Page 82 of Unbearable
“If you don’t want me, end it. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t end it. You have to do it.”
My heart is frantic as I walk down the hall, everything we said to one another rushing through me like a tidal wave.
“We were never together, remember?”
How could she have said that?
Easily, it’s what you were telling herfor so long. You never gave her a reason to think otherwise.
My body shakes from my actions, an all-encompassing tremor from head to toe like I’ve spent the night in the freezing cold. It rakes through my bones and I shake harder, almost to the point my teeth are chattering. Every step takes an effort I don’t have, but make anyway.
Stumbling through the parking lot, I open the door to my truck and sit in silence, the rumble of the big block vibrating my chest. I put my hands on the steering wheel, both of them gripping so hard my knuckles turn white.
Why couldn’t she have just put me out of my misery? Why did she have to constantly leave me hanging?
Probably because you did it to her for months.
“You made me move on. You told me not to love you. What was I supposed to think? Apparently what we had didn’t matter enough to you.”
A pressure in the back of my head swirls like a breeze, but I’m inside my truck. I check the door thinking I left it open but I didn’t. There’s no breeze, just me and the sound of my truck. With each breath, the intensity increases like a building pressure needing release.
Blinking several times, my eyes shift from the windshield that’s scattered with fat drops of bone-chilling cold rain, to my radio. The blue and purple lines dancing across the display light up with the change in the song.
It’s a Chris Stapleton song. Taking my right hand off the steering wheel, I punch the display to end the fucking song. I don’t want the reminder.
I don’t want anything.
My head buzzes, a throbbing sensation in my ears and a rush of blood. I’m in trouble. I know that much, but I put the truck in drive. I stare at my hands again, maybe because they’re my only indication of how far out of control this is.
If I saw my face, my eyes might be an indication too. They’d be pitch-black, pupils so wide you’d think I was high. I’d stare at you and you’d know, inside, I was gone.
As I pull onto the freeway, I know what’s coming. I usually do. I couldn’t tell you afterwards that I know, but when it’s happening, in those final seconds leading up to the nothingness that can consume me, I know.
I just wish she believed me enough to know I love her, and that’s really all that matters in this world. It’s not these arguments and our lack of words. It’s love in its purest form. Loving innocently with no consequences. The wayshetaught me, only she was wrong. There are consequences.
It’s not until the pressure finally becomes too much, maybe minutes later, maybe longer, that I feel the only relief I’ve felt in months.
It’s not her fault. It really isn’t. But it’s not like I can tell her that now. Maybe never.
