I didn’t even know her. Not really. I knew a shell of a person, but it doesn’t change the fact that I was drawn to her. There were parts of her that deeply mirrored my own soul…but none of that matters. I ruined her.
Another deep drag, nicotine coating my lungs. I watch the smoke billow from my lips. Lately, all I can do is reflect on my life. On what I’ve become. On Lila, on all the girls who I stripped bare, the people I’ve killed, but mostly on Ava. I’ve often wondered why me? But I soon realized self-loathing does nothing to change the situation.
I finish my cigarette, flick it into the water and watch as a fish plucks it from the surface. I leisurely walk back to the house, stepping on twigs and listening to them snap under my weight. When I run my hand over the worn wooden railing to the porch, a splinter jabs itself under my skin and I jerk my hand away, swearing beneath my breath. I pick the piece of wood out of my palm and open the front door.
There are no lights on. The warm summer sun pours in from the windows and I can see the dust swirling in the air. I take a deep breath and cough. It’s stale and musty in here still. I’ve only been here for a week, and that has not been ample time to get that unlived smell out of this house. I cross the hall to the dining room and pause in the doorway. My eyes stop on the rug underneath the dining room table. If I pulled it back, the wood underneath would still have a slight discoloration from where the blood was scrubbed up.
This is the house my father and mother were murdered in, and although I’ve debated on selling it for years, I just can’t seem to do it. Part of me may be superstitious, worried that their souls are still wandering somewhere in this house. Maybe that is why I have kept it, or maybe there is some morbid part of me that feels bound to this place. Perhaps I like to live where the skeletons and demons play. To be honest, I question damn near everything in my life at this point.
Shaking my head, I disappear into the kitchen and grab a six pack from the fridge before heading into the den and falling back on the sofa. I pop the first top and guzzle half the can. I groan and slam my head back against the cushion. The most fucked up thing is that I wish I actually were a piece of shit because then I would have kept her and she would be here with me, her head in my lap and my fingers combing through her thick hair. I could tell her I love her—but—the words she would say back would be meaningless.
And this is what I do.
Every day.
I sit here and think about all the things I’ve lost in life and with each passing day the thing I realize is that out of the things I have lost, losing Ava is actually the hardest to handle.
37
Ava
Day 96—home
The humid Augustair sticks to my skin and I welcome the breeze blowing across the concourse. I pick a place on the grass and plop down. There’s an hour gap between my classes, and this has become a ritual—coming out here and sitting, thinking, writing.
I unzip my backpack and take out the journal Max gave to me. The wind flips the first few pages open. And almost like there is some little god fingering through my words, the fluttering pages stop. I stare down at the page, smiling as I read the words:
Day24
Darkness and silence have crept into my veins
Somewhere deep inside I feel something change
I adapt into a creature of obscurity, one of vile things and sins
I’ve grown to love living within the devil’s den
Aflicker of light, a flash of blackened scales
Would tell most anyone that this right here is hell
But then you walk in, wearing depth in your eyes
And I know you aren’t the person who would let a broken angel die
Way down, way down in this hell
Though I’ve grown angry and maybe too frail
I’m still lucid enough to realize my fate when it walks in,
Even if he’s surrounded by a black shroud of sin.
Some creatures belong buriedwithin the gloom and within the cold,
Just waiting in secret for another broken soul to hold
Yes, I’m a captive to this night, to this fear and to this room
