Chapter 31
Serenity
BEING NUMB WAS NEVER GOOD. When I reached this point, only bad things could happen.
Yet there was no stopping the way it was slowly taking me over.
I robotically got in the truck with Bradley, mindlessly agreed to go to Oakley’s with him and his friends, and blankly stared at the ceiling of the truck.
Bradley pulled into Oakley’s. “I know you’re upset, but this will be good for you.
Getting out and having some fun, especially since you seemed down after dinner with your dad.
We can talk about everything when we leave here, but let’s put a smile on while we’re here, okay?
I won’t drink, Dollface. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to.
I just want you to be happy. I’ll do better from now on. ”
I didn’t want better.
I wanted out.
“What if I don’t want to smile?” I asked with my gaze locked on the glowing sign above the doors.
“Why are you being so gloomy? It’s … It’s not easy to be around, and I’m trying really hard to include you in this. I’m trying to raise your spirits. Stop being so depressing. Please. I love you and don’t like seeing you this way.”
I closed my eyes. My insides soured, and his words rang through my head like a violent screech.
You’re not easy to be around. I love you but only when you’re smiling and happy.
Swallowing down the few emotions that still lingered through the numbness, I got out of the truck and followed him inside. His friends were already there, laughing and throwing back shots, when they spotted us.
There had always been a dislike between us due to the years of their making fun of me, so every time I saw their eyes narrow with malicious glee, I assumed it was because their verbal punching bag had arrived.
I saw that look through a different lense now.
They looked between Bradley and I with thrill, because he was the ringleader of their mockery, and I was the fool at his side.
“Look who made it,” John grinned at his best friend, opening his arms wide. “Our favorite couple.”
Bradley wrapped his arm around my shoulder and squeezed. “Glad we made it.”
I barely acknowledged the half-assed greetings sent my way as I took the seat at the end of the table. Bradley sat beside me, and on the other side of him was Cassidy.
“I got my hair done today,” Cassidy said to Bradley, turning toward him in her seat. She tossed her trimmed black hair over a shoulder and leaned against the table to make her obvious cleavage stand out more. “What do you think?”
“Hmm,” Bradley hummed and angled his body toward her. “Looks good.”
The exchange was yet another thing I was seeing in a new light.
I revisited every moment when Bradley and Cassidy talked or thought back to times when they’d both disappear for a few minutes at the same time.
I recalled the night I’d met Dante at this bar and how Bradley had been keen for me to leave his apartment while Cassidy had apparently left the bar sooner than the others.
I saw clearly now what I’d been blind to before, and it made me hang my head in embarrassment.
At the very least, I was glad I’d found out about his cheating now instead of back then.
My heart didn’t belong to him anymore, so the revelation hurt but didn’t destroy me like it would’ve if I’d still loved him while entrusting my future to him.
Instead, the news made me sad for the girl who used to believe that this man really loved and valued her. It made me ache for the girl who got laughed at behind her back.
“Earth to Serenity,” Bradley grumbled under his breath in my ear.
I looked up from the glass of water I’d been staring into to meet his furrowed gaze. “What?”
He leaned in to whisper, “You’re being rude. Everyone is talking, and you aren’t even trying to be a part of it.”
I was tired. So damn tired.
I was tired of trying.
I was tired of my mask that seemed to grow heavier each day.
I was tired of feeling.
Clearing my throat, I stood. “Excuse me.”
I blocked out his response or any comments his loud friends made as I walked past them. I trudged to the bathroom where I locked myself in the out-of-order stall and just leaned against the wall.
A soul deep exhaustion consumed me. That dark hole in my chest had become bigger than ever before. It ate away at everything I was feeling like debris slowly falling into an endless sink hole.
The door to the bathroom opened, and I immediately recognized Cassidy and Courtney’s voices.
“Serenity, you in here?” Cassidy asked flatly as she opened each stall door to presumably look for me.
I was glad I chose the out-of-order one. I pressed my lips together, refusing to answer. I didn’t want to speak. I didn’t want to come out. I didn’t want to be here.
Cassidy sighed after she’d checked each stall. “Guess not.”
“Where do you think she went?”
“Who fucking cares,” Cassidy responded. “Hopefully, the bitch left. It’s not like anyone wants her psycho ass here, anyway. Honestly, I wish she’d do everyone a favor and kill herself already.”
“Cassidy,” Courtney laughed and snorted in half-hearted reprimand.
“You know it’s true. Like, she can’t even pretend to smile. It’s no fun messing with her if we don’t get a reaction. So if she’s so miserable, she should stop making the rest of us miserable with her.”
“You’ll also get to have Bradley all to yourself if she’s gone,” Courtney giggled.
“I’ll make sure we fuck over her grave. That way she’ll know who he really belonged to all along.”
It was amazing what defeat could do. Words that would’ve gotten a reaction out of me merely fell into the black pit. The hole absorbed each laceration like a sponge. Their nasty words joined the screaming voices in my head until the thoughts morphed into my own voice.
No one wants you here.
You make others miserable.
You’d be doing the world a favor by disappearing.
I closed my heavy eyes and hung my heavy head. Everything was just too damn heavy, and I needed to escape from under it all. I needed away.
Once the bathroom was quiet again, I slipped out.
I didn’t stop by Bradley’s table. I didn’t even look in that direction as I slinked along the edge of the bar across the room.
My car wasn’t here, but I didn’t care. I kept walking.
I walked down the streets of downtown, trying to draw calming air into my lungs and shake off the tired heaviness.
But no matter how hard I tried, it wasn’t something I could shake.
The weight on my chest and murky veil over my head lingered.
Thunder rumbled overhead. Cold drops of rain splattered on my nose.
I paused my walk and looked up at the dark, angry sky as it split open and began to cry.
I closed my eyes and kept my face tilted up to the rain, letting it pelt my skin and roll down my cheeks.
It was like the sky knew that I was too broken to cry anymore, so it sobbed for me.
Every remaining feeling inside of me finally tumbled into that dark sink hole. A new welcomed sensation came over me.
Numbness.
I’d finally gone totally numb.
My curls clung to my face and shoulders while my shirt and skirt stuck to me like a second skin.
Yet still, I trudged on in the rain while the late February winter night breeze tried to numb my body to match the emptiness inside.
I barely managed to focus on where I was going.
My feet seemed to do the thinking for me until I found myself at my apartment.
I didn’t care that I left puddles along the hallway to my door, nor did I bother with turning on the lights.
I stumbled to my bedroom and sank onto the first surface I saw—my vanity chair.
Lightning briefly lit up my reflection in the mirror, and it was just as horrifying as I’d expected.
Wet, sagging curls sticking to my forehead and cheeks.
Pale, frozen skin.
The lifeless eyes of someone who had finally given up.
And that mouth.
It typically did so well at faking it. But it couldn’t fake it, anymore.
My gaze stayed transfixed on my moonlit reflection as I grabbed a tub of lipstick.
My soulless eyes burned through the mirror while I slowly drew a smile along the glass over those tired lips.
The crimson smile looked as out of place on that reflection as it did every time I’d adorned it in the name of pretending.
Pretending I was okay when I was dying inside.
Pretending people’s viciousness rolled off of me when it really rolled through me with jagged edges.
Pretending I didn’t mind that people didn’t want me when I was so, so lonely.
So why bother anymore?
The red lipstick, still pressed into the mirror, began to shake in my trembling fingertips. The makeup smeared, and an ugly line dragged down the mirror as my hand fell. My lips quivered as I stared at my ruined reflection, hating everything I saw there.
Clenching my fist, I grabbed my hairbrush and jabbed it into the glass over and over.
I gritted my teeth, watching fractures tear across the girl staring back at me until finally, the mirror broke and took the image with it.
I breathed hard and looked down at the many broken fragments littering the top of my vanity, and if I looked closely, I still saw her in those pieces.
I saw the stupid, unwanted nobody that always burdened others with her misery.
I saw the girl, who would never amount to anything in the career she so desperately wanted.
I saw the girl, who would never find her place with people who understood her.
I saw the girl I no longer wanted to see.
I reached out to grab a sharp piece of glass.
It sliced into my palm and fingers, creating a small stream of blood that dripped down my arm.
I squeezed harder and looked at my left wrist where the open book tattoo covered old scars.
The design was supposed to remind me that there was still more story to come.
But I didn’t like this story anymore.
I closed my eyes and prepared to greet peace. I let out a pained sob as I brought the glass shard to my wrist.
A gush of cold air hit me before something warm and solid suddenly covered my wrist, gently yanking me off my chair to my knees on the floor. I peeled open my burning eyes and was met with a pair of black-and-red slitted ones.
“Don’t!” Dante choked on a rough exhale, his eyes wide and panicked. “Don’t do it. Don’t go where I can’t reach you, Serenity. Please. I still need you.”
His plea had the numbness ebbing enough that everything I’d been shoving down rose up with a vengeance. I hiccuped on an agonized whimper as tears blurred my vision.
“It hurts, Dante,” I cried. “Existing hurts.”
“I know, baby.” He took the glass shard from my bleeding hand and placed that bloody palm to his chest while reaching up to wipe my tears with his clawed thumb. “I know it does.”
“I’m so tired.” I shook my head feebly and squeezed my eyes shut. “I can’t fight anymore.”
“Then don’t,” Dante begged. “If you can’t fight, let me fight for you. If you can’t breathe, let me show you how. I can’t take this darkness away, but I can hold your hand as you walk through it. Just … let me. Don’t give in, baby. Please.”
I stared at him, huffing and puffing around my silent cries. Finally, I whispered, “Why did you come back?”
His palm on my cheek pressed closer, and his brow furrowed before he leaned in to press his forehead to mine.
“You said I’m the night sky. You said I’m the safe space for broken fragments to land.
You can’t land if you’re not still alive to do so.
” His rough breath fanned across my cheeks as he pleaded, “So land here, Star. Rest here. Just don’t go anywhere. I’ve got you.”
His warmth wrapped around me before his arms ever did.
I’d been falling down a dark abyss with no way out before, but as I found myself being folded into his arms and brought against his chest, that maddening descent slowed.
The dark all around me became speckled with small rays of light, and a different kind of darkness finally caught and cradled me.
I could breathe, even if it still hurt.
I was motionless, even if I was still shaken from falling.
I was safe.
I closed my eyes and leaned my face into the crook of his neck, balling up his shirt in my bloody hands. With a shaky exhale, I let go and decided to rest here.