Love and the Sea and Everything in Between

chapter twenty-seven

I sit cross-legged on the roof of the dorm building, staring into the distance at the setting sun, my eyes half open, half closed.

A cigarette dangles from my fingertips and I lift it to my lips periodically to breathe in the sting of death's comfort. In my other hand is a half-empty bottle of Corona. I take a sip and ignore the bitter mixture of smoke and beer as it slides down my throat. It's a strange flavor that, for all intents and purposes, isn't all that savory.

But people don't smoke and drink for the taste. They do it for the after-effects, the numbness or the euphoria.

It's a painkiller. The best kind, in fact, because it doesn't just numb the pain. It kills you slowly until one day you're dead and the pain is gone – permanently.

I look down at my journal, open in front of me, its pages flapping in the evening breeze. My soul is wrapped in every black, tear-dropped word, in every torn, blood-stained page. Tears and blood and ink and paper, these are the things I know. These are the things I hold onto. These are the things I cherish.

These are the things that define me, now.

I open to the very last blank page and pull out the half-torn, folded piece of paper. It feels strange in my hands as I turn it over, inspecting the outside of it before I begin to unfold it. I take another drag of my cigarette and grind my teeth together as I observe each word, my fingers caressing the page as if it were some beautiful thing.

In fact, it is the exact opposite. I'm gentle because I know the danger in each word. I know the treachery in each carefully thought out phrase. I hold it carefully as if it were a grenade and just one wrong move, one wrong touch, could set it off and I would be scattered into oblivion.

I read it and re-read it, over and over until the twilight has gone and it's just me and the dark of night and the pages of my life and the empty bottle of beer and the burnt out cigarette.

This is all that's left of me. This is what I've become.

I am fallen. I am forsaken. I am forgotten. I write this in one of the blank pages, scribble the words in big print and underlining them repeatedly.

My hands are smeared with black ink and cigarette ash as I grip my pen in one hand and the folded page in the other. I hold onto them as if they are my lifeline.

I suddenly feel out of place, like a fish out of water, here on the school grounds. It feels wrong, somehow.

I climb down the ladder, my journal clutched to my chest, and I find Gus among the dozens of other cars. I get inside and turn the key. As soon as his engine roars to life, I shift into reverse and pull out of the parking space.

Driving through the parking lot, I pass the common area, I see her standing there. She's overshadowed by the trees, but I see her. I see her golden hair and her blue eyes blinking in the darkness.

I almost stop, but I don't.

I keep going until I leave the parking lot behind. And I keep going until I leave the school and Jeremiah and Oliver behind. And I keep going until I leave Liz behind.

I don't belong here.

Not anymore.

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