5. - – Sienna
CHAPTER FIVE
-
SIENNA
“Okay. Tell me more about how it worked and how this has brought you here today, Sienna,“ she says, but I sense no judgement in her tone- maybe a touch of pity but no judgement.
It worked, at first. That's the problem.
For a while, it was just enough to take the edge off.
Enough to quiet everything down so I didn't have to sit there replaying every conversation, every missed call, every moment I felt him slipping further away from me.
I told myself it was temporary. Just until things settled.
Just until he got better. Just until I could breathe without it hurting.
I toy with the zipper of my jacket. “There was this one night…” My voice falters, but I force myself to keep going.
“He texted me earlier that day and asked if I wanted to come over.” A pause.
“I hadn't seen him in a few days, obviously I said yes.” I force down the bile rising in my throat and keep going.
“I meant it.” I always meant it. But the hours dragged on, and the quiet started creeping back in, that same suffocating silence that makes everything inside your head louder than it should be. Louder than you can handle.
“So I took something,” I say, my voice dropping, almost like I’m confessing something I’ve been trying not to name. “Just enough to take the edge off.” I’d gotten my hands on something that made the noise in my head a little quieter.
“But it didn’t last.” It never does. “So I took more… and then some more.” A shaky breath leaves me as I press my lips together, my chest tightening with the weight of it.
“I told myself I still had time. That I’d go.
That I’d get up, pull myself together, and go.
” I swallow hard. “I kept checking the clock, like I was waiting for the right moment to feel normal again, like that was something I could control.” My voice falters.
“And then… when I finally picked up my phone…” I squeeze my eyes shut for a second before forcing them open again.
“There were three missed calls. And a text.” The room feels too quiet.
I don’t say what it said. I can’t. My fingers curl tighter into my palms, nails biting into skin - the pain something I felt that I deserved.
“I didn’t go.” The words come out smaller this time.
“I told myself I’d go the next day… that there would be a next day.
” Silence stretches between us, thick and suffocating.
“I think…” My voice drops to a whisper. “I think that’s when something in me broke.
Not because I didn’t go,” I shake my head slightly, “but because… I knew I wasn’t going to.
” I swallow hard. “That’s the part that stays with me.
The part I can’t undo. I chose not to be there…
and I don’t think I’ve been able to forgive myself for that. ”