Stasi
Chapter 33
Stasi
98 Days Dead
Turns out rotting comes naturally when you’re dead. The hours and days slip by. Time ceases to hold meaning without someone to share it with.
Done. The finality of it inhabits the air around me. The echoes of it mock me as I remain here in solitary confinement. The only disruption from the isolating torment is when the relentless entity tries to provoke me—the twisting of a door handle, a knock on the window, my name in her voice. Is this my payback for how I terrorized Becca? It effectively unnerves me as it looms over me, gorging itself on my misery.
If I didn’t have the energy necessary to banish it before, I certainly don’t now. I don’t even care. I force myself to look into its depthless void, acclimating myself to the bleakness of my future. With my little ember gone, this world is cold and desolate. More so than I ever could have imagined. It turns out hell isn’t fire, heat, and screaming—that’s what made me feel so alive. It’s actually the void of anything—quiet, empty, and alone. It’s the absence of her.
An anxious need urges me to go to her, but the rational part of my brain, the one that understands her on a cellular level, begs me not to push her any further. She’s not ready to hear me out, her anger is too fresh, her mind too clouded with uncertainty. Becca is someone who requires stability and level-headedness—I have none of that to offer her right now.
My endless desire for her has forced me to relive everything from the first fuck to the last fight we had, and I take greedy gulps of air that I know have been poisoned by my own poor choices. Like always when it comes to her, there is no healthy boundary for me, no sense of self-preservation.
I slump into the mattress, scraping my long nails against my scalp, tugging at my hair, trying to release some of this mounting hysteria. My scalp tingles, but it’s not enough. The frenzy of need requires a physical release. It exorcizes itself with a scream that tears from my throat. The black mass swells above me, eagerly consuming my misery; I can’t help but indulge it.
She was so certain that we can’t be together. Those old wounds burst open at the first hit leaving me raw and tender. I tried to stitch them up with my own convictions, but she kept slashing and burying her axe of denial deep within me. Her last words cut so deeply; leaving me flayed and bloody.
Maybe I should just let myself rot, maybe that’s the fate that was meant for me. It’s what she decided to leave me to once. She probably wouldn’t care if that’s what happens now. Without her, I don’t either.
99 Days Dead
Becca hasn’t made a single attempt to see me. I haven’t even caught a glimpse of her watching her parents in the kitchen. There haven’t even been any longing looks out the window.
I’m trying my best to respect the boundary she’s set. It’s not easy when every bit of my soul urges me to go to her. But I’m hoping that showing some restraint and giving her time to be upset in private, will increase the likelihood that she’ll come back to me. When I go to sit on the roof, I don’t take the long way around to pass by her window like I used to. I don’t use the yard, no provocative displays this time around. I don’t plug in the old, corded phone and harass her with landline calls—not that she’d be able to answer now that she’s dead too. She doesn’t even have a cell phone.
My old stalking ways aren’t even a coping mechanism I can rely on these days. There are no new social media posts for me to continue going back to without ever liking.
For the first time, her presence is truly gone from my life.
It leaves me wondering, who am I without her? Is that something I will have to figure out? Becca was always going to be mine. And now I may have lost her for good.
That thought could send me over the edge, could shatter any semblance of mental stability that I’ve managed to cling to for this long. I can’t let that happen. What if she comes back? What if she decides I’m worth the trouble?
That will never happen. The defeated voice that’s recently taken up lease in my mind chimes in.
What I need is a distraction from this soul-sucking void that’s had me in a chokehold for the last few days.
But what do you do with yourself when your heart is broken and you’ve been left to suffer alone? It’s too bad they don’t have one of those Handbooks for the Recently Deceased like they did in Beetlejuice .
Unfortunately, all I have is a bunch of useless junk at my disposal—toys, games, crafts—that I’ve looked through a dozen times. But I guess like they say, beggars can’t be choosers, so I do the best I can with what I’ve got.
What I come up with is as pathetic as I expected, possibly more so. I pick up my old friend, the Magic 8 Ball. If I’d ever thought I was a loser before I met Becca, she’s made me into something so much more pathetic than I ever could have imagined.
“Is Becca going to forgive me soon?” I give the ball a shake and force myself to turn it over. Outlook not so good.
“Oh, come on.” I lay back on the floor and hold it firmly between both hands, then give it a harsh shake. “Will Becca ever forgive me?”
Ask again later. Cryptic. Lovely.
“What do you even know? You’re just a mass-manufactured piece of plastic. I roll it away from me and send it a glare when it hits the mirrored closet with a resounding thwack. I guess I should be glad it didn’t crack it. The last thing I need is a bout of bad luck.
Am I really going to let a Magic 8 Ball keep me from trying to fix things with her? No. No, I’m not. But I need to figure out a way to get her to give me a chance.