I needed a break.
I needed to step back and look at the whole picture, not just what was in front of me from day to day. My mixed emotions caused chaos all around my mind. Wreaking havoc all around my life and what it had become.
I felt like I was a hamster on a spinning wheel, running in circles with no end in sight. Our relationship had always been intense and still was to that day. From the second we laid eyes on each other in Miami, the whole world disappeared and we started to live in our own little bubble. Our own little creation where nothing else existed or mattered, only each other. I went from being alone, from having no one, hating my life and where it was going till, him.
Till Austin.
He became my everything. My best friend. My only friend. My lover. My partner. My confidant. I was happy, for the first time in my life, I was really truly happy to have found someone that was just as alone as I was. Someone who needed me as much as I needed them.
Love was blinding and at times cruel. You only saw what you wanted to see, what you so desperately desired. Only picturing the good, never the bad.
I didn’t realize that Austin had demons that lurked within him, or maybe I did and ignored the signs. Maybe it had always been just waiting around the corner.
For the taking.
His bright blue eyes that I loved for so many years were dull and void now. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw them shining bright, full of life. They had been replaced with a dilated gaze. The darkness out-weighed the light and the life that I once cherished.
I could still see his love for me. Even behind the lies I told myself everyday.
He knew me inside and out. I used to love that he was the only person that had ever touched my heart, my soul. It built the bond we shared. Now it just felt like a double-edged sword, placed directly in my heart. There were days I saw him. My Austin peeking back at me through the drug-induced haze, the haze that seemed to always surround him.
I didn’t want to believe what was so blatantly in front of my face. It was easier to live in denial instead of admitting the truth that I knew in my heart.
I walked around New York aimlessly the entire day, lost in my thoughts. The city was alive all around me, yet I still felt like I was walking the streets in slow motion. Strangers were passing me by in a blur. I lied and told Austin I was going to the spa. That I needed a girl day and I was finally using the gift certificate he had given me to spoil myself for the day.
Truth was, I wanted out of my fucking apartment. I needed out. The walls were caving in on me the more I was around the truth. It was easier to live in the lies than the reality. There were always people around, hanging out, drinking, doing drugs. We were rarely alone anymore. Drugs were everywhere all the time. Spread around the apartment, on the kitchen island, on the coffee table, on the dining room table. With the open floor plan, I had nowhere I could escape it.
My safe haven had become my Hell.
Austin and I fought about it often and his answer was always the same. He would say he understood. That it wouldn’t happen again. That he loved me. That I was his girl. That he was sorry.
He was always, always fucking sorry…
When I made it back to the apartment it was already nighttime. I heard the loud music blaring the second I opened my car door in the parking garage. It vibrated against the walls of my small building. I was instantly thankful I only had three other people that lived on my floor and most of the time they weren’t even home. I knew security wouldn’t do a damn thing about the noise. My uncle had everyone on his fucking payroll. Even the cops would look the other way.
I pushed open the door on my floor. My heart mimicked the beat of the music. I deliberately walked slower down the hallway, not wanting to witness the shit show I knew I was about to walk into. Taking a deep, calm, soothing breath, I grabbed the knob and pushed the door open to the place I used to call my home.
“What the fuck?” I said to myself, taking in the crowd of people.
The billowing smoke from weed and cigarettes and God knows what the hell else hung heavy in the air. I couldn’t see over the strangers who were making themselves at home in my personal space.
“Where the fuck is Austin?” I whispered again to myself, getting more and more frustrated as the seconds passed.
I pushed through the people, not caring who I knocked the fuck over, looking for Austin among the madness. I rose up on my tippy toes searching the unfamiliar faces, when my eyes focused on what I thought was a little person’s hand.
My worst fucking nightmare played out right in front of me. A kid exposed to this life.
My dining room table was covered in drugs. So much so, I couldn’t see the glass anymore.
“Oh my God!” I shouted.