Aside from our first night together after the gala, I’ve managed to avoid being around her at 11:11. But there is no way I could connect with her the way I did tonight and still manage to leave her flat. I ache for her closeness. For her comforting warm breath against my body. A possessiveness seizes over me at leaving her alone in this big bed. She shouldn’t be alone. Ever. She is mine to care for.
But with the time creeping closer and closer, I feel myself growing tenser and tenser. I attempt to slide out from beneath her, but she stirs. I freeze, hoping she’ll fall back asleep, but my prayers aren’t answered.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?” she croaks with a raspy, sleepy voice and looks up at me, rubbing her eyes.
“I just need to pop outside for a second,” I reply honestly. I can’t tell her I’m going to the loo because I’ve got it in my head that what has to be done needs to be done outside.
“Pop out where?”
“Just to your patio. Stay here. I’ll be right back.” I jostle her a bit more roughly than I mean to, but manage to break free. I grab the towel I used earlier and wrap it around my waist, padding quietly out of her room and hoping to fuck she doesn’t follow.
Bruce is up and trotting out to greet me. “Go back to bed. Lie back down,” I command. He doesn’t listen. He follows me to the door that goes out to the deck. “Go on, old boy.” I shoo him back from the door and close it behind me as I step outside into the cool night air.
London city lights twinkle all around and it’s chilly from the rain, but I hardly notice as I’m too focused on the task at hand. I cinch my towel and glance down at my watch just as it ticks over to 11:11 like a gunshot. I grip the edge of the railing and hang my head low while closing my eyes tightly.
Please take away my past. Change my past. Alter my past. Go back and make the accident never happen. Go back and make it so Marisa didn’t die. Go back and make it so I never tried to kill myself. Go back and take me instead of her.
“What are you doing?” Vi’s voice asks from behind me as I stand up straight, finishing what I came out here to do.
I shake my head, avoiding her eyes, but I know it’s useless. “It’s nothing, Vi. Please, let’s go back to bed.”
“It’s not nothing.” She strolls out dressed in a baggy nightshirt. Her blonde hair is loose and wild around her face, but she still has never looked more beautiful. “Tell me.”
I look at her and feel instant fear over everything exploding all around us if I don’t explain this properly. “It’s just a stupid superstition I’ve done for ages.”
“For how long?” Her brow line furrows.
I swallow hard. “About four years.”
Her eyes blink knowingly. “Since Marisa died.”
I shrug sheepishly. “Told you it was stupid.”
“What do you do?”
I sigh heavily. “I’d rather not talk about it, Vi. You’re going to think I’m crazier than I already am.”
“I want to know.” She walks toward me and leans against the railing beside me. Bruce follows at her heels, shooting me a wounded puppy-dog look over blowing him off just a bit ago.
Sighing, I lean on the railing, choosing to watch London’s reaction to my story over Vi’s. “I just have a little ritual I do every time 11:11 hits. It’s developed into a bit of OCD I guess. 11:11 has always been important to me. I’ve always seen it in my life, represented in one way or another…license plates, mileage on an odometer, final amount on grocery receipts. It just always randomly appears to me.” I cut my eyes to hers. “The floors of people’s flats.”
Her blue eyes turn into saucers and her jaw goes slack.
“Before my attempt, Daphney said it was lucky and that I should make a wish whenever I saw it. So I started doing it. It was better than the eerie sensation I got every time it appeared to me. It became more important after Marisa’s death. Some people pray before bed. I do this.”
An unnerving look fleets across Vi’s face, but she shakes whatever thought she was having away. “So what do you wish for?”
“Vi, really—”
“Tell me,” she insists.
I clench my jaw in frustration. Being open with Vi has never felt like an obligation until this very moment, but I don’t have it in me to tell her no. “I first wish the accident never would have happened. I then wish she never would have died. And since rehab, I began wishing I wouldn’t have slit my wrists. And…” I look down, suddenly shrouded in shame.
“And?”
“I wish I would have died instead of Marisa.” My voice is hard and cold. Cutting. It’s best she knows the darkness that still lives in me.
Her face falls. “Is that really an option you wish for?”
I nod.
“Still?” Her blue eyes are swimming with anxiety.
I nod again.
She swallows hard. “I see.” She turns around, mumbles something at Bruce, and walks back into her flat. Her posture hunched.
My heart fills with despair.
“Vi,” I plead, following her inside. When I touch her shoulder, she turns and flashes her wide, challenging eyes at me.
“What?” she snaps, grabbing her hair and balling it around her fist.
“You have to understand that I battle years’ worth of demons. Demons I still fight inside my mind. I can’t just blink all of that away.”