Hindsight

Atonement

4:30am

She was jolted awake in the early hours of the morning, drenched in her own cold sweat. Laying there in the dark, catching her breath as she continued to stare at the ceiling above, she can't help but think of the difficulty Jay has to endure on a daily basis.

This, dismal, was what he sees every single second of his life. It was her doing. It was her fault. If only she hadn't pressured him into taking her out that night, then they wouldn't have gone out and be where they are today.

Life must be so sad for him. Life must be so dull, so colourless. Life, living, and waking up every morning must be a challenge. But as she thought about it, as she was left to her thoughts, life isn't much different in comparison. She too is living in a blanket of darkness.

Life, living, and waking up every morning was a challenge for her too. Waking up every morning, more like waking up from a nightmare, was a reminder that she had surpassed another day on this miserable planet. But it isn't all bad, for the most part, she wakes up and is reminded that she's still here for a reason, for a girl that's growing inside. If she wasn't pregnant, she would've taken her life a long time ago, or, most like, end up relapsing.

She almost did anyway.

Living had gotten to the point where everything she did felt like a chore, a duty, a have to. From getting out of bed and eating to even breathing. Sometimes she would be so overwhelmed with life that she literally couldn't breathe. No oxygen was filling into her lungs or sometimes, too much oxygen. Leaving her suffocated.

Immediately, she would find herself crawling into a foetal position, hyperventilating and crying hysterically for no apparent reason or for one obvious reason. Though these episodes usually happens when she's home alone, alone in her head and alone with dangerous thoughts. Away from anyone who could see there's an issue with, that this mask she had been wearing was a fake.

Life; she doesn't have much fight left within her or the will to keep living but she has to. All her efforts of keeping her sanity was for her. She loves her so so so much and when she almost lost her, not so long ago, she was so beyond terrified. If she had died, Erin knows she would've lost it.

Or would it be a relief?

She, without a doubt, would be back on the streets scoring dope and downing liquor to oblivion. She would've gone back to her old ways.

But she doesn't know if she can hold it together once she's here.

Oh how she wished she could have a drink or two or more at this very moment. She wants nothing more than to feel hard liquor sliding down the back of her throat, burning the muscles of her oesophagus and stomach, to inhale the pungent and sweet aroma of fermentation and distillation.

Oh how she wished to savour the sweet oak aftertaste that bourbon holds. Or the junipers from gin. Or the nothingness from vodka that holds a tang of spies.

Vodka. Her favourite. Her mother's choice of poison as well.

But she can't; she's pregnant.

What an eye roller.

She wondered whether the terrible decision she had made that night and all the other nights prior to Jay surprising her with his presence - to drink her body weight when she had initially found out she was pregnant - would harm her. She had wanted to drink herself to a miscarriage.

That was one of the reasons why she didn't want to see an OB, she was scared to hear that because of the drinking in the early stages of pregnancy, she had selfishly caused X, Y, Z upon her daughter.