Consequence

Trigger warning: suicide

It wasn't supposed to end like this. It wasn't what I wanted. The late nights spent dreaming, taking in the sight of our future we were so ambient to run towards. You wanted to get away, and I never asked you why...it's my fault our story ends the way it does.

The dream of the future was all I needed to give me the ambition I needed to achieve it; you knew that better than anyone didn’t you? Those long grueling hours spent at the law firm shuffling through files and binders alike, meeting with clients and briefing them on their cases and what would become of them. Standing in court and testifying on their behalf in front of the proud American flag. I was a man of law...how easy the tables turned.

It had been a month since I got the call from the Coopers, one of the wealthiest families from New York asking for legal advice and assistance. We both knew they could be the final threshold to our dreams. Spending both days and nights alike in my cramped little office piled high with papers and documents holding the key to our future. You were working too, serving as a waitress downtown; every tip tossed to you another step closer to our new beginning. From waking at six to getting to the law firm and getting home at two in the night, I barely saw you, but if that was the price I had to pay for our freedom I would do it. I knew the loneliness was getting to you, from all the text messages and missed phone calls, the voice messages left at night telling me to come home for the night, to stop working myself to exhaustion, that it wasn't worth it. But I knew both me and you wanted this more than anything, and you certainly knew nothing was going to stop me; even you.

Tonight was one of those long nights I spent at my office, sorting through paperwork, and scheduling my next meeting with the Coopers. They offered me money I simply couldn't dream of refusing, not when so much was at stake. Stretching my arms, I rose from my chair and made my way home. Reaching my apartment around three, I stumbled in. The apartment was silent and guessing that you were asleep I made my way to bed. Not even bothering to change out of my sweat stained shirt I stumbled into bed exhausted, my eyes closing immediately at the feeling of rest. It wasn't until I saw red and white flashes and heard the wailing of the police sirens that I woke up.

Confused, I glanced at my phone for the time. It was 4:52. The sirens grew louder and louder and with a sigh of defeat I rose from bed to check the ruckus. Looking out the window, my distorted eyes were met with the flashes of ambulances and police cars all surrounding the apartment building. “Was it a fire? No, if it were a fire, I would smell the smoke. Maybe someone fell o-”. That's when I froze. “You would have been the first one to wake up at the sound of the sirens…” My hands grew colder and colder. “You would have woken me up at the sound of sirens...” My legs began to shake as I inched myself to the living room. Flicking on the lights, I scanned the room, searching for the source of fear rising inside of me.

That's when I saw you lying motionless on the ground stained with what I could only guess was blood. Every step towards your lifeless body was a step I would never take back. Crouching over you, I stared into your hollow eyes frozen with fear. Perhaps it was the fear of what you so badly wanted to run from. My eyes fixate on the knife stabbed in your chest. You must have been laying here alone...just as I left you in the last moments of your life. Alone and afraid; all because of me. Hearing the pounding on the door, I clutched the knife, pulling it from your chest. We wanted to escape so badly...we didn't live the life we had together. The pounding on the door grew louder with my every thought. “If only I had answered your calls, if only I didn't work night jobs, if only I told you that I loved you more, if only I could hold your face in mine again...if only I asked what it was you lived in fear of...rather than our freedoms I absently grasped upon…”

You never did tell me what you came from, what that clawing, tearing need to escape came from…Was it even desperation, or was its fear? The glances behind your shoulders as we would stroll through the night...the days of pacing back and forth between rooms, checking if everything was where you thought it was...Did you even want to escape with me? Or did you just want to escape?

The pounding at the door grew louder as did the yells and shouts of the policemen crowded outside it. I couldn't take my eyes away from what I caused; this was all my fault. I knew how this looked, me sitting in front of a dead body covered in blood, my own teachings soon to be used against me in court. I'd be serving twenty-five to thirty-five years, possibly a life sentence for the crime I didn't commit... but I did, didn't I, one way or another. My future, my dreams; gone in a mere matter of minutes. It's funny how life works, working so hard for escape, only to get it all thrown right back at you. This was the universe's way of rewarding me for my hard work. Now I must accept it.

Yielding the knife, I hold it to my chest.

We promised we would escape together.

This was our future now.