A n o t h e r . N i g h t

Standing in the middle of my apartment, I let my mind drift away.

Her hand was steady, her voice smooth.  There was a chilling calmness in the words that escaped her mouth.  It was not the response that I was expecting to hear.  Her words breached my guarded walls and attacked my heart.  She was going home... hours away from me.  I brought my eyes from her hands and looked into those beautiful eyes of hers.  Her brown hair was just the way it looked every morning when she used to wake up next to me... perfect.  I gently reached up and brushed the bangs away from her cheek.  Placing my hand in hers, I leaned over and let my lips brush against her cheek one last time, allowing a gentle yet forbidden kiss between us.  My words would not escape my mouth and yet there was no need for them to.  My heart screamed it loud enough for hers to hear.  "I love you."

I snapped out of the memory as if I was waking from a dream.  I shook my head in disgust at myself.  It was going to be a long time before these memories stopped playing like movies in my head.  My right hand instinctively moved up and I placed the cigarette in between my lips, taking a long drag before slowing releasing it.  I tasted the poison on my tongue and inhaled.  A lone tear dropped from my right eye. 

"You need to be you.  Go live your life for you now." 

When was it exactly that I stopped living life for me?  The ashes from my cigarette had long given up on staying and had fallen to my feet.  I was still just standing in the middle of the living room, staring at the white walls.  They screamed unmercifully at me.  I wanted to put my fist through them.  The empty white walls reminded me of my chest...  Emptiness.  The music playing from my computer filled my ears with the sound of pain.  The lyrics hurt even more.

It was happening again.  I was losing all control.  On a scale to ten, I had rounded the five and was at a full pace to the six.  I either stop it, or I'm going to a ten again.  I finally moved from the middle of the apartment and grabbed an ashtray, putting out the cigarette.  I reached for the pack and lit up another.  The pain in my chest where my heart used to be was growing to be unbearable.  The lone tear from earlier now had his followers, and they ran from my eyes as the rain falls on a full night of lightning and thunder.

"I guess I was just lost... mislead... confused.  I don't know the right word... just I was under the impression that everything was perfect."
"So you realize now that it was not?"
"No..."  I paused and stared at my hands as they fought themselves in between my legs.  I had no idea.  I was so lost.  All I knew, the only thing I knew, every inch within my body wanted her to come back home.  God, what I would do to just live those two years again.  "No... I do not."

The tears had stopped and I was staring again, watching a movie played from my mind.  Everything, including my life, stopped when it came to watching these memories.  My cigarette had burned nearly halfway down through the memory.  I slowly came back to reality and realized where I was at and turned around to check on the dogs.  They were passed out.  Bella raised her head and looked at me as my chair squeaked from me moving.  I turned back around and stared at the keyboard.  According to the scale, I had long passed a seven and was moving to an eight.  I was in the eye of the storm, the calmness before everything went straight to hell.  What was left of my inner sanity begged for me to take any of the steps before it hit an eight.  After eight... I was headed down the same road that led to disaster. 

This led my mind to a previous memory, one that I could not escape and I had no control over...

"I was sitting at the computer when I felt his arm wrap around me.  I could barely make out his words, but I did hear, "I love you."  This was after he told me to tell everyone that he was sorry.  If I would have known...  I would not have... if I only knew..."
My head fell and I let it out.  The guilt.  Knowing that I had the chance, was more than I would ever be able to bear no matter how strong I thought I was.  The lady sitting across from me made no change in her face and did not stir from her position, but I could still feel her pity.  I did not want  her pity... I did not want anyones pity.

The words from my conscious escaped me before I could even think about it, "Like father like son."  The cold shiver started from my neck and ran throughout my arms.  My eyes heated up yet I let no tears escape.  I pulled my right kneed up into the chair and rested my head on it, staring at the lamp beside me.  My mind drifted to words from my family and friends.  This was not the time and I knew it, and if I didn't escape from this prison apartment now, I wasn't going to make it out alive. 

I turned around and walked across the living room.  I picked up my keys and walked down the stairs.  Every step down to the door reminded me of her in some way or another but I shut the memories down and grabbed the door handle.  She had no idea what she was doing to me but she didn't care.  It was time for me not to care either.  I slammed the door behind me and locked it.  It did not matter where I was going, and it did not matter what I was doing.  It no longer mattered to me if I was in the wrong or not so long as I lived.  Self preservation, even when everything around me felt as though it was dead. 

I climbed in the car and picked out a favorite song.  You were right conscious, like father like son.  I AM going out for a drive to get my mind off the downhill slope it's on, just like my father used to do.  But I'm NOT going out like he did...