Chapter 20 Mackenzie
My eyes are blurred, sticky from the salt in my tears and restless sleep. The sheets beside me are cold and wrinkled, the indentation of his head still visible on the pillow. And he’s just…gone.
No goodbyes whispered against my ear.
No promises scribbled on a torn piece of paper. He just slunk away in the night, a thief who left muddy footprints on my carpet, stealing not my soul but the jagged, pulsing heart that had finally learned to beat for someone again. Him.
‘I’ll go with you. I’ll go with you. I love you.’
Those words echo through my skull on an endless tape, each replay hollower than the last. Since I found my bed empty as I opened my eyes. I haven't yet found the will to get up, so I just lie here.
Where did I go wrong? What could I have done to make him leave?
Last night was perfect. I can’t escape the flash of us in the shower—him washing blood out of my hair, lips brushing my shoulder with reverent heat, the pulsing needs we satiated beneath silk sheets that whispered against our skin.
Reminders of him linger everywhere. The scent of him still engulfs my pillow, and the stuffed reaper he gave me peers at me from the foot of my bed. With a kick, I send it skidding across the floor and haul myself upright. My limbs are heavy with grief and confusion; my heart, a jagged shard.
The floorboards groan under my feet as I get out of bed and stagger to the bathroom.In the mirror lies a stranger—I hardly recognize myself.
My dark eyes are swollen, rimmed with red, mascara smudged beneath them like bruises.
My dark hair has reverted from being pin-straight to its natural waves.
And my pink lips, a rose red, swollen from our lips never leaving each other’s bodies all night.
My eyes flutter shut to the memory of him holding me. I always felt safe with him. His size alone could go that to anyone, but it was reinforced by the way he was a fucking massive attack dog, always there when I needed him to be.
The cut on my neck from his fangs has vanished, as if he tried to erase himself from my body. He’d been so careful licking it closed, his tongue tracing it—carefully, gently.
He could try to erase himself from my body, but he could never erase himself from my mind.
I press trembling fingertips to the place that the marks once were, wincing at the memory.
“What happened to us?” I whisper to my reflection, but she just stares back, as lost as I am.
I turn away from the mirror, unable to face the heartbreak etched into my features any longer.
Stepping into the shower, I unleash scalding jets that scorch my skin, but they can’t sear away the hollow ache in my chest. Each drop is a ghost of his touch on my spine just hours ago.
How does someone whose hands worshiped me vanish without a trace?
“Stupid,” I hiss, scrubbing until my flesh reddens and aches. “I was so fucking stupid to believe your lies.”
Only once my skin starts to go numb do I turn the water off, wrapping myself in a towel that feels too harsh against my skin.
I notice something in the mirror that I missed. Words scrawled across it that are not enough, yet so final all at once.
I’M SORRY. I CAN’T.
Fog curls around the letters, mocking me. My fingers instinctively reach out to trace them, smearing his message as if I could erase the finality of it.
“Can’t what!?” I scream, my voice bouncing off the walls. “Can’t face me? Can’t be honest? Can’t love me, so you run away like a fucking coward!?”
My fist slams into the glass. It doesn’t shatter entirely, just fractures into a spiderweb of reflections—seven broken faces, seven shades of grief. How fitting.
Blood trickles between my knuckles, stark red against white tile. I wonder if he can sense it somehow, if the scent of my blood calls to him even now. The thought makes me laugh, a harsh sound that doesn’t sound like me at all.
Dragging toilet paper from the holder, I wrap it around my bloodied hand, watching crimson spread pristine white.
I should disinfect this, bandage it properly, but I can't summon the energy to care.
What does it matter if it gets infected?
What does it matter if I bleed out right here on the bathroom floor?
The thought doesn’t startle me. But since Thane, those thoughts seem to quiet where they used to scream.
I stumble back into my bedroom, cradling my injured hand against my chest. Dawn light slices through the curtains he insisted on leaving open last night, saying the moonlight was the only thing he wanted to see dance across my skin as we made love.
Every hiss, every groan, still rings fresh in my mind. God, every memory is a fresh knife wound, carefully carving me clean.
But I try to shut them out. I wander to the closet, yanking open the door with my good hand, rummaging through it for something to put on.
My phone buzzes somewhere distantly. I ignore it at first, but it’s persistent—I dig through my tangled sheets until I find it wedged between the mattress and headboard.
My sister’s name flashes across the screen, but I can’t be fucked to answer it right now.
Until she texts immediately after. “Call me ASAP."
What does she want from me so early in the morning? It’s barely eight. And I just want to crawl back into bed, but as luck would have it, she calls again.
I stare at the blurry screen through a fresh wave of hot tears. And with a shaky sigh, I answer.
“What?” My voice is hoarse, barely audible.
“Jesus Christ, Mackenzie, I’ve been trying to reach you for twenty minutes.”
“Sorry,” I mumble. “I was asleep. What’s wrong?”
Her voice cracks as I try to rub the sleep out of my eyes. “It’s Mami, Mack…she’s…”
Don’t say it. Please, God, don’t say it.
In my head, I’m frantic, but the words come out cold.
“Is she dead?” I whisper into the receiver—nothing feels real anymore.
“I don’t know.” She sobs, her words pouring out of her rapidly. “I came home because I thought we could spend more time together. I just missed you guys, ya know? And I walked in, and I found her on the kitchen floor. Mack, she overdosed on her pills.”
My heart stops, the phone slipping an inch from my ear. The room spins, and I grab the edge of the bed to steady myself. Just when I thought the day couldn’t get worse.
“Which pills?” I manage to ask, my voice mechanical. The cut on my hand throbs as I clench my fist.
“Her sleeping pills, the antidepressants, I don’t know exactly. There were empty bottles everywhere.” My sister’s voice breaks. “The ambulance just left with her. I’m going to follow in my car. Please come, Mack. I can’t do this alone.”
I close my eyes, trying to process. First him, now this. It’s too much.
“Mack? Are you still there?”
“Yeah.” I swallow, desperately trying to force air into my lungs. "Does RJ know?”
“No, he didn’t answer either.” She huffs out of breath as if she’s running.
“Okay. I’ll tell him, and we’ll be there. Which hospital?”
“St. Mary's,” she sobs.
I press my palm against my forehead. “I’m coming. Give me twenty minutes.”
My sister’s voice breaks again. “Hurry, Mack. Please.”
Twenty minutes. I promised twenty minutes, but I’m standing here with wet hair, a bleeding hand, and a shattered heart. How am I supposed to function?
RJ will be at work by now. My brother always takes the early shift at the campus café. I dial his number with trembling fingers, leaving bloody smudges on the screen.
“Hey, it’s me,” I say when he answers, trying to keep my voice steady. “You need to meet me at St. Mary’s. It's Mami, something’s really wrong.”
He doesn’t ask questions, just says he’ll be there. That’s RJ—always dependable, always there when it matters.
I throw on whatever clothes I can find first—jeans still crumple and…I tilt my head. On the floor beside my desk is a leather jacket that isn’t my father’s. I pick it up and hold it out in front of me like a dead animal.
For a moment, I'm tempted to curl up with it, to wrap myself in this last piece of him. Instead, I throw it violently across the room.
“Fuck you,” I whisper, though the words have no heat behind them. But I can’t do this right now.
I quickly wrap my bleeding hand in a proper bandage from the medicine cabinet, wincing as I clean the cut. The mirror’s fractured reflection stares back at me, seven different versions of my grief-stricken face. I turn away and finish getting dressed.
Outside, the morning is offensively bright. The world shouldn’t look this normal when I feel like I am falling apart. Once I slide into my car—slamming the door harder than necessary—I feel a rage start to build in the pit of my chest.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” I bang on the steering wheel over and over again as tears that I’m not strong enough to hold back anymore streak down my face. And I do the only thing I know how to do at this moment—I pray.
I pray deep and hard in the way my grandmother taught me to, because if there is a God, I need him to know that this is too heavy, that my heart is not battle ready enough to do this alone, that the depth of my soul has been screaming for years to a God who’s never answered. Not once.
I pray until I have no more tears left to cry and my throat is raw. I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here, or what God I’ve been praying to, but I start my engine, collect every tear on the back of my knuckles, and pull off.