Scars (Marked #2.5) (5 page)

8

Walls closing in.

My apartment felt more at that moment like a miniscule jail cell than the standard habitat for the young and single of South Florida. Tiny. The entire space seemed as if it were closing in on me. Suffocating me.

Nothing I did helped me cope. I couldn’t breathe.

Showers didn’t relax me; they had quite the opposite effect. As I stood underneath the warm water, my mind wandered over every fucking minute that I’d been cursed living through. Realities became mixed. The need for someone, anyone, to help me became too much, and I surrendered into hopelessness.

Smoking marijuana didn’t quell the anxiety that grew the longer I was apart from Talan. It intensified all the emotions—my body couldn’t process the difference between the calm it was supposed to give and my overactive nervous system. Breathing harshly and concentrating on the ultimate goal didn’t work either.

Panic consumed me as I wondered if this was really my fate. To be alone. To die alone.

“Fuck,” I muttered low, closing my eyes as the first rays of morning light hit me. The sun was bursting through the sheer curtains inside my room, forcing me to face another day. It should’ve felt like a warm caress across my cheek, like a lover’s touch, and yet this morning it was the complete opposite. Its coldness consumed me. “Why wasn’t I enough for any of them?”

Those words hurt more than any physical pain I’d ever experienced. He loved me—I knew that deep down. There was no way that I could’ve conjured every look and touch we shared.

Or did I?

Then, I wondered what made her better than me. Was her pussy tighter? Ass rounder? Were her lips softer than mine were as she worshipped his cock?

If that was what Talan needed from me, I’d learn to be more like her. I’d become her.

“I love you.” Rubbing my temples, I looked over at my alarm clock and groaned. It was almost seven am, and I didn’t want to get up. Today was Talan’s day to start inventory counts, and I’d planned to catch him alone. Talk him into leaving her and making me complete again.

It’d been a week since Brian and I witnessed their betrayal, but I was willing to let it all go if he returned to me. It was his love for her life. There was no going back at this point. Those seven days of agony and sadness he had to make up for.

Reaching over, I felt the edge of my nightstand for my medication. I’d placed the bottle of my antidepressants there a few days ago, yet now they evaded me.

Where the fuck were they?
Turning over onto my stomach, I flipped on the lamp atop the dresser and found my temporary salvation. The lid held dust. Strange.

The illuminating glow of the light caused my stomach to drop. I grabbed the small orange bottle and…nothing. No rattle of pills inside could be heard. That couldn’t be right. I just filled these.

Turning over, I threw my legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. Again, the bottle made no noise. Not a motherfucking peep.

Next refill due on December 3
rd
.
That was two months ago. Where had those last sixty days gone? This made no sense. I needed these to function. To fit into a society that demanded their version of normalcy to be upheld.

My head hurt. The pounding intensified the harder I tried to make sense of what I was reading on the bottle.  Reality set in, and my vision blurred with unshed tears. His rejection swirled in my head. Every second of agonizing pain radiated through me, and my body bowled in on itself from the onslaught of pain.

Muscles trembling, I fell back and got into a fetal position. Depression set in, and I was unable to stop it all. The physical manifestation made me weak. All I could do was swim in the sea of hopelessness that consumed me.

The air inside the room seemed nonexistent. It became harder to breathe, and my throat began to tighten. Blackness played at the edge of my vision, taking me slowly…one choking gasp at a time.

In that moment, I did something I’d never done before—I prayed for my sanity.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

A sudden pounding at my door roused me from sleep. The noise was loud inside my empty apartment, like a gunshot sounding off in the middle of the night. Loud and dangerous.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

“I’m going, dammit!” The bottle in my hands fell, slipped right through my fingers as a harsh pounding sensation settled on my temples. “Oh, fuck,” I moaned out. Pain radiated throughout me from the side of my skull and intensified near my forehead.

It was too much—every breath and blink of my eyes hurt. At that very moment, all I wanted to do was lie back down in my comfortable and warm bed and hide from everyone and everything that hurt me. The world would continue on just fine without me.

My sudden unwanted visitor had other ideas, though. The pounding intensified the longer it took for me to let them in. I could feel the walls vibrate with the force of their persistent knocking. Groaning, I stood and stumbled as I tried to find my footing. Something was seriously wrong with me. Never had I felt so out of control.

The soft padding of my feet against the floor sounded like a wild horse’s trot. Loud. Purposeful. Everything around me spun, and I had to take a hold of the door’s frame to stay upright.

“Open the fucking door, Janice. Open or so help me, God…” Jaime’s voice carried harshly through the wooden entryway. His hand hitting the doorway persisted, and my vision blurred. This wasn’t going to be good.

Taking in a deep breath, I shook my hands out. Tried and failed to regulate my erratic breathing. This, whatever it was, was something I needed to control, or they would commit me.

Shaking fingers gripped the doorknob and held it tight. With my unoccupied hand, I turned the deadbolt and then helped the other hand in turning the knob. I had no strength.

The door opened, and there he stood. Jaime’s frantic eyes met mine; they wandered my body from head to toe and took inventory of how horrible I looked.

“Thank God,” he muttered under his breath before pulling my shivering body into an almost too-tight hug. “Why the fuck haven’t you been answering your phone? I’ve been worried sick!”

“I’m sorry,” they were the only words I could muster up at that moment. His actions were scaring me. Why was he acting so scared?

“Babe, I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for days. You disappeared on me, and I…” he trailed off. I knew where his mind was heading. It was a dangerous place for the two of us. This wouldn’t be the first time I’d freaked him out with a sudden disappearance.

Guess it came with the territory of befriending a psychotic mess. I knew what I was and didn’t deny it to myself. After all, he was the one that found me unconscious and barely breathing on my bedroom floor once.

The doctor I was seeing at that time had been nothing more than a glorified pill pusher. If it was new and on the market, it was his latest cure-all. A so-called drug he’d prescribed had caused me to have suicidal thoughts amongst a plethora of other side effects. It almost cost me my miserable life.

“Fuck, Jan, you’re shaking.” And I was, uncontrollable shakes that rattled my teeth. Funny, the room was at a pleasant seventy-five degrees, not cold in the slightest. Jaime lifted me then into his strong arms and carried me through my small apartment and into the all-white bathroom.

With a trembling hand, I turned his concerned face toward mine. “I’m okay—”

“Shut the fuck up,” he all but snarled, not letting me downplay what was happening. Inside my bathroom, he walked over to the closed toilet lid and sat me down. The separation was brutal on me as I needed the comfort he provided. For some ironic reason, this man cared for me. Too bad he wasn’t the man I loved. “Have you been taking your pills?”

“Don’t remember.” It was the truth. I didn’t. Days and weeks had blurred, the last two months had become nothing more than a hazy thought. Feeling lost and vulnerable, I lowered my eyes and stared at the shoelaces of his boots. When the tears began I had no clue, but I couldn’t seem to stop the emotional downpour I was trapped inside of.

My mother would love this. I’d lost it, just as she’d predicted I would so many times before.

“Look at me.” Jaime reached out and lifted my face toward his. “We’ll fix this…okay? I’m here and not going anywhere.” Nodding, I let him lift me into a standing position and walk me into the shower.

Immediately, my body relaxed under the hot spray of water. Muscles loosened, and the pounding at my temples resided just a bit. Enough so that I could turn my focus on the man standing beside me, taking care of me as if I were a fragile doll. His touch and concern were the sole reason I felt my anxiety lessen.

“Thank you.” Exhaustion hit me then as he, with a careful hand, washed my hair. I slumped against him. “I’m sleepy, Jaime.”

He laid a gentle kiss on my neck. “Relax, I got you.”

Those were the last words I heard before my hold on reality exited the room and I let the darkness take me under again.

When I awoke next, it was nighttime out. The city lights glowed in the background, illuminating my room and casting a soft glow over my sleeping companion.

A small smile overtook my face as I listened to his low snore. He’d stayed. Like always, Jaime was my saving grace.

“Quit watching me sleep, creeper.” His succulent lips quirked up at the corners, and it was a cute trait. His eyes opened next, and he just watched my face for a few minutes in silence, reassuring himself that I was okay. “You look well rested.”

“I feel it.” A small twinge of discomfort loomed around the edges of my consciousness, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. I’d been through worse. The feeling was a distant memory of what had transpired just a few short hours ago.

In that moment, I felt better, and it was all thanks to the man now smiling up at me. It could also have to do with the fact that I was lying down, resting, and not running around as I tended to do when so much was at stake.

“Welcome back, babe.”

Leaning forward, I placed a tiny and innocent kiss across his soft lips.  “Thank you.”

No other words were spoken after that. We just lay there, me with my head on his chest, both lost in our heads and basking in the quiet comfort we each provided. Words weren’t needed.

Jaime understood me better than I did myself most days; he’d brought me back from the dark edges so many times in the past. Too many to count, but I remembered each one.