A Tragedy Of Errors

I remember that night all too clearly. The taste of sick in my mouth, the burning in my throat, the aching in my stomach, my knees giving way, collapsing to the floor. The screaming, the screaming. Please, please!

I remember the words ringing through my head, “It’s done we can go.”
Staring at the spot, the rectangular mark in the ground, my unforgiving footsteps as I walked away, all the while wanting to go back, just fucking go back, and fucking save his life.

But no, no I was too scared, too afraid; I didn’t want to hurt anymore.

Do you want to know what the worst of it was? I couldn’t tell anyone. I wanted to fucking scream, shout, I wanted to let it all out but I couldn’t because there were consequences and I didn’t want to face them because it all came down to the fact I was just scared.

I tried to place myself in his position, tried to make myself go through half of what he may have been as I drove away with his best friend in the seat next to me, covered head to toe in mud, dirt under his fingernails and face covered in scratches and bruises from resistance.

Please, please!

The sobbing, the screaming, the pleas… The scratching against the wood, the pounding of fists, it kept me awake at night.

“Who’s going to know?” The words whispered as I sat rigid, fingernails digging into the sides of the seats in the car, looking straight out into the distance where the headlights highlighted the edges of trees, surrounded by mist.

“Say something.”

Paranoia. Bodies, people, running between the trees. There was nothing there it was my imagination playing tricks on me, black silhouettes appearing from nowhere. They weren’t real, not fucking real; none of this was fucking real.

“SAY SOMETHING!” the other kind of screaming, the anger, frustration. My silence, refusal to say anything.

I knew what we’d just done. He knew. He knew as well but he couldn’t tell anyone. I had his phone, his only way out. If he could… what would he do? What if he found a way out? If he could get out what the hell would happen to me?

Would he do the same to me? Would I get a taste of my own medicine? Suffocating, boiling under heat and pressure, sweating, choking, crying…

Desperate to get out, to taste the air, to run, just fucking run and don’t look back, just run, get away, never been so glad to be alive and able to move. To throw my arms out and feel nothing beside me, no walls, no restrictions just air.

Pitch black no longer consuming my eye sight, only the night time sky and the stars and the trees, the dead leaves on the ground and the twigs, snapping beneath my feet.

If only.

Do you know how it started? With a look. A look, a fucking passing look, then a wink, then subtly brushing up against each other, then grabbing hands, and pulling up to the bedroom, taking off each other’s clothes, material falling to the floor, bodies pressed up against each other, raw passion, a cry of the other’s name.

And then six months passed, and he discovered us. I could have sworn I heard his heart break, shattered into a million tiny, unsalvageable pieces. But we needed him gone. We wanted to get on with our own lives, I was torn between the two, I loved them both desperately but in the end it was him that won my heart, and it was him who promised me everything I ever wanted. I could have it, anything, all he wanted in return was for me to love him, and I did.

And this seemed the most logical way.