I knew what he said was out of anger. That he didn’t mean it. I could see that he regretted saying those hateful things to me immediately. I knew he was hurting. I knew he was sick and maybe I was sick too.
I had become as co-dependent on him as he did with his drugs.
At the end of the day, I didn’t know if that was right or if it was wrong, all I knew was that I fucking loved him.
I was honestly just so fucking devastated that he let that little girl come into the party. It burned into all my insecurities of what I didn’t want to be true. As all the lies I told myself for years came tumbling down on me. Suffocating me in ways I never thought possible.
When one a.m. turned into three a.m. and three a.m. turned to four a.m. and four a.m. turned into the next afternoon, and the next evening, and then the next day…
No Austin.
He had never, not come back to me. It didn’t matter how late it was, how fucked up he was. I always went to sleep with him in our apartment. For five days, five fucking days I didn’t see him. I didn’t hear from him.
I didn’t know if he was dead or alive.
I wanted to call my uncle to ask him if maybe he sent him somewhere or Austin requested to be sent somewhere. But I didn’t. The last thing I needed was to bring my uncle into this fucking havoc. I called local hospitals instead. I drove and walked around places I thought he could be. I left voicemail after voicemail on his phone. I was so desperate to find him I even called Jon and Mitch’s phones as well.
I didn’t sleep fearing I’d miss his call. I sat up waiting for the call or the knock on the door that thankfully never came.
After five days. I finally heard the lock on the door turn at almost eleven at night. I wanted to run to him, to hold him, to have him hold me. To have him kiss me, call me his girl, and tell me that he loved me. I was just so fucking thankful he was alive and had come home to me.
I didn’t.
I stayed seated on the couch, watching the doorknob turn and him walk in. Almost expecting what I was about to see but even that didn’t prepare me. He looked like he hadn’t slept or showered since he’d left. His eyes were bloodshot, and his pupils were non-existent in a way I’d never seen before. Dull blue eyes stared back at me with no familiarity behind them.
No Austin.
He walked toward me, wearing the same clothes he had left in. The sleeves now rolled down his arms but not buttoned.
My heart dropped.
It was loud.
It was clear.
It was everything that was left of me.
Of us.
Tears instantly pooled in my eyes. I couldn’t believe I still had some left after all the crying I had done since he left me. Begging him not to go. Not to do what I knew he was going to.
He stood right in front of me, peering down with dead, glassy, soulless eyes. The haze clouding all around us, he was still clearly high as fuck.
My eyes fell on the blood seeping through the forearm of his dress shirt.
“What did you do, Austin? What did you fucking do?” I whispered so low, scared that if I said it any louder then it would be true.
His head leaned back a little, barely able to hold himself up.
“Let me see your arms. Roll up your sleeves.”
He followed my gaze down to the blood, blinking a few times before he realized what I meant. I already knew what was lying beneath the stained fabric, but I needed to see it with my own eyes, if I saw it I couldn’t make excuses anymore.
He cocked his head to the side, slowly starting to unbutton his shirt. He let it slide down his shoulders, to his hands and threw it on my lap. I held his blood-stained shirt in my hands and saw the dried red marks on his veins.
Tears slid down my face, one right after the other.
“Why? Why would you do this?” I cried, not understanding.
He narrowed his eyes at me and spoke with more conviction than I had ever heard before, slaying the last bit of will I had left.
“You decided to kill a part of me, baby, without even telling me… so I’m just finishing what you started.”
Chapter 29
<>Austin<>
My body felt like it weighed two hundred pounds, sinking into the mattress. My head was fucking throbbing. All I could hear was a wah wah sound echoing all around me.
“Daddy! Daddy! Wake up! Please wake up!”
I felt little hands poking me, opening my eyes to a beautiful baby girl with a halo of light shining behind her long brown hair. Bright blue eyes that mirrored Briggs’.
“Austin! Austin! Wake up! Please wake up!”
“Daddy, you need to wake up. Mommy needs you now. Come on, sleepy head, get out of bed. Go back to Mommy. She needs you more than I do. I’m fine. We will meet one day. I promise.”
I tried to talk to her, to reach for her, but every time I did my baby girl would move further and further back into the light. Away from me. Always leaving me without my consent, without my approval.
This was the closest I had ever been to her. Usually I just saw her bright blue eyes staring back at me. Sometimes she would be twirling around, playing, laughing, and smiling.