Silent Goodbye

The blood pulsating in my ears drowned out any thoughts that attempted to struggle their way to the forefront of my adrenaline-soaked brain. I vaguely remember having the sense to wrap the handle of my apartment door in a tissue as I staggered absentmindedly up the three goddamned flights of stairs I live at the top of. Due to my given state at the moment, it was the wiser option compared to the elevator. Once I had heaved my leaden body through the door, I let out the pained, choked, half-gasp, half-sob that I hadn’t realized my body had been fighting to keep contained in my chest cavity. I felt my thighs quiver underneath me and lugged my way to the chair closest to me before they gave out entirely while the pent-up sobs wracked through my body.

Alone. I was utterly, entirely alone. No bulking men who feel larger than life as they tower over me with their confidence only backed by the weapons on their hips. I can sit with the absence of eyes drilling into me at all times for various reasons and let myself relax. Though I often wonder if I have lost all ability to attain a fully relaxed state these days. For as long as I can remember, the men in my life have been present to help guide and shape me to give me a fighting chance. Now, when I think of their faces, bile begins to rise in the back of my throat and turns my spit sour. 

Once fully seated, less shaky, and sure I was able to hold off any vomit, I forced a deep breath into my lungs to steel myself before looking down to my current appearance. The hoodie I had been wearing was still largely intact, remarkably. Smatters of dirt streaks and leaves smashed into the rough fabric that should come out with a good wash. The clothes underneath the hoodie would be much more of an ordeal to manage, I internally spoke as I hesitantly slid the cold zipper down and peeled it off, warily dropping it beside me on the ground. Once the jacket was off, another whimpering sound I was not aware of making escaped my lips as the overwhelming stench of coppery tanginess filled my nose. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” I felt compelled to whisper to myself as I saw the red stains that had not only soaked thoroughly through my two tops but spread down to the top of my jeans and thickly coated my arms. I could faintly make out the fingerprints that had dried into the blood  flaked splotchily along my arms. The awful churning and bubbling in my stomach that had been consistently occuring for the past few hours came to a climax as I was stricken unable to draw my eyes away from the sticky brown-red I found myself coated in. I jumped up from my seat and ran to the bathroom just in time to slam down in front of the toilet before losing all of my stomachs' contents. The tears flowing freely down my face splashed against the rim of the toilet as I hunched over the cold porcelain, alternating between retching and sobbing hard enough to make me retch. 

After enough time had passed that my being had been wrung out and my breathing had evened somewhat, I began to feel my skin flush with itching and burning sensations. Intense, physical discomfort spread throughout my body, bubbling underneath my surface as all of the memories from today began replaying in my mind now that it had managed to empty even the slightest bit. Thoughts that I had been hoping to run far enough away from to escape, maybe even hide from. It was foolish to think such things and ludicrous to think I would not find myself haunted by these memories for the rest of my days. 

Horror welled in my chest as the face of a man whose wrongs I couldn’t name flashed through my head, contorted into pure misery and agony as his eyes locked on mine. The man that I had called a friend and the man I had imagined calling more than a friend more times than one. He was the person able to make me laugh despite the absence of any air left in our world, as it would often run out in the company of the people that made up the group we came to exist in. Our little underworld had an extraordinary habit of sucking everything good or positive out of a person and leaving all of the darkness to work with. Yet, he was the first swath of green that would always come each spring to let me know it was time to take a fresh breath of air. On the heaviest days, he was my air. Those days never came up often in conversation, too powerful to be named or spoken of aloud. The thought of confessing out loud, for all to hear, that you cared for something in this world was a hazard to people like us. A weakness to be exploited against you to its deepest depths. It let people know what to aim for, so we kept quiet, never daring to tempt our fates like that. 

As my thoughts flooded my mind like the space behind a burst dam, I was faced with the reality of the moments between us we had and those we now never would. He would never know how he made me feel when he walked into a room, bringing my eyes only to him, no matter the world that continued to move on around us. In our world of chaos for the sake of power and violence in the name of emotion, he remained the constant lighthouse that cut through the thick darkness, never losing power. In an existence unsafe, he was safe. 

All of that was erased tonight with the spark of a gun held by the man who largely contributed to making me who I am today. He had given me a name when I had none and made me know that I was not alone in this world so long as I was true to myself and found my people. He gave me a group when I had been shut off and never experienced such a thing, letting me in on something I hadn’t known I was missing. He taught me everything I knew and gave me most of the family that I found along the way. Yet in that moment, time slowed as I watched him go through the motions I had seen him go through countless times before. This time in the place of the emptiness I normally would find while staring at that shimmering pistol, my mind was filled only with the urge for action. I felt parts of my body twitch to move, to do anything, scream, cry, lunge, hit, kill, but nothing came. Only iciness gripped my body and numbed my mind, causing everything to go blurry, all strength leeched out of me. 

The salty tears that had made their way down my face stung my parched, wind-bitten lips and drew my attention back to the cool tile wall that I slumped against. I sighed deeply, trying to get as much air back into my body as had been knocked out, and started shrugging my way out of my clothes. I felt the tears continue to roll down my cheeks as I freed myself from all clothing articles, carefully piling them in an area to later be charred to nonexistence. My mind continued to flash through thought after thought like a never-ending series of explosions in a cheesy action film as I mindlessly went through the motions of readying for the shower. As the water heated up, I surveyed my body again, this time able to clearly see the gashes that I had received throughout this ordeal that I had quickly tended to. For the first time in a while, I also noticed the substantial scars that had come to find a home on my body, spanning most of it. 

Another reminder that the life I live was not a safe one and that the people I found myself around were not to be described as such either. My body had taken an immense amount of the damage that the life I lived created and I don’t think I had given that fact more than a second thought. 

Broad shoulders clad in a perfectly fitted pinstripe suit hitting the ground before falling flat on his back flashed in my mind as I stepped into the shower while pondering my relationship with my own body. The flash of red splatter hitting the bottom of my tub commanded my eyes’ attention before they fluttered closed underneath the steamy water and were overtaken by the mental image of another flash of red that had been the very cause of this cleansing. His eyes had remained open even after he hit the groun and he had been looking right at me as if to say something he never got the chance to. God, I wish I fucking knew what he wanted to say, I thought as I scrubbed the disposable loofah against the skin of my arms and let the jasmine scent of my body wash fill my nostrils.

Soon enough after the other men had watched him sink to the ground, the suited-up snakes I have come to find myself surrounded by sounded off a few goodbye remarks for the victim they previously called family and wandered off to find their next sick source of rush or entertainment. After I made sure the last headlight had been truly extinguished, I remember kneeling down next to him, putting a hand on his chest, where the bullets hadn’t hit. The same tears that are still streaming down my face started then, as I kneeled next to the man I loved who never even knew. My chest throbbed with the sensation that I needed him to know each thought of him that had crossed my mind. Every corner of my being was filled with the hope that all the words I had never spoken out loud had made it across. That he noticed the love I had for him in the glances we shared over the boisterous late-night meals at the diner and the lingering brushes of our hands in the leathered backseats of cars we got shoved into together, never knowing what was going to happen but being comforted by one another's presence nonetheless.

“This is no life for a dame like you to be living sweetheart, you’re too pretty for all this. You better get out of here as fast as you can, Little Red. There’s a lot of wolves roaming around these halls,” his voice taunted from memory as I continued to scrub at his dried blood that sordidly spread its way all over my body as I laid beside him for the first and last time. 

“Good thing I’m no Little Red then. I’ve always been a hunter, how do you think I got to live amongst the wolves?” I recall teasingly responding back to him. 

The flash in his eyes that day was a far more pleasant memory than the one made today that would likely forever overshadow all the others. He had risked everything trying to live a different life from the one we found ourselves in. Maybe it was time for me to start considering something different, too. 

“He was right, this is no damn life for either of us to be living.” My voice hoarsely echoed off the shower tiles, slightly soothing the unsettled parts of my mind that had been shattered with the fire of that gun.