Just Another Romance (REVAMPED)

1 | It Starts...

...with a leap.

But not the kind where you just hop into a nice, cool pool with friends or family on a hot summer day. Not a leap of faith, jumping across from one side of a gap to the other. Not a dare from a childhood friend to try and see who can go the farthest.

No.

It's the kind that ends it all. Just one jump, and an ending to the ongoing suffering of one's pitiful life.

If everything goes right, that will be my fate tonight.

☂️

It's taken me the whole evening to figure out what I want to write. There's a letter sitting on the kitchen counter, sealed in a small off-white envelope. There's no particular recipient in mind — I don't think that it even matters that much, though I think it feels right to put my thoughts down on paper for once in my life. But even though the written trails of memories and thoughts from my mind lay exposed and within reach, it feels... awkward knowing that someone will eventually read through it.

I fight the urge to grab the envelope and tear it into a hundred little pieces, and turn my back to walk out of the room.

After writing the letter, there isn't much that I planned in advance. The dingy hallway before the front door is small and constricting, and there's the uncomfortable taste of dank, stagnant air flowing into my lungs as I breathe slowly in and out. Bits of rubbish clutter the space at my feet, and it takes a painstakingly slow minute to make it to the door. Each step feels like an eternity, each breath more tightening on the throat than the last.

I don't bother grabbing a coat off the hanger, and open the door into the apartment complex hallway. The door closes and locks with a quick tug on the handle, and the jarring sound echoes down the hallway and out into the world through the open windows on the other side of the wall. Moonlight casts down and illuminates the way ahead of me, and before I continue walking, I take one last look at the door. There's too many memories of this place... the hope of escaping and starting new, only to have the slowly encroaching nightmares return...

I shake my head, as if to clear away the bad thoughts — it's useless. By now, there's no way to be rid of those memories...

As I walk again, the familiar sound of keys jangling in my pocket rings. Something like that should feel comforting, as if it's a reminder of a home, but all I can think about is getting away from that comfort. It takes a minute for me to pass by the office to the apartment complex, and I grab the key and jam it into the letterbox opening by the office door. With a sigh of relief, I no longer feel confined to that place.

The front door leads to open air again, and the moon is burning its light into the corners of the night. It irritatingly blinds my eyes, and although it's almost midnight, I can't help but feel as if there's a spotlight focused on me. It's only a few steps forward when chilling winds whip onto me, and I'm reminded of my poor decision not to grab a coat before leaving.

"It's fine," I tell myself quietly through chattering teeth. It's not like there's a point in the comfort of warmth, not now.

I continue to walk, following the path I had planned for this evening. Away from the apartments, down the sidewalk along a quiet road, passing underneath the blinking streetlights and isolated from the rest of the world as only my thoughts could entertain me now.

The memories of my life... how could I begin to describe them? A maelstrom of pain, a whirlwind of mistakes and bad decisions. All of the choices that I made, and all the ones that others made for me... My head constantly throbs from the effort of sifting through everything that has led to this point, the people who made my life a hell...