Strip Away Your Soul

Put the past away.

I stood near the edge of the cliff, eyeing the ocean below with vacant admiration, as the toes of my shoes flirted indifferently with death. Nothing but the worn heals were keeping me perched atop the cliff, and I was uninterested in correcting my stance or rescuing myself from obvious peril. I had no intentions of escaping this situation alive. It was simply a matter of getting myself mentally prepared for the fall, the fear, the end. Physically, I was beating the shit out of my emotional wreckage for taking so unnecessarily long to figure out how, when, and where I was going to end my life. Though drowning didn’t appear as a particularly savory way to go, I was willing to take the risk of doing so if the force of the water didn’t kill me first. With any luck at all, the force of the fall would at least knock me out long enough to unconsciously drown. I wouldn’t mind being found floating lifeless in the ocean…in fact, it sounded peaceful to me. Almost.

There was always the slight chance that some strange, water dwelling creature would chew my eyes out before the rescue squad had the opportunity to come across my horrifying corpse.

I tried to put the thought in an abandoned closet of my mind, knowing if I dwelled for too long upon the potential scenario I would feel too guilty to take the plunge. No way in hell did I want Billie Joe to have to identify my body with a bloody mass of gore masquerading as my eyeballs.

Shit. Billie Joe.

For as long as I’d been standing there, the only feelings towards my lover I could muster were resentment and loathing. Bluntly put, the man was a lying, cheating whore. Of course, I would have been ripped to shreds if Billie had been sleeping with random strangers, but something about how he’d been screwing our mutual best friend screamed betrayal much louder than the former. Soon after learning of my lover’s tendency to shy away from monogamy, I found it unbearable to be near either of them. A man who I once would have taken a beating and a bullet for was now a threat, and a man I thought I’d spend the rest of my life waking up next to was now depraved…dirty. The pair of them made me sick.

An unexpected snort of disgust escaped my throat, the shock of the sudden noise violently threatening me to lose contact with the rocks beneath my feet and dive prematurely into the blue depths below. In fact, I probably would have fallen if a pair of small, yet surprisingly powerful hands hadn’t thrown me backwards…away from the edge. I whirled around, lighting a fire within my sapphire eyes to let the self-important Good Samaritan who saved me know how very fucking much I appreciated his services. The fire turned to stone the minute I recognized my savior.

Billie fucking Joe.

I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend.

“Get lost, sugar, I’m busy,” I hissed, wishing the venom dripping from my words was potent enough to kill him right then and there.

“Doing what, exactly? Killing youself? Isn’t that a bit melodramatic?” Billie asked softly, making an effort to draw himself closer to me. I withdrew, once again bringing myself to tiptoe along the edge of the cliff. I felt as Billie stiffened behind me, torn between pulling me back again and standing right up there with me. He chose the latter, much to my disdain.

“Melodramatic, you say? Oh, irony is not my friend today. If anyone here’s the drama queen, it’s you. Jumping into Tre’s pants the fucking second you feel ignored? Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic, Billie Joe.”

“I know, I know…I’m a whore. Go ahead and say it, Mikey,” he agreed in a sad little attempt at attacking my depression with his self condemnation.

“You’re a whore,” I repeated, no longer worried about hurting his feelings. He wasn’t my problem anymore, after all. He belonged to Tre.

“That’s right, Mike, I’m the one who deserves to be dead, not you. Just…please come back with me? I love you so much,” Billie whimpered, grasping my hand in his. I yanked my hand away in seconds and took three wide, careful steps to the right. His touch was like poison to my skin.

“You have a funny way of showing it,” I shot back, stealing a curious glance in his direction to see how effective my evasive tactics were. His face was bleakly crestfallen. It probably would have deeply saddened me under different circumstances, but in my suicidal rage, his despair gave me an alarming sense of gratification.

“Mike,” he whispered thickly. “I promise it’s over with Tre. I told him it would never happen again because I love you, and I hurt you by being with him. I swear to you on my father’s grave that I don’t love him. It was just…sex. Don’t kill yourself because of what I did. It’s not worth it.”

Cut ties with all the lies that you’ve been living in.

For a fleeting moment, my heart melted. Almost. The sheer mention of swearing on his father’s grave was enough of an indication that Billie wasn’t fucking around…but he didn’t get it. He couldn’t possibly grasp the hopelessness I felt, the numbness. As much as Billie’s affair truly had pushed me to this ledge, it was arrogant of him to believe that it was my only reason.

“Don’t flatter yourself, princess. You’re not why I’m up here,” I sighed, peering out into the endless blue of the bay. I wanted to be engulfed by those waves so badly I could hardly stand it.

“I know you’re trying to be all defensive, but I’m not fucking buying it, Dirnt. Would you have done this three weeks ago?”

“I…uh…”

“Would you?”

“No.”

I cried out despite my every effort to appear calm and collected. Why did Billie have to come up here and ruin this for me? I wanted to die in peace…not like this. All it took was his presence on this ledge to destroy the moment. There was no way I could go through with it with Billie there.

If you do not want to see me again…

“Mike, think of Stella. Think of Brixton. If you leave them now, your baby won’t even be able to remember you. Is that really what you want?” Billie cooed, knowing just the right cards to play. Damn him and his feminine intuition.

“No.”

“Then come down.”

I toed the edge of the cliff, taking one last longing gaze upon the crystalline beauty below us. He was right. He was always right. Almost. Of course I couldn’t leave my children behind in the terrifying wake of my death. My daughter would drown in the uncertainty, the despair, of losing me. I knew that much for a fact, seeing as my little Hero and I had always been very close, and the thought of my son growing up not knowing me was equally startling. Billie picked the exact thing to say that would drag me down from the edge.

I backed away, my entire body shuddering with repulsion at myself for coming so very close to ending my life. It was a cowardly, juvenile thing to do. Billie smirked at me as he watched me remove myself from the grasp of danger. The look of relief painted lazily across his face was entrancing, and I felt the need to embrace the man who had saved my life twice in one night. I took three cautious steps forward, wrapping my arms around the smaller man and burying my nose in his hair. Billie mimicked my actions as his face burrowed into my chest, but his next move was something I never could have foreseen. He pulled us both backward so that we were, once again, flirting with death. I was so overwhelmed I hardly even noticed we’d moved.

“I can’t live without you,” Billie whimpered into my chest, and with a simple arch of his back, the pair of us were sent barreling over the edge of the cliff. I wanted to scream, to cry out in agony, and to pry the quivering man off of me. He refused to let go, even as the wind whipping around us forced me to the bottom, sealing my fate in death.

I was dead upon impact.

***

I get it now. You never went up to the edge of that cliff to save me, Billie. Your original intention had been to jump off yourself, but when you saw me there first, you panicked. I was a close-minded asshole to you about the Tre fiasco, and I’m sorry. Not much good it’ll do me now, though, seeing as my earthbound spirit is doomed to forever haunt the very walls you’re now trapped inside of. I suppose I’m technically trapped as well until I figure out some way to fix everything…it makes me wish you had died along with me in the ocean instead of being saved by my damn body. It would have made the situation easier. Almost.

A ghost can’t save you from a rapist, Billie. I should have known from the beginning. I should have seen Tre for what he truly was…but I didn’t, and we both paid dearly for it.

Let’s just hope he kills you before his lust gradually strips away your soul.

I would understand.