Numb Pain

Chapter 15

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Lyrics used:

I'm Yours - The Script [their 'song'; featured right]

Beating Heart - Ellie Goulding

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JAI'S POV:

(a few hours earlier)

Ethan had persuaded me to leave, rescuing me from the peril of leaping to my imminent death. I had a strict destination after that, despite the toxic alcohol coursing through my body. I had made my way to the hospital in search of my beautiful Ellie. Watching her through the door's glass, guilt had swept through me. I went to her, to comfort her, to tell her that I still loved her. For the last time. She didn't want to see me, fighting my touch and shrinking from my shadow. Before I knew it, she was screaming and security guards grabbed me, wrestling me from her room. They'd told me I had to leave. Ethan had somehow followed me up to the hospital, and he was ready to walk in. I'd grasped his arm, pulling him back. "Treat her well" I'd choked, before staggering home to the horror house.

And now here I am. Standing vacantly by the window as I compute what I have just experienced. Pain. Deceit. Torture. It rips through me like knives. A lump forms in my throat as I reach for the pictures and scan them with my eyes. I grace my thumb gently over the people behind the glass. She is holding my face, and a man is kissing her. I am a stranger to this man, this man that vowed to love her when she was barely seventeen. When she used to say my name like it was sugar and not poison. The man that would always take care of her and protect her. I place the photograph to my heart as I begin to cry once again. My eyes are raw from the tears that brim over my red eyelids and it hurts to cry. This is my penance. My penance to her. The thoughts of abandonment haunt me, toy with me, destroy anything I could ever be happy about. I listen to our song as it softly plays on the radio, slow and steady. Trying to break the hearts of impossible princesses. Trying to break my heart when it's already broken.

I may not have the softest touch...

I grab the rope from the counter.

I may not say the words as such...

I tie a tight knot in the end, looping it through to make a noose. My hands shake violently.

I may not look like much...

I grasp the teddybear, breathing in her wafts of perfume and her scent.

But I'm yours...

I look in regret to the photos as I grab a chair from the kitchen, lugging it through to the bedroom upstairs.

You healed these scars over time...

I look down at the teddybear, still clutching it, my knuckles white. I touch the photo and kiss her face gently. I scrawl on a piece of paper that is addressed to Ellie, my teardrops meeting with the parchment and staining the ink of the writing.

'Ellie, Please do whatever it takes to be happy. Remember me when you're looking for yourself out there. I love you, you're my everything. I will watch over you when I reach the clouds. I'll protect you in the right way this time.

I'll miss you.

Love, Jai xx'

I write the last line larger than the rest of the message, my tears causing the ink to run from the word 'you'. I don't know what else to do as I glance up at the noose which hangs from the ceiling, tied securely to the light. I am the wolf. I have killed hearts in my quest, lusting for love. But one belonged to the person I gave my everything to. And now she's not mine to love anymore. All I ever wanted out of life was somebody to break the stone around my heart and make it beat again. I look at the scars on my own arms, neat lines that remind me that I'm still alive, of my past, my childhood. They are faded, as time has healed them. Yet they still burn as I pick up my phone, dial her number and speak into the voicemail. My body shakes uncontrollably as I bite my lip in anticipation.

Embraced my soul, you loved my mind...

"I'm so sorry Ellie..." I whimper into the microphone. The song plays in ripples in the background as I carry the bear, climbing the chair and position myself with the noose. I remove my shirt, brandishing the tattoo I got all of those years ago. Her name inscribed over my heart in fancy calligraphy. I touch it softly, a weak smile pressing onto my lips before I frown once more, resting my hand on my muscled stomach. "I love you, my beautiful baby girl. I'm sorry it had to end this way." I breathe into the glass screen, my voice cracked with tears and sorrow. My hand squeezes the fur of the toy. I drop the phone. I would no longer be a permanent scar to her, and I would finally figure out that heaven's overrated as I have a one-way ticket to hell. Sometimes tears say all there is to say. Hear my beating heart one last time.

You're the only angel in my life...

Because if you go, I go.

Say I'm still the soldier in your eyes...

I jump.

One last time.