mattered.

There were the instant messages; in full view now, for he, and god, and whatever otherworldly eyes to see.

They messaged each other, flirtatiously for hours and days on end. He read them all. He took an inventory of how long she had strayed away from his heart, not once bringing himself to face the dawning of the truth that his heart had strayed just as violently away, albeit in a different format.

Just moments ago, he was breaking her trust as swiftly as she. Did he wonder why he needed to enter her studio apartment in the first place? Was there a reason for which he could attest, or was it always a means to an end? Was he hoping for a cruel finale? Did he crave some darkness in which he could hold her, gasping for breath, as she tried to explain herself? Oh God, the pleasure that would have come…

His envious spirit took hold and his rage became physically apparent. She had so many coveted items which she procured ever so carefully. She was working on a very specific aesthetic. These things were not “things” to her; they were her offspring, her curated museum of the children she didn’t have to worry about sending to school.

He knew this about her. If he was going to really hurt her the way she had hurt him, it wouldn’t be through sex; it would be through the destruction of her most prized possessions. That would hit her straight in the heart, with a very carefully aimed bow and arrow. The thing that would hurt most would be those that they acquired together.

“How fitting,” he thought.

He placed the dented computer back in its original position on the floor, in the corner. He put “their song” on repeat. She would hear it when she returned to her apartment. She would hear it from the hallway as she walked that endless stretch. God, was it always this far from the stairs to the door? Something was immediately amiss. She knew he knew. She knew it the minute she left, yet she didn’t;t want to admit defeat and reality. Just then, the song became audible and all of time and space became distorted and it was as if nothing meant anything anymore. How bad is this going to be? The key to her apartment weighed heavy in her tightly clenched fist.

She chose to see her space in the way it was meant to be. This place was unnatural. This surely won’t do. She could fix this. She was going down the rabbit hole now.

Their framed photo was whole again.

That stupid glass mannequin head was pieced back together.

The door was locked.

Yes, this is as it should be.

She sits down at her computer. She opens up her messaging software and sees an IM from her friend who has been overtly flirting with her over the course of roughly a month. She hasn’t tried to dissuade this sort of conversation; in fact, she plays along. She is unhappy yet unable to change her situation out of a combination of fear, cowardice, and guilt. She also fears the future, because why would she possibly go and mess up such a good thing? I mean, a little bit of emotional abuse is almost nothing compared to what a lot of girls have to deal with, so maybe she should stop being such a sad sack about it all. Starving kids in Africa, etc, etc.

She looked at her messages and made a decision.

She was going to a place she should not go, yet needed to, because she was stuck in time. She knew nothing else and she needed to escape. She didn’t know how to without being an asshole. She knew he would know. She knew how much would be broken as a result. Somehow, she didn’t care. It was her way out.